John Fox had less than 24 hours to clean out his office and clear the Broncos’ slate. Weeks earlier the coach had helped the Broncos win their fourth consecutive AFC West title, but their hopes of a return ended abruptly the night of Jan. 11, 2015, to ’s former team, the Colts.
So, the next afternoon, . , the Broncos’ general manager and face of the franchise, wanted the season to at least end with a fight, even if it didn’t come with a championship ring. .
“I think if there is one thing that you would like to have and you want to feel — at least in the last game you want to feel like you go out kicking and screaming,” Elway said at the time, a week before he hired his friend and former teammate, , to take over. “… There is no plan B. Plan A is still the same, and that is to win the world championship.”
We know the ending to that tale. The Broncos held to Plan A and went out kicking and screaming for 19 games last season, all the way to , in Santa Clara, Calif.
But over the last nine months, the reigning Super Bowl champions have spiraled amid personnel changes, injuries and just poor performance.
For the first time since 2010, and since Elway took office, the Broncos (8-7) are out of the postseason. If 2014 was a failure to exit kicking and screaming, 2016 has lacked a mere whimper, offering instead a slew of questions.
Atop the list: How in the heck did this happen?
The Warning Signs
The thing about warning signs is they only ever become true warning signs long after the fact. In hindsight, the Broncos offered many of them early in the season, even as they started 4-0 with a young starting quarterback, , and a defense that was still among the NFL’s finest.
Weaknesses were exposed but masked by the victories. In their season-opening rematch with Carolina, the Broncos flipped a first-half deficit into a victory, the only time they have been able to do so this season. The defense allowed 157 yards rushing in that game, and an average of 113.8 in the 4-0 start. The offense Kubiak had been trying to smooth out for more than a year still lacked a true identity.
You could point to the loss against Atlanta in Week 5 as the beginning of the slide, as rookie quarterback made his first start while Siemian nursed a shoulder injury. That was the game that ended with Kubiak in a hospital, and that was the week that ended with two losses in the span of just five days.
Although the Broncos defeated and the Texans the following week in what was easily their most complete offensive performance of the season, it would come at cost: Starting tailback suffered a knee injury and was lost for the rest of the season.
Denver never fully recovered. It never bounced back like it did so often a year earlier. The reason wasn’t singular. It wasn’t because of one moment or one injury, but rather an escalation of problems. The warning signs morphed into concerning trends that were never reversed.
One was an inability to get a lead — and allow the defense to feed off that momentum.
“You go back to the playoffs, we scored first in all three of those playoff games, in the first possession,” Kubiak said recently. “We haven’t gotten anybody in that position here in the last month. I think thatap been a big difference.”
In eight games this season the Broncos failed to score in the first quarter. They led after the first 15 minutes only once, at New Orleans. They have scored only three first-quarter touchdowns all season and sit firmly at the bottom of the NFL with a minus-61 scoring differential in the first quarter.
In games they have trailed after the first half, the Broncos are 1-7. They have won every game in which they led at halftime.
The ripple effect was significant. Early deficits prompted opponents to run the ball more and further exploit the weakness of the defense, an inability to stop the run (135.2 yards allowed per game). The pass defense has been statistically better than a year ago (187.2 yards allowed per game, compared with 199.6 last season), but part of that is because opponents haven’t needed to throw the ball.
“When teams don’t have to throw at me and or have Von (Miller) pinning his ears back to rush, it kind of takes away what we do,” said cornerback . “We’re definitely built to stop the pass more than the run, and it definitely showed this year.”
The Crossroads
Of the Broncos’ seven losses this season, Kubiak points to one that led them down the wrong path: that Week 12 overtime loss to the Chiefs in Denver. The Broncos had won their previous seven meetings with Kansas City and were coming off a bye. And they had multiple opportunities to put that game away.
“We were rested and ready to go,” said Miller, an all-pro outside linebacker. “I think a win right there would have been a difference if we were able to get that. I never want to go back and say, ‘if we were able to get that one or make this play,’ but if we able to close that game, I think it would be a little bit different for us.”
That game, of course, started the same — with the Broncos trailing 9-0 early. The offense retooled and gained an eight-point lead with three minutes left in regulation, but a string of late penalties and the unraveling of a typically stout defense sent the game into overtime and it finished on a shootout of field goals. Siemian passed for a career-high 368 yards and three touchdowns, but he suffered a foot injury and would miss another game. Rookie fullback Andy Janovich played throughout, but he suffered an ankle injury and was placed on injured reserve.
“When you lose people, you have to adjust,” Kubiak said. “You still have to go out there and move the ball and do things, and we didn’t get that done.”
The Broncos entered that game 7-3. They are 1-3 since and have scored 10 points or fewer in their last three games, a dubious feat that hadn’t been achieved since 1966.
“We just never answered that bell,” Elway said, . “That’s what makes it tough. The last three or four weeks, we turned the football over too many times and didn’t take it away enough and, as Gary said, we played a different style game this year because we got ahead of people last year. We didn’t start fast enough offensively or defensively this whole year.”
A not-so-grand finale
For better or worse, the Broncos will trot onto the field for one more go-round Sunday. Their hopes for a playoff berth were left behind at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium on Christmas night, and their view now is only on 2017.
A game against Oakland that was previously marked as “must watch” is now simply a chance to blur the memory of the Broncos’ last outing, when they allowed 283 yards and three touchdowns in the first quarter to the Chiefs last Sunday.
“The bad taste is going to be in my mouth, personally, until next year,” Talib said. “I’m trying to prepare to finish what I started. Itap what my parents, my coaches and people I’ve always looked up to taught me to do. Finish what you start, so thatap what we’re going to do.”
For the Broncos, Sunday’s season finale in Denver carries little meaning. But for Oakland, the AFC West title that once belonged to the Broncos is on the line, along with a first-round bye in the playoffs.
Siemian will start, because he’s the team’s starting quarterback and he “deserved the right,” Kubiak said. Lynch will play too, because he needs the experience.
But itap only the calm before the storm. Changes will be made, to the roster and possibly to the coaching staff, after the Broncos clear their lockers and the damage of 2016 is assessed.
“I know it’s a disappointing year,” Elway said. “Every year ends in a disappointment, except for one team, like last year when we were the team that it didn’t end in disappointment. So you go back and try to find those answers, and hopefully we can get them answered.”
MISSING PIECES
The Broncos’ problems this season are reflected in numbers.
8: Games in which the Broncos were shut out in the first quarter. They led after the first quarter only once, at New Orleans.
Minus-61: First-quarter scoring differential, a league low. Denver has scored 143 points in the fourth quarter, for a league-high scoring differential of plus-73.
3: First-quarter touchdowns — at Tampa Bay, at New Orleans and at Kansas City.
1-7: Denver’s record when trailing at halftime. The only victory was against Carolina in the season opener, when the Broncos trailed 17-7. They have won every game in which they led at halftime.
7-3: Denver’s record before the overtime loss to the Chiefs at home in Week 12. Denver is 1-3 since that game.
2: Touchdowns scored by the Broncos in their last three games.
321.3: Total yards per game, ranking 27th in the 32-team NFL.
111.6: Average yards rushing in the first seven games, when tailback C.J. Anderson was healthy. The Broncos have averaged only 70 yards rushing in their last eight games.
187.2: Yards passing allowed per game, a league-best average and better than Denver’s 199.6 average allowed last season.
135.2: Yards rushing allowed per game, ranking 29th in the NFL.
40: Total sacks taken by quarterbacks Trevor Siemian and Paxton Lynch, tied for fifth-most in the league. They have been knocked down 98 times, tied for sixth-most.
