The Denver Broncos can’t afford a slip-up against the Jacksonville Jaguars this week.
After losing a heartbreaking game to the Kansas City Chiefs last Sunday, their margin for error is getting smaller and smaller. The Broncos are 7-4, sitting in the seventh seed in the AFC. If the playoffs were to start today, they would be resigned to watching on television like the rest of us.
But in the NFL, things can change very quickly.
And if this team is going to get things back on track, it will have to start with a win over the 2-9 Jaguars.
Jacksonville entered the season with some high hopes behind three-year starting quarterback Blake Bortles, but it has been a season of disappointment, and the Jags are currently on a six-game losing streak.
Yet, we know that they would glean some very serious satisfaction from knocking off the defending Super Bowl champions.
Here are five ways that the Broncos can get back to winning on Sunday in Jacksonville.
1. Get to Blake Bortles
The Jaguars drafted Bortles with the third overall pick of the 2014 NFL Draft, hoping that he would be their franchise quarterback for the future.
It hasn’t gone as planned.
After showing some promise in his first two seasons, Bortles has been particularly ineffective this season. While he has thrown 20 touchdowns to just 13 interceptions, he is completing just 59 percent of his passes, and most of those completions are check-downs for minimal gains. His 6.23-yard average per pass ranks him 31st out of 32 NFL starters.
If the Broncos pass rush can get to Bortles early and often, they’ll minimize much of the Jacksonville offense for most of the day.
2. Stop turning the ball over
We don’t want to oversimplify this, but take a look at the numbers: The Denver Broncos are 5-0 when they win the turnover battle, and they’re just 2-4 when they don’t.
Last week against the Chiefs, the Denver offense took care of the football, but the special teams coughed up the ball on a punt return.
The Broncos must value the football this week in all three phases of the game. The Jaguars are desperate for charity. They haven’t intercepted a pass in their seven games
3. Don’t allow big plays on special teams
The Jacksonville offense hasn’t exactly been setting the world on fire, as they rank 23rd in yardage and 26th in scoring.
But the Jags have received a boost from their special teams.
Marquise Lee and Corey Grant are averaging over 20 yards per attempt. We saw the Denver special teams give up two big returns last week to Kansas City. They can’t afford to have those same mistakes again this week.
4. Be patient offensively and move those chains
Trevor Siemian is coming off of his best game as a quarterback in the NFL.
Once the offensive line began to give him some semblance of protection, Siemian showed why he has earned the trust of both Gary Kubiak and John Elway, going 20 for 34 for 368 yards and three touchdowns.
Hopefully we can see some of that carry over into the remainder of the season.
As long as Siemian is patient (and healthy), he should be able to eventually see some success on Sunday.
The Jacksonville defense is solid against the pass, but they have been gouged in the run game, allowing nearly 117 yards on the ground per game. And they have allowed opponents to convert on 42 percent of their third down attempts.
The Broncos offense needs to convert a few third downs on Sunday, and wear this defense out.
5. Forget about the Chiefs game
The Denver Broncos are coming off of one of the toughest losses that they have faced recently. But the NFL has no room for hangover.
The Broncos are a better team than the Jaguars. They have to find a way to put the loss behind them and focus on the task at hand.
Losing to the Chiefs last week was hard enough. Don’t do it again this week, too.