It was a Broncos home game.
It was played at a soccer stadium.
That was the witty banter coming out of the pregame pressbox. Oh, snicker, snicker.
And then the game started. And the joke was on the Broncos and those who cheer for them. Denver fans might have filled the tiny stands belonging to the Los Angeles Galaxy Sunday, but their team was laughable.
Vance Joseph and his team should be glad that their most recent “home game” was actually 1,000 miles west of Mile High Stadium. The only thing worse than 15,000 angry Broncos fans booing the team off the field, is 78,000 of them doing the very same thing. Had the embarrassingly bad, 21-0 loss to the Chargers been at home, the boos would have filled the thin air of Denver.
That was bad. Historically bad.
The last time the Broncos were shut out was in 1992 – twice that season, in fact. After watching Denver’s offensive performance in Los Angeles Sunday, another shutout, maybe two, looks like a strong possibility. Interestingly enough, after that ’92 season, a campaign that saw the Broncos finish 8-8 and third in the AFC West, head coach Dan Reeves was fired.
Reeves was canned because that year’s team didn’t perform, but perhaps more accurately, he was let go because there was a feeling in Denver that he was “wasting” John Elway, a Pro Bowler the season before and the league MVP in ’87. In ’92, behind Reeves’ stale play-calling tendencies, the Broncos ranked 22nd in offense. Elway was in his 10th season and the pressure to win a Super Bowl – while Elway was still close to his prime – was mounting, so Reeves was shown the door.
Perhaps it’s unfair this early in his tenure as head coach, but could Vance Joseph get the axe after just one season in Denver?
He is, after all, wasting one of the NFL’s historically great defenses.
Like Elway was capable of taking a mediocre team to the Super Bowl then, the current iteration of the Broncos defense is capable of the same thing now. That was proven in 2015, when the Broncos won it all with an extremely pedestrian offense, and this year’s defense is amazingly similar; it’s not irresponsible to call them the best defense in the NFL.
But it’s going to be wasted, unless something extreme happens.
Joseph seems ill-equipped to make adjustments on the fly. There also doesn’t seem to be much of a game plan either; perhaps that’s on Joseph, perhaps that’s on offensive coordinator Mike McCoy. To that point, the Chargers entered Sunday’s game as the NFL’s worst run defense; in eight first-half drives, the Broncos fumbled twice and punted six times, crossing the 50 for just one play. Denver is 0-for-5 when going for it on fourth down this season. All of it points toward bad coaching.
The Broncos can’t run because they can’t pass. They can’t pass because they can’t run. They can’t do either because they can’t run block or pass block. In short, the offensive side of the ball is an utter mess.
Maybe Joseph was a bad hire, or perhaps the personnel he and McCoy are working with is to blame. Maybe it’s all of the above. And all of the above has been assembled by Elway, now the team’s head of football decisions.
Maybe The Duke shares just as much of the blame. After all, he’s yet to successfully replace the great Peyton Manning. Obviously, that’s no easy task, but it looks like Elway is 0-for-3 in that endeavor.
Osweiler, who was waiting in the wings, was allowed to go to Houston before lasts season. Elway then drafted Paxton Lynch, who looks to be a bust. And so Elway rolled the dice, assuming that Siemian would be an adequate placeholder until a solution surfaces. That hasn’t worked. After watching Siemian the last two weeks, it’s clear that he’s not good – all excuses aside, that’s just the truth. It’s unclear why the Broncos refused to make a change at halftime of Sunday’s game. Could Osweiler possibly be worse?
Here’s a guess: If Sunday’s game was played in Denver, the pressure to put Osweiler in the game would have been immense. A soccer stadium full of vacationers probably can’t produce that kind of noise.
Manning’s 2015 offensive line was bad, too. But the great quarterback was so good at making protection adjustments and getting rid of the ball quickly, the line was far less of a factor. Thus, that great 2015 defense didn’t go to waste.
Is it time for Joseph to mix things up? Osweiler? Lynch (is he really hurt or is the injury a convenient way to keep his name out of the debate)? What about Chad Kelly? Or, might it be time for Elway to clean up this mess by making some kind of blockbuster trade for a quarterback? Perhaps Peyton’s brother, Eli?
If none of those things happen, the results of this season will be as predictable as the Broncos offense.
Maybe it’s time to tank. That’s a serious suggestion, by the way. Unless you foolishly believe the Broncos still have a shot at the Super Bowl, why not? Cleaning up the mess on O won’t be easy, and it has to start with quarterback, doesn’t it?
Next year’s draft is allegedly loaded with good quarterbacks – USC’s Sam Darnold, UCLA’s Josh Rosen, Louisville’s Lamar Jackson, Wyoming’s Josh Allen. Could the Broncos somehow sneak into the Quarterback Class of 2018 Sweepstakes? At current, there are only six teams with fewer wins than Denver; one of them is the Colts, Tampa Bay is another. Perhaps the Broncos could draft a relatively inexpensive quarterback, then spend money on that horrific offensive line.
Elway has always said that the goal in Denver is forever twofold: Win now, and win from now on.
Well, it was painfully obvious inside that soccer stadium that the Broncos aren’t about to win now. Kidding themselves that they’re going somewhere this season “as is” just wastes time (and a great defense).
So, they’d better figure out a way to win from now on, a big task that’s no laughing matter.
