Good morning, Broncos Country!
Before getting into all the reasons Denver didn’t end up on the right side of a win on Sunday, let’s give another shout out to JasonAult16, my stand-in UFG, for his prediction that if the Broncos could “play clean, disciplined football,” they would win.
Turns out that is exactly what the Broncos needed to do and exactly what they didn’t do for one quarter of the game.
Sadly, it was the wrong quarter.
A few other UFG gems from JasonAult16 that proved spot-on, if not highly unfortunate:
“But again, if the Broncos defense is as strong as we think, this will be a much tougher challenge for Daniel Jones.”
“Jonathan Taylor can still be very effective, so the Broncos defense must play sound football, cover gaps, and not allow the Colts running game to get going.”
“Just play clean football. Be disciplined. Take care of the football. …It goes without saying, but do not commit stupid penalties. …I like to think that this team has become much more disciplined under the current coaching regime.”
Sooooo…turns out this Broncos’ team is not as disciplined as we would have liked. Between an interception, a stupid celebration penalty, a missed field goal, and a facemask — all way before the leverage penalty — Denver did about everything it could to lose that game.
And Sean Payton knows that is 100% on coaching.
“That’s on me in that situation,” Payton said specifically of the field goal attempt. “It’s not on Darren; it’s not on [OLB Dondrea] Tillman. With a 60-yard field goal attempt, it’s different.”
Explaining that Tillman did in fact push off the opponent to get leverage to jump — the illegal leverage in question — the head coach lamented not telling players just to lay low during a low-percentage kick.
“The call was correct. That was leveraging,” Payton reiterated. “My big regret flying home was that’s more for a closer field goal. That’s more for a gimme than a 60-yard attempt, and that’s on me.”
But not all the mistakes were on Payton.
In the final 12 minutes, the Broncos couldn’t stop making costly mistakes. Bo Nix threw an interception, Wil Lutz missed a chip-shot field goal, and the team committed three problematic penalties, including the infamous leverage flag. And that’s to say nothing of the run defense letting Jonathan Taylor run amok for 165 yards.
“Defensively we were shit; we weren’t doing our jobs all day,” said edge rusher Nik Bonitto, who led the team in QB pressures on Sunday but could never bring the QB down.
Offensive tackle Mike McGlinchey doesn’t blame the loss on Tillman. In fact, he calls that view “bullshit.”
“One play doesn’t define a football game,” he said, adding that all 22 guys on the field probably have a play they want back. “It doesn’t excuse not converting third downs. It doesn’t excuse not putting the ball in the end zone when we can, or getting a stop when we need one. So, to have it boiled down to one play is nonsense to me, and that’s just not how football is played.”
Nix added that if football came down to one play, then they’d just do that one play and go home.
“ I always hate putting the game in the officials’ hands, but they called it at the end. And sometimes it doesn’t go your way.”
— Bo Nix
But, of course, it never comes down to one play.
”It would save a lot of guys a lot of grit and effort and a lot of pain from playing the full game. …But it’s tough,” Nix said. “It’s a whole game that comes down to a few key moments, and unfortunately, we had some negative key moments tonight. But we gave ourselves every chance to win the game, and then at the end we just shot ourselves in the foot.”
There is no time for regrets, though, as the Broncos will face a 2-0 Chargers team next week in L.A. And if Denver wants to compete for the top of the AFC West, they need to stack wins now.
“Good teams bounce back from that. Great teams don’t do that. They don’t beat themselves,” Nix added. “So we’re growing and developing, we’re still holding as a team. We got a long season ahead of us and can’t let this loss turn into two.”
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