Fangio Explains What Dominoes Have to Fall for Broncos to Become Playoff Team in 2021

So much for bouncing off the bottom. If anything, the Denver Broncos briefly skidded off the floor only to see gravity stomp them back into the doldrums in 2020.

It's been a rough year for the Broncos. Vic Fangio probably wouldn't have guessed that the Football Gods would make Year 2 of his tenure as head coach even more arduous than his first.

Sitting at 5-10, the Broncos enter the season-finale vs. the Las Vegas Raiders with nothing left to play for but pride. The focus in the media, and fanbase, has shifted to next year as expected for a double-digit-loss club.

Fangio remains bullish on the Broncos' chances at turning the corner next season and becoming a playoff contender. But he also knows that certain dominoes will have to fall the right way for it to happen.

“We just have to make a lot of improvements, obviously," Fangio said on Monday. "We have to get healthy; we have to improve as players and coaches—we're all in this together. I say many times that players and coaches are teammates, and we have to improve in those areas."

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It should be encouraging that Fangio did not first point at the injury bug but instead at the improvements the Broncos need to make as the team. No doubt, injuries played a massive role in the Broncos' 2020 fate but to stand up there and point to it as reason No. 1 would be graceless and tone-deaf.

"We have to make the plays when they're there to be made," Fangio continued. "We have to call good plays. We have to execute better, and obviously getting guys back healthy will play a big part in that, we hope.”

One of the reasons 2020 has been so unkind to Fangio is because he and the Broncos have had to fight a three-front war of external forces while also scheming and playing 16 games on the schedule. First, the Broncos had to deal with the fallout and collateral effects of the pandemic, which, for a team as young as this, was a brutal task.

Second, the Broncos had to fight the NFL front office, who, at several points in this season, put an unfair onus on the team. And third, the Broncos had to fight the injury bug, which, to be fair, had an inordinate effect on this team.

The whos-who list of star and key players who've spent most, if not all, of 2020 on injured reserve is a long one. Von Miller, Courtland Sutton, A.J. Bouye (followed by suspension), Jurrell Casey, Mike Purcell, Bryce Callahan, Justin Strnad, Essang Bassey, Albert Okwuegbunam, Jake Butt, and even Phillip Lindsay.

Count 'em up. That's 16 Pro Bowls sitting on IR right now. Health — or lack thereof — is a more than reasonable explanation for why 2020 didn't turn out as planned. Throw in Drew Lock's Week 2 injury to his throwing shoulder, which cost him most of that game, and all of the next two, and it become a veritable comedy of injuries.

The NFL only added insult to injury for Denver.

From rescheduling their Week 5 game to Week 6, robbing the Broncos of a true bye, and reshuffling multiple games on the schedule, to making this team its whipping boy and forcing Denver to all-but-forfeit in Week 12 and take on the New Orleans Saints without a quarterback — after bending over backward to accommodate similarly-afflicted teams — and taking a punitive stance on Brandon McManus' 'close-contact' exposure to COVID-19, forcing the team to play without its kicker in Week 15 — the NFL had a big impact on this team's destiny.

Roger Goodell and his minions only intensified this team's struggle. And that's no lie.

When it comes to things the Broncos can control, what can Fangio and company do to turn the ship around next year? Yes, guys need to get healthy, but the impetus for everything is the quarterback.

Lock and offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur (if he returns) need time on task this offseason to get on the same page. If Shurmur and QBs Coach Mike Shula, given the traditional offseason reps, can shepherd Lock through his Year 3 learning curve the way the Broncos hoped the coaching duo would in Year 2, all things become possible in 2021.

Getting better on special teams would help, too. From there, it's a matter of the young, key players across this roster continuing to develop and blossom.

It can happen. In fact, each year, it seems the NFL has a worst-to-first team come out of nowhere to take the league by storm and stake a claim on the playoffs. It could be the Broncos next year.

But the team will need a little luck in order for those dominoes to fall just right. And I'm not just talking about health, though the NFL teams that'll be playing January football are likely to be the most fortunate when it comes to staying out of the injury bug's crosshairs.

Now might be a good time to start paying tithing to the Football Gods if you're name is Vic Fangio. Or John Elway. Or Drew Lock.

Follow Chad on Twitter @ChadNJensen and @MileHighHuddle.