If the Denver Broncos end up bowing out after one game this postseason, it’ll be one of the most disappointing seasons in my lifetime.
Why? Because I want to see Peyton Manning get one last shot at the Super Bowl or because I tend to hyperbolize after big games? No (well, maybe the second is a little true). Because it’ll mean that one of the greatest defenses I’ve ever witnessed will have gone to waste.
This defense, even without several starters, held the Oakland Raiders to negative yards in the first half, and they lost. They lost! That should be impossible.
But we’ve been singing the same tune all season; the only difference is that the defense found ways to score on their own earlier in the year. The reality is that the game we saw yesterday is the same game we saw against the Chargers, Raiders, Browns and Ravens; this time, though, the Broncos didn’t luck into any late, game-altering turnovers.
And for as frustrating as this is for Broncos fans, can you imagine how infuriating it must be for the Denver defense, who are playing their hearts out only to have the offense crap the bed each week? For most of the year, those guys have been towing the party line, saying this is a team sport with team consequences, but you can start to hear the frustration mounting after yesterday’s loss.
While they won’t come out and throw the offense under the bus, it’s pretty easy to read between the lines. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do:
Chris Harris Jr. on losing to the Raiders:
“I’m hot. We were not supposed to lose that game. We played terrible in the second half, gave them the ball every time. So we’ve just got to be smarter. We can’t beat ourselves. This is going to be a tough team to beat if we don’t beat ourselves.”
And he should be hot. The Denver defense played out of their mind on Sunday, and all they got in return was another L on their record. Because when he says “We played terrible,” he most definitely isn’t referring to the defense; that’s evidenced by how he followed up that response:
“Defensive wise, we played great. I don’t know how many yards they had, we shut them down.”
Of course they did! They held the Raiders to 126 yards of total offense; the only reason they gave up 15 points was because Osweiler got sacked in the end zone for a safety and Emmanuel Sanders muffed a punt in the redone. Otherwise, the Broncos may have somehow won this game with just 12 points on the board.
A team with that kind of performance on the defensive side of the ball will win the game 90 percent of the time, if not more. I can’t blame the Denver defense for being upset in the slightest.
Malik Jackson on the wheels coming off:
“It is what it is. All we can do is go out there and stop their offense. That’s what we tried to do. I think we did a good job of that today, but they’ve got firepower too and they’ve got a good defense and it’s one of those things that they just won the battle today.”
“It is what it is” is essentially code for “Not my fault.” And it’s clear that Malik Jackson believes just that when he proceeds to tell the media that the defense did everything they were supposed to do; it was the offense that lost the battle on Sunday.
And how can you blame him? He was fantastic against the Raiders, scoring his second best grade (2.8) of the season according to Pro Football Focus.
The bigger question, though, is what do these defensive players start saying if the Broncos fall to the Steelers this weekend and a A.J. McCarron-led Bengals the next week? What do they say if the Broncos lose in the Wild Card Round 10-6?
I’m worried that there starts to be a divide in that locker room. I’m worried that this defense will lose all trust in their counterparts and that the worst is only yet to come. Right now, the guys on the defensive side of the locker room are fighting for each other; what happens when they start fighting amongst each other?
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[adrotate banner=”10″]Shaquil Barrett on forcing turnovers:
“Yeah, he pretty much didn’t get a blindside. He was ready for the sacks. Like you said, he saw them coming, so he was able to protect the ball better. We’ve got to find a way to get the ball out: interceptions, fumbles, someway, somehow.”
This brings me back to the point I was just making: If the defense loses all faith in the offense, then they’ll have to start taking matters into their own hands; that has the potential to be a pretty risky gamble.
We can already see that the defense feels they need to produce turnovers if the Broncos have any shot at winning, and Barrett wasn’t the only one to say it; Chris Harris said the same thing:
“The only thing we didn’t do today was get turnovers, so I’m just going to worry about our defense, what we can do to continue to get better and the only thing we can do to get better is try to force turnovers.”
And while turnovers are awesome, if teams feel they have to gamble in order to produce them, that can lead to big plays by the other team; that can lead to even bigger deficits that this offense is going to have a hard time overcoming.
This defense is successful because they aren’t only talented but because they are playing smart, sound football; the turnovers they have created, and there have been a lot, have come because the Broncos defenders are almost always in the right place at the right time. If they start trying to be in the right place at the wrong time, they could end up doing more harm than good.