The script could not be written more perfectly.
Another fourth quarter lead blown.
Another questionable timeout used.
Another chance to win coming up short.
Another loss.
The good news, at least for the 2021 Broncos, is that the loss secured a higher draft pick. The Broncos will pick 9th in the upcoming draft. That’s the consolation prize. That what it’s come to in Denver, Colorado.
Week 17 in these parts has become a non-event. It’s not a time to secure seeding or rest stars in hopes of fielding the best playoff team possible. It’s just a game. Rival or not, a game against the Raiders in Week 17 is essentially meaningless.
It’s been a strange year in Broncos Country, no doubt. Excuses are plentiful and, really, reasonable. But the fact remains, every team in the NFL has had to deal with a lot adversity in 2020; in that respect, the Broncos are no different. Bad luck tends to find its way to bad teams, though, and there’s really no other way to classify a team that finished 5-11. Maybe the San Francisco 49ers, who were also decimated by injuries and finished at 6-10 are a good team that had a lot of bad luck – one can justifiably say that after narrowly losing in the Super Bowl just a year ago and then suffering. But when a team misses the playoffs for a fifth straight season, and makes the same blunders – in game day decisions, in personnel decisions, in payroll decisions – it makes a lot of its own bad luck.
The Broncos – at current – are a bad team. And they’re trending toward becoming (being?) a bad organization. Bad teams have bad seasons. Bad organizations have five-straight bad seasons. Every franchise in the NFL fields a bad team from time to time; injuries and the year-to-year parity of the league has a way of doing that.
There are plenty of reasons to believe that next year will be better. The Broncos can’t be that injured. Drew Lock – love him or not – continues to show signs that he can play in the NFL. What his ceiling might be is hard to say. The Broncos have a bevy of weapons on offense, chief among them are Jerry Jeudy and Noah Fant. The Broncos offensive line was actually not as bad as we originally feared; with a right tackle it might even be pretty decent next year.
Sadly, there are a bevy of reasons to believe that not much will change in Denver. Vic Fangio might be an excellent defensive mind, but he’s yet to show he’s an excellent head coach (see the aforementioned timeout, one that bailed out the Raiders far more than it helped the Broncos defense). The Chiefs aren’t going anywhere. There’s little history that shows the draft has significantly improved the Broncos, no matter where they’re picking, of late.
And there are unknowns that could make or break all the other pros or cons: Justin Simmons’ future. Drew Lock, Drew Lock, and of course, Drew Lock.
Sunday’s season finale against the Raiders was a microcosm of the Broncos; they’re good enough to make you believe they could be good, just not quite good enough to win that day. Or most days.
And that’s how it went in 2020. The question remains, will it continue to go that way in 2021 and beyond?
Can Drew Lock, Vic Fangio and John Elway become a contender by this time next season? When a team continually misses the playoffs, that quest begins too soon too many times. Yet, it’s upon the Broncos once again.
The calendar has (finally) changed.
But have the Broncos?
