5 bitter truths to confront in wake of Broncos' 26-24 unraveling vs. Jaguars
After squandering a 14-point lead with a little more than two quarters to play, the Denver Broncos fell to the Jacksonville Jaguars 26-24 in Week 4.
The Broncos’ are reeling — a team grasping for answers but the Football Gods remain deaf and mute to the cries and lamentations from Mile High.
At bottom, the Football Gods help those who help themselves and the Broncos — if we’re being honest — have failed to do that. This team has shown flashes of competitiveness but they’ve been short-lived.
What are the takeaways from the Broncos’ fourth loss of the season and eighth-straight dating back to last year? I’ll be honest. I'm at a loss, too, so instead of takeaways, here are five bitter truths the Broncos have to confront in the wake of Week 4's gut-punch of a loss.
Amnesiacs
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This is a team that has long-forgotten how to win. And it’s not just these first four games that have worn the Broncos down to an emotional nub.
The straw that has seemingly broken the camel’s back can be traced all the way back to the final weeks of the 2016 season. Gary Kubiak's resignation and the failed Vance Joseph regime, compounded with the Broncos’ struggles to open this season under Vic Fangio, have combined to completely take the light out of this team’s eyes.
A team that knows how to win doesn’t squander a 14-point lead to a rookie quarterback. A team that knows how to win doesn’t relinquish 269 rushing yards at home, nor does such a team allow the opponent to drive down and score after retaking the lead with under two minutes to go.
This train careened off the track long ago. The veterans, and especially the holdovers from the Super Bowl 50 championship, have been at the end of their emotional rope for weeks now.
That means that in order for the Broncos’ locker room culture to change and shift toward a more confident emotional constitution, the young players are going to have to take the reigns. I’m talking about Phillip Lindsay, Courtland Sutton, Royce Freeman, Josey Jewell, Bradley Chubb, Noah Fant and Dalton Risner.
Ultimately, the Broncos are going to need Drew Lock to be the trump card in this department but we’re still a month out from that even being possible as Lock is on injured reserve.
Fangio has been exposed
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The Jaguars, after getting dominated on both sides of the ball in the first half, went into halftime and diagnosed how to overcome what the Broncos were doing. Jacksonville made adjustments, while Vic Fangio and company not only failed to anticipate that but also made no adjustments of their own when the Jaguars had emphatically strong-armed the momentum back into their favor.
At the very least, fans expected a coach of Fangio’s experience and accomplishments to recognize when the Broncos need to pivot in-game and make adjustments. We’re not seeing that happen, at all, and unfortunately, it’s an indictment. Coaching, coaching, coaching.
The Broncos were victims of their own coaching inadequacies once again.
Execution has completely broken down
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I shudder to think what the final missed-tackle tally was for the Broncos in this game. Leonard Fournette alone must have forced a dozen, and he wasn’t the only Jaguar making the Broncos’ defense look like Pop Warner wannabes. More like the Keystone Cops.
Again, that falls on the coaching. Either the proper technique and discipline are not being taught by Fangio and company (which I doubt), or the message is falling on deaf ears and that has even worse implications.
There has to be accountability for such egregious lapses in discipline. But in that sense, Coach Fangio is between a rock and a hard place. Benching starters is a grim proposition because the team’s depth has been atrocious.
But those are concerns for a team who’s trying to compete for the playoffs. This Broncos squad isn’t even remotely in that conversation, so if I’m Coach Fangio, I’m not letting Will Parks see the field again for a while, and I’m benching Shelby Harris, who’s been completely miscast as a nose tackle.
At least the Broncos don't have to field any more questions about having zero sacks, though. On Sunday, Gardner Minshew was sacked five times, with both Von Miller and Bradley Chubb getting home.
That was encouraging. But when it mattered most in the clutch, Miller and Chubb couldn't get Minshew on the ground and Miller was flagged for a roughing-the-passer penalty on Jacksonville's final drive that gave them 15 additional yards as they trailed by a point. Shades of Week 2.
The no-sacks streak has come to an end but the no-takeaways streak hasn't. Von Miller and Bradley Chubb are on the board but it's cold comfort to an 0-4 Broncos squad.
Flacco is not the answer
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Just when fans were riding high, thinking it was safe to believe Joe Flacco was, in fact, a capable, competent starting QB who’d simply been on the losing end of some bad luck to open this season, the 12th-year veteran brought them crashing back down to Earth.
With the Broncos looking to add to a 14-point lead at the bottom of the second quarter, Flacco threw an egregious interception with his team already in field goal range. The turnover came on a 1st-&-10 play from the Jaguars’ 33-yard line.
Jaguars’ DB Ronnie Harrison returned it for 31 yards, giving the Jaguars a shot of momentum and the spark of belief that they could turn this ship around. Rookie QB Gardner Minshew helped punctuate that turnover with a field goal to end the first half.
That turnover not only led to (at best) a six-point swing (10-points at worst), it also gave away momentum to a Jaguars’ team that had been dominated for the majority of the first two quarters. With two more quarters left to play and an 11-point lead still in hand, such an unfortunate series of events should not have been the death knell that it was.
Flacco went into a shell from there, disappearing for the entire third quarter and most of the fourth. Were it not for Flacco’s 5-for-5 performance on the Broncos’ go-ahead drive in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter, it would have been a complete disappearing act post-interception.
Yes, it was good to see Flacco find some semblance of rhythm on the Broncos’ final drive in which the offense was able to put a touchdown on the board and retake the lead. But by then, it was a day late and a dollar short.
With 1:32 still left on the clock, based on what we’d seen from the Broncos' defense in the second half, we knew that Minshew and company driving down and getting into field goal range was almost a matter of course. Flacco’s inability to show resilience and intestinal fortitude in the face of a single, solitary mistake was disheartening — to say the least.
One turnover in the first half is not grounds for a team to squander a double-digit lead, nor is it grounds for a veteran QB to go into a shell and disappear. Yes, the Broncos’ lackluster coaching and inability to stop the run in the third and fourth quarter share complicity for the loss, but Flacco’s impotence during that crucial stretch does, too.
November can’t come soon enough
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The Joe Flacco experiment has been a bust. Adding insult to injury is the contract restructure GM John Elway slapped together on the doorstep of the season.
Before Elway made that lapse in judgment, the Broncos were not tied down to Flacco in any way, shape, or form post-2019. The Broncos can still part ways with Flacco following this season but now they’ll have to pay the price for doing so in the form of millions of dollars in dead cap.
Still, if it means the Broncos turned the page and confronted the reality of their situation and played Drew Lock for the final eight games of this season, it would be a price worth paying. Flacco hasn’t been the problem for Denver but that in and of itself is part of the issue at hand.
Bottom line, Flacco hasn’t been the difference-maker a true franchise QB is supposed to be for a team. He has, in his own way, contributed to the Broncos’ 0-4 start — very much so.
Activating Drew Lock off injure reserve is no longer even a question. It has to happen. Unfortunately, because Elway was more focused on Lock’s spot on the 53-man roster being squandered during the weeks it would take for him to fully recover from his sprained thumb — over the value of having him available and ready to go the second he was healed — the Broncos are stuck with the QB situation they have for another month.
When the Broncos officially designate Lock to return off of IR, he can begin practicing with the team again in Week 7 but he can’t be officially activated and available to play until Week 9. That means the Broncos have four more games of Flacco under center no matter what because he hasn’t been bad enough to bench for an undrafted journeyman with zero NFL snaps like Brandon Allen.
If Lock was available, considering his talent, draft pedigree and future upside, Flacco’s impotence would absolutely be enough to rip that band-aid off and play the rookie. Allen, alas, brings none of those factors to the table. Allen is a fail-safe against injury — nothing more, nothing less.
In the loss to Jacksonville, Emmanuel Sanders had himself a game, getting over 100 yards receiving on five receptions, but the reason the Broncos’ offense was able to get out to a lead in the first half was due to the performance of Noah Fant, Courtland Sutton, Phillip Lindsay, and the offensive line.
That’s an encouraging development. If the Broncos had a young QB with franchise upside the team could play in the wake of this 0-4 start — a guy to bring it all together — it would be even more so. This team is just begging for a shred of hope and outside of a miracle turnaround between now and Week 9, Drew Lock is the only possibility of such a spark.
Four more games, Broncos Country, and the Drew Lock era can officially begin. Here's to hoping John Elway has the intestinal fortitude to see that it does.
Follow Chad on Twitter @ChadNJensen and @MileHighHuddle.
