This week the Denver Broncos face a major junction in their season. Win and they’ll remain in the AFC playoff hunt; lose and the prospects of missing the playoffs will be staring them square in the face. They’ll also be facing a red-hot quarterback controversy.

That may sound like an outrageous statement for a team that’s 6-3, but you’d be fooling yourself if you think otherwise. The AFC West is the best division in football and the Broncos are no longer the cream of the crop amongst their division peers. It’s easy to foresee the Broncos finishing the season with a 3-3 division record, or worse.

The grim outlook facing Denver falls directly at the feet of Trevor Siemian and his bipolar play. If his play doesn’t improve this week, Broncos Country won’t be clamoring for Paxton Lynch; they’ll be marching on Dove Valley with pitchforks and torches. Understandably so, Siemain has been the Broncos most glaring weakness.

Last week Siemian’s final stat line wasn’t terrible. He threw for 283 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. But it wasn’t the way he finished the game that doomed the Broncos; it was the way he started it (that’s the Siemian era in a nutshell).

Before the offense generated their initial first down, the team was already in a 13-0 hole. Siemian was only able to muster up 9 yards of total offense on the team’s first four drives; it was a brutal offensive display and has become a common theme.

The first seven games of season have played out very similarly for the Denver Broncos. The offense struggles early, going three-and-out over and over again, which forces the team to play from behind. This has put a tremendous amount of stress on the defense. Take the Oakland game for example. Von Miller’s crew was on the field for 41 minutes. That’s an insane amount of time to ask any defense to be perfect. That’s a pattern that can’t continue, nor is it the only concerning trend.

Siemian’s completion percentage has steadily decreased as the season has progressed. Starting with Week 1, here are the completion percentages Siemian has posted (discounting the game against Tampa where he left halfway through): 69.2%, 66.7%, 65.7%, 60%, 56%, 52.6% and 48.6%. He’s fallen off a cliff in that department.

This week is Siemian’s last chance to prove he’s starting quarterback material, and he doesn’t have an easy task in doing that. Not because the Saints have a juggernaut defense but because they’ll need the offense to keep Drew Brees off the field.

On paper, Sunday’s matchup presents itself as a classic game of strengths vs. strengths. Brees leads one of the most dangerous offenses in the NFL. They are a unit that’s averaging 434 yards per game and 30 points a game. Denver, on the other hand, boosts one of the best defenses in the league, only allowing 311 yards per game and is holding teams to an average of 18 points a game.

Last season this was the kind of matchup no one worried about, but with Aqib Talib not playing and Derek Wolfe hurt, that’s not the case. Something has to give, and unfortunately for the Broncos, their defense has been run ragged the last few weeks, to no fault of their own; they just haven’t had any help.

Denver isn’t built to win shootouts, nor can a banged-up defense be counted on to win games on a weekly basis. If Brees and Company control the time of possession and turn the game into a shootout, it’s going to have disastrous consequences, for the game and the season. If Denver loses in New Orleans, their season will be on the brink. They’ll be sitting at 6-4 and worried not only about the two teams ahead of them in the division, but the one behind them as well.

This makes Sunday Siemian’s final audition to prove he can cut it under center. Denver’s defense can no longer continue to do all of the heavy lifting; they need help. If Siemian once again delivers another subpar performance, Kubiak will have no choice but to make a change at quarterback. If he doesn’t, not only will the offense continue to stagnate (and gas the defense), but he’ll also risk losing the locker room (there are already whispers floating that the defense is growing frustrated with their lack of support).

With the bye week on the horizon (a perfect two week stretch to get a rookie quarterback up to speed), the pressure on Trevor Siemain has never been greater; it’s his last chance to hold onto his starting job.