QB Joe Flacco tries to explain interception that swung all momentum away from Broncos

One and a half quarters into their Week 4 bout vs. the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Denver Broncos were cruising. For the first time all season long, the Broncos had a double-digit lead.

A 14-point lead to be exact. That's when everything went skiwampus.

The tidal wave of negative momentum began when QB Joe Flacco dropped back to pass on a 1st-&-10 play from the Jaguars' 33-yard line with about one minute left in the second quarter. Flacco uncorked a ball in Emmanuel Sanders' direction.

The pass was way off-target, sailing high and off the outstretched fingertips of Sanders'...and into the arms of Jaguars S Ronnie Harrison. Harrison returned it 31 yards, setting his team up with good field position and just enough time to get a few more points on the board before the half.

Flacco had been playing well before that pass, throwing two touchdown passes and doing a good job of evading any pressure the Jaguars were able to slip through the Broncos' offensive line. It was a negative play that swung momentum completely away and the Broncos were unable to ever get it back.

So what gives?

“It was my fault, my eyes messed with me," Flacco said after the game. "I look at the pick obviously as a difference. [WR] Courtland [Sutton] kind of got covered and I looked back to throw what I thought was my shallow cross and Emmanuel wasn’t in my vision yet. All of a sudden, Emmanuel came into my vision as I was getting ready to throw what I thought was my shallow cross and it just completely interrupted what I thought. I didn’t have any idea who he was at that point, he was just really in my line of sight. I tried pulling back the ball yet again and it just floated out high to the guy that was kind of coming down and lurking the safety.”

Ouch.

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Look, quarterbacks are going to throw interceptions. Flacco now has three on the season.

But a single, solitary interception in the first half does not have to be the death knell it ended up being for the Broncos in Week 4. Alas, that's where this team is on an emotional level.

The Broncos lack intestinal fortitude. When those gut-check moments come, this team can't overcome its mistakes.

When a team's margin of error is literally zero, it's going to be impossible to win because the other team gets paid, too. Opponents are going to take the ball away at times and force mistakes on the Broncos.

Until this team can find a way to stick together and show some resilience in those gut-punch moments when momentum swings away from them, the losses will continue to mount. No team plays a perfect 60 minutes of football.

But the good ones have the confidence and wherewithal to overcome their mistakes when they happen.

“It seemed like on every drive we made a mistake here or a mistake there," Flacco said. "We know what those mistakes are and they hurt us.”

Bottom line, Flacco disappeared after that second-quarter interception, until the Broncos' final possession of the game. But in that gap between the INT and the final drive lies the key and story behind why the Broncos ultimately squandered a 14-point lead and lost this game.

For a veteran QB in his 12th-year, you'd hope to see Flacco not be so torpedoed by one interception for half of a game but that's exactly what happened in Week 4.

Follow Chad on Twitter @ChadNJensen and @MileHighHuddle.