Take two aspirin. Maybe call in sick. After our boys in orange got crushed 23-7 by Baltimore on a perfect NFL Sunday in Colorado ruined by the scoreboard, consider our mellow officially harshed. And nothing makes this city as grouchy as a Broncos hangover.
“Extremely disappointing,” Denver safety Justin Simmons said. “We know how important this was. We knew what the stakes were.”
The Broncos ran on Empower Field at Mile High all pumped up and undefeated, ready to declare they were back as legit contenders after a five-year playoff drought. A little more than three hours later, those same players looked deflated and beaten.
Speaking for all of apountry, offensive tackle Garett Bolles said: “I’m angry.”
Looking as sad and fretful as a kid who lost his Teddy bear, quarterback Drew Lock led Denver back where none of us ever wanted to go ever again, to the bad, old days of 2020, when football put a frown on everyone in town.
“I know being quarterback for this team is a heavy job,” said Lock, a former starter forced to come off the bench at halftime when a concussion knocked Teddy Bridgewater from the game.
No Teddy, no hope. He was this team’s bridge over troubled waters. He was the reason optimistic fans were willing to believe a 3-0 start against wretched NFL foes might actually be a reason to get excited.
When the volume is cranked up to 10, the passion of Broncomaniacs can not only be heard, but felt in the bones. As Baltimore’s Justin Tucker lined up to kick off the biggest game for the franchise since Super Bowl 50, more than 74,000 cheering and stomping fans made such a beautiful noise the stadium vibrated underneath their feet.
Then, on a 76-degree afternoon without a cloud in the Colorado sky, all the sunshine went away. And when Bridgewater got injured, the spirit went out of the stadium. Unless he recovers quickly, this loss will count more than the three victories Denver earned to open the season.
Although the Broncos scored first, taking a 7-0 lead in the second quarter on a three-yard touchdown throw from Bridgewater to tight end Noah Fant, each time the veteran quarterback dropped back to pass, a sense of dread festered. The offensive line, missing injured guards Dalton Risner and Graham Glasgow, couldn’t keep Bridgewater safe from relentless pressure applied by Baltimore’s defense.
Bridgewater stood tall and courageously endured the hits, until he got smacked on his final pass attempt prior to halftime, getting the slobber knocked out of him by Ravens linebacker Odafe Oweh. The wobbly way Bridgewater got off the turf was reminiscent of a shaken boxer looking for a neutral corner, hoping the bell to end the round might save him.
“I saw Teddy on the ground and he didn’t look well,” Bolles said.
When the Broncos returned to the field after halftime, the team’s spiritual leader stayed in the locker room. After being evaluated by medical personnel, Bridgewater was deemed unfit to play.
The wheels of the Broncos bandwagon fell off.
“It got clunky,” Fant said.
When Lock entered the Denver huddle with 13 minutes, 21 seconds remaining in the third quarter, the crowd was too stunned to cheer, so the QB who lost his job to Bridgewater during training camp was greeted with an uneasy murmur of disbelief.
For Lock, it was not exactly a vote of confidence by the orange-clad patrons. We’ve seen this movie before. Playing fast and furious, Lock only knows how to play at one speed: reckless.
Lock chucks the football and asks for forgiveness later. Case in point: With Denver trailing 17-7 but with plenty of time to mount a comeback in the second half, receiver Cortland Sutton blew the top off Baltimore’s defense, breaking wide open 40 yards downfield.
A savvy quarterback would’ve immediately recognized the situation, put a little air under the football and celebrated a touchdown. Lock? He reared back like a young man trying to impress his date by knocking over all the milk jugs on the midway at the state fair, and heaved an uncatchable fastball 10 feet beyond Sutton’s out-stretched arms.
“I’ve got to give him a chance to catch the football,” said Lock, who completed less than 60% of his 21 passes for a meager 113 yards. He also threw a mindless interception, providing another haunting sense of deja vu from 2020. His QB rating was 52.3, a failing grade, even for a backup without the benefit of work with the first-team offense during practice.
“We can’t,” Broncos coach Vic Fangio said, “have a hangover from this game.”
Speak for yourself, Uncle Vic.
The mourning after a Broncos loss in a big game is enough to make even a die-hard fan want to hide beneath the covers and wonder if this team will ever be worthy of Super Bowl dreams again.
