INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The Broncos got walked off on the road for the second straight week and dropped to 0-3 against the Chargers since Jim Harbaugh took over as head coach.
Here are seven thoughts on Denver’s loss.
1. The Denver offense’s inability to put away games sure feels like itap becoming a mental hurdle. It must get conquered quickly.
In 45 fourth-quarter minutes so far this season, the Broncos have largely controlled the action and the scoreboard.
In fact, Sean Payton’s team has led for 35 of those minutes, been tied for 2:37, and trailed for just 7:23.
The wild part: All of the time spent trailing in the final quarter came Week 1 at home against Tennessee. That, of course, is the only game Denver’s actually won this season.
The past two weeks, Payton’s team has led for 27:23 and been tied for 2:37. They never trailed.
Both games ended in walk-off losses.
“This felt like a different game for me,” All-Pro Quinn Meinerz told The Denver Post afterward. “From, like, an actually playing-the-game standpoint. Obviously, from a scoreboard standpoint, they were similar. The game was right there for us to take advantage of and get a score, drive down the field in a two-minute drill and win the game. But unfortunately, we didn’t do that.
“They ran their two-minute drill and got a field goal. Thatap just kind of how it is in this league.”
Thatap how itap been for the Broncos each of the past two weeks and mostly over the course of the season so far.
After going up 20-12 on the Titans in Week 1, Bo Nix and the Denver offense had the ball and turned it over twice.
After taking the lead against Indianapolis in Week 2, the Broncos failed to capitalize on three chances to extend their lead.
Then they settled for two field goals over five second-half possessions with the lead Sunday against the Chargers.
Over the span of 10 drives, the Broncos have faced several different situations, different points on the clock and more, but a couple of factors have stood out.
The offense has been penalized on six of those 10 late-game drives with the lead for a total of 59 yards, not including an illegal formation the Chargers declined Sunday because it came after a negative run from rookie running back RJ Harvey.
The offense has also too often been in third-and-long on those drives and, predictably, failed to convert.
They finished 3 of 14 on those drives (and 1 of 3 on fourth down), including 0 for 6 on third down Sunday against the Chargers.
In those chances against L.A., the Broncos averaged needing 10 yards and never had a try shorter than 8. Over the full set of 14 third downs, their average yards to-go: 9.4. Thatap no way to put away teams.
“Those are the things that you only get about 11 (possessions) a game, and that set us back,” Payton said.
Denver’s defense played so well in Week 1 down the stretch against the Titans that it covered up some issues offensively. Since then, it’s been a different story.
Whatever the hurdle is, the Broncos have to figure out a way over, around, under or through. Quickly.
“I wouldn’t say it’s concerning, but it’s definitely a wake-up,” outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper said. “A wake-up for how we have to finish games. How to not put ourselves in situations like we were the past two weeks. Just finish the game. …
“When it counts the most, that’s when we’ve got to play our best.”
2. The two biggest separators in a close game: Quality of quarterback play and overall team discipline (a coaching hallmark).
Bo Nix didn’t play poorly for most of the night, but he missed a couple of deep shots in critical situations. In keeping with the entire game, itap perhaps fitting that the deep balls he barely overthrew to Marvin Mims Jr. and Courtland Sutton came on third-and-19 and third-and-10, respectively.
The Broncos’ second-year quarterback finished 11 of 14 on attempts under 10 air yards but just 3 of 9 for 69 yards on attempts greater than 10 air yards, according to Next Gen Stats. Most of Nix’s yardage down the field came on Sutton’s long touchdown, and Nix finished with a completion percentage over expected of -16.2% on downfield throws.
“We knew this was going to be the game. It was going to be underneath completions. We just didn’t find as many as we’d like,” Nix said.
At one point late in the fourth quarter, as the Chargers drove toward their game-winning field goal, the broadcast showed Nix sitting on the Broncos’ bench, looking at the Microsoft Surface tablet that has the film from the game on it. Nix looks up, scrunches his nose, and appears to say, “I had so many chances today.”
On the other side, Los Angeles’ Justin Herbert hung in there for most of the game and then shifted into Superman mode when his team needed it.
Thatap the sign of true, high-level quarterback play in the NFL.
The Broncos beat up, bruised, harassed and downright punished Herbert from the start. They sacked him three times on the first two possessions and five overall. They put hits on him, including a crushing wince-inducer from defensive tackle Zach Allen in the second half.
Herbert was pressured on 54.7% of his dropbacks, according to Next Gen Stats, the highest single-game rate of his career.
And yet, despite all of the different pressure looks and all of the defenders who got in Herbertap airspace, the quarterback also turned several potential disastrous plays into positives. Then he made a to get the Chargers level in the fourth quarter.
Broncos DT Zach Allen had Herbert in his crosshairs, but Herbert sidestepped him, moved to his left and uncorked a dime. It still got through Nik Bonitto’s outstretched arms, into the end zone and into Keenan Allen’s arms past Riley Moss’ coverage.
It was a true not-many-people-on-the-planet throw.
Both quarterbacks faced quality defenses and challenges in their own ways — Herbert with the withering pass rush and Nix with the frustrating Jesse Minter shells that keep everything in front and require a combination of patience and opportunism. One guy had the goods.
Then there’s team discipline.
Harbaugh’s team had three accepted penalties for 25 yards. Payton’s had 10 for 90.
In three games against each other so far, the numbers are even more lopsided.
Harbaugh’s team: 8 penalties for 53 yards.
Payton’s team: 24 penalties for 188 yards.
Harbaugh, perhaps not surprisingly, is 3-0 so far against Payton as AFC West foes.
“This year’s different. This year’s different,” insisted Payton, who’s now 1-6 against Harbaugh-coached teams. “That was a hard-fought, close game. This team — I thought we fought today, which was encouraging. We knew it was going to be one of those games.”
And yet, the same type of mistakes that cost the Broncos last year against L.A. and last week against Indianapolis cropped up again.
3. One play can inform how players handle another, and Talanoa Hufanga ended up with a costly penalty because of it.
Thatap not to excuse the personal foul on Talanoa Hufanga that handed Los Angeles 15 yards on its game-winning drive. It was a penalty. He picked up Allen after the veteran receiver’s forward momentum was stopped and body-slammed him to the ground.
“Honestly, just making a tackle,” Hufanga said after the game. “I’ve got to be smart, I understand that itap on me, but I’m not sure what I did exactly. I’ve got to go back and talk to the coaches, but (the referee) told me I got a penalty. So I’ve got to own that myself.”
Whatap perhaps worth pointing out, though, is a play in the first quarter in a similar situation.
Pat Surtain II wrapped up Chargers receiver Quentin Johnston after a completion over the middle and drove him back a couple of yards. Apparently anticipating the whistle since Johnston was no longer moving forward, Surtain let Johnston go, and he raced away and up the sideline for a 37-yard gain.
After that, itap fair to think Hufanga and the Broncos defense didn’t want to take any chances of something similar happening again. But there’s got to be a middle ground between the first play and the second.
4. This was the first matchup between Denver’s surprise first-round draft pick and the player so many mock drafts thought would land with the Broncos.
Of every pick in the first round of April’s NFL draft, few were more surprising than the Broncos selecting cornerback Jahdae Barron at No. 20 overall.
If any mock draft in the lead-up to the draft paired the University of Texas standout and Denver, it was a true rarity.
“The mocks that you guys read for the last month, what do you want me to say? Itap embarrassing sometimes,” Payton said that night. “But itap entertaining.”
Part of the reason almost none of the mocks pegged Barron to Denver is because so, so many of them had Payton and general manager George Paton selecting North Carolina running back Omarion Hampton. He instead went No. 22 overall to… the Chargers.
So Sunday, they squared off for the first time.
Both have been off to something of modest starts to their rookie years, but Hampton had a coming-out party Sunday.
The big, bruising back carried the ball 19 times for 70 yards and a touchdown and also caught six passes for 59 yards. That more than doubled his total yardage through the first two games of the season (86) and perhaps left some Broncos fans wondering wistfully about what might have been.
Denver’s rookie running back, RJ Harvey (drafted No. 60 overall), carried two times for 2 yards and had three catches for 14.
Barron, meanwhile, might not be making many splash plays so far, but the Broncos are happy with where he’s at in his progression early in the season.
He’s seen time in the slot, outside in formations and even got a snap at safety against the Colts.
That part-time defensive work is in addition to playing about a third of special teams snaps so far.
“He’s learning how to translate his game from college to the NFL,” secondary coach Jim Leonhard told The Post recently. “There’s enough changes in the game that sometimes those things that he was very set on that they were right in college, it tweaks a little bit. Thatap what we’re learning early in the season, is just what he can do physically, what he can handle week in and week out when you combine his defensive role with his special teams role.
“And we continue to find ways to feature him and move him around because he has the ability to win in man-to-man situations, and he has the ability to win looking at the quarterback — low zones, high zones. So we’re just going to continue to expand his role as the season goes along, and he’ll get more and more comfortable with it the more reps he gets in live situations as well.”
Barron finished Sunday with three tackles plus another on special teams. Thatap not the kind of stat line thatap going to compare well with Hampton’s 129 yards and a touchdown, but the Broncos believe they’ve got a special player and one who will be a difference-maker in the near future.
5. Away from the field, the Broncos did a cool thing inviting Evergreen High to practice at their indoor facility. One star player had a particularly personal role in the day.
When Evergreen High’s football and flag football teams came to the Broncos’ facility on Tuesday, they did so in part because of Denver All-Pro right guard Quinn Meinerz.
Even before retired Tampa Bay center Ryan Jensen, now-Evergreen’s offensive line coach, got in touch with the Broncos about a visit, Meinerz reached out to the Broncos’ public relations and community relations departments and asked if there was a way he and his wife could show support in the aftermath of the Sept. 10 shooting at the school that left two students critically wounded.
“Obviously, school shootings are terrible,” Meinerz told The Post after Sunday’s game. “My wife and I have spent quite a bit of time up in Evergreen. We love Evergreen, itap a beautiful place. So when we heard something like that happened in a community so close and a community we’ve spent quite a bit of time in, I wanted to do something to help them.”
Meinerz wasn’t able to be at the practice itself, but said he “wanted to at least give my words to them” and added that he and his wife have tried to help in other ways, “that I’d like to keep low-key.”
Evergreen coach Matt Van Praag told The Post he thought the practice was the first time his kids had felt a sense of normalcy since the shooting.
“I hope that they’re in better spirits,” Meinerz said, “And they can get through something that is unimaginable.”
6. Courtland Sutton shrugged off the first two weeks and exploded vs. the Chargers … and it could have been much more.
Denver’s top receiver had 67 yards through the first two weeks, including just one catch for 6 yards last weekend against the Colts.
Sunday against the Chargers, Sutton reeled in six catches on eight targets for 118 yards and a touchdown.
Itap the sixth-highest single-game output of Sutton’s career and the second-best he’s managed since the 2021 season.
Sutton, of course, could have ended up with much more had Nix put just a bit more touch on a deep ball in the fourth quarter.
As it stands, though, two of Sutton’s biggest plays Sunday came on fourth-down conversions. He ran a good crossing route and hauled in a 22-yarder on fourth-and-1 before the Broncos settled for a field goal late in the game.
His 52-yard touchdown on fourth-and-2 late in the first half, though, not only jump-started Denver’s offense, but it came on a beautifully designed play.
Whatap just as interesting: Payton’s offense looked like a mess when it first got to the line of scrimmage. Substitutions were running on and off, and the playclock was getting low. Instead of Denver burning a timeout, though, the Chargers took one.
The Broncos took full advantage of the chance to reset.
When they came back out, this is how they lined up.
Harvey at running back next to Nix in the gun.
To the left of center Luke Wattenberg: Guard Ben Powers in his normal spot, but tight end Nate Adkins ineligible at left tackle.
To the right of the formation: Meinerz and right tackle Mike McGlinchey in their normal spots, but then as unique a set of four eligible receivers as you’ll see.
Tight end Adam Trautman flexed back off the line of scrimmage. Outside of him, left tackle Garett Bolles lined up as a slot receiver on the line. Then, outside of him, receivers Sutton and Troy Franklin off the line of scrimmage.
Tackle-over, unbalanced, quads right. Pretty sweet.
Even better for the Broncos: Nobody carried Sutton off the line of scrimmage. He exploded up the field, bent to the middle and glided to a 52-yard touchdown when Nix found him in stride.
“You’re looking for certain distances, hash marks, timing and, obviously, it’s somewhat aggressive but the play requires an aggressive defense, too,” Payton explained. “And so we got that. It was the right timing and those guys made a real good play.”
7. The Broncos had next to nothing going in the run game, but J.K. Dobbins heated up quickly.
In the course of the Broncos’ stagnant opening 29 minutes offensively, they mustered just 11 rushing yards. That included four carries for minus-4 for J.K. Dobbins, who entered the game champing at the bit to get involved against his former team.
Dobbins did a little better than that to start the second half, rolling for 41 yards on the first play of the third quarter, and then taking care of the final 25 yards on the next two plays, too. Three carries, 66, touchdown.
That sequence turned the day around for Dobbins, who had 905 rushing yards and nine touchdowns in 13 games for the Chargers last year.
He finished with 11 carries for 83 yards overall and now has 222 yards on 41 carries through three games, a 5.4 per-carry average and a 1,258-yard pace over the course of the regular season.
Dobbins’ impact for the Broncos can be measured in several ways, but one stat maybe sums it up as well as any. Dobbins’ 19-yard touchdown run, which came on a lateral, made him the first Denver running back to log a touchdown run in each of the team’s first three regular-season games since Michael Pittman in 2008.
All the more reason, perhaps, to lament the fact that he got just one carry for 4 yards in the fourth quarter over the Broncos’ 11 offensive snaps.
7b. One under-appreciated part of Denver’s defense so far this season: Its collective work in the red zone.
The Broncos entered Week 3 having allowed eight opponent trips to the red zone, tied for seventh-most in the NFL. They’d allowed just two touchdowns, however, fewer than all but four teams in the league.
They continued that bend-but-don’t-break work Sunday against the Chargers, allowing just one touchdown in three trips into scoring territory for Herbert and Co.
Vance Joseph’s group now stands at three touchdowns allowed in 11 opponent red zone trips.
An impactful caveat from Sunday, however: Allen’s 20-yard tying touchdown in the fourth quarter technically doesn’t count.
“Itap just really frustrating,” outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper said of the later faltering. “Really frustrating. It don’t matter how many stops we get, we’ve got to step up and be there and stop them. We just didn’t get it done.”
7c. NextGen Stats had Cooper for nine pressures, including seven in 20 rushes against right tackle Trey Pipkins. The late letdown spoiled a truly remarkable pass-rush effort from the Broncos.
