DENVER — Leading up to Sunday’s matchup between the 7-6 Denver Broncos and the 7-6 Cincinatti Bengals, Justin Simmons didn’t shy away from the importance of the Week 15 game.
“I told you guys all week this is a do-or-die situation for us in terms of getting into the postseason and setting us up fairly well with three games left in our division,” Simmons admitted Sunday night.
On Sunday afternoon at Empower Field at Mile high, the Broncos, specifically the offense, laid an egg.
“We fell short,” Simmons stated about the do-or-die situation, where Denver lost 15-10.
A win on Sunday, and Denver’s playoff odds would have jumped above 30 percent. Instead, their odds tanked to only five percent.
“It’s not a lack of effort or want to or anything like that,” Simmons explained. “We just—in the NFL in the fourth quarter, one-score games, the good teams find ways to win those games, and we didn’t find a way to win that game today.”
Entering Sunday, the Bengals were the ninth seed in the AFC. The Broncos were the 10th seed. Both teams had the same record as the final two wild card seeds.
After Cincinatti’s five-point victory, the Bengals skyrocketed to the fourth seed in the AFC. Denver dropped to the 12th seed.
“I think that’s what hurts the most is we played a really good Bengals team and we had a chance to win. We just couldn’t get it done,” Simmons stated. “So like I’ve been saying all season long, culture-wise is up to the leaders. You can spin that, you know, whichever way you want to, but it’s up to the leaders to find a way to help us win games like that. That’s what it comes down to. No one cares about anything else but winning those games.”
Sitting five spots out of the playoffs, Denver is only one game back of the final three wild card spots—currently held by the Colts, the Chargers and the Bills—but is near the back of a traffic jam full of nine teams vying for only three spots.
“I know the percentages [of making the playoffs] drop—maybe even drastically. By no means does that mean the last three games, especially divisional games, are we saying ‘Let’s just finish out these last three games and whatever’—no,” Simmons stated firmly. “If other teams lose and we win, we still have a shot. I don’t know what it looks like. I don’t know the percentages but one thing I know about the group is nobody is going to put down and fold and point fingers—none of that.”
The Broncos aren’t going to fold. They still have a shot, as displayed by the five percent odds at making the playoffs. But, in Simmons’ words, Sunday was a do-or-die situation. And the Broncos came up short.
“We need to win. That’s what it comes down to,” Simmons continued. “No one is satisfied by any stretch of the imagination that we’re playing in meaningful games in December. We want to win just as bad as everyone wants us to win. We want to win more than fans want us to win. We want to win… With three games left, we’re sitting at a 1-2 division record, and we have to win these games.”
Simmons is right. For the Broncos to realistically have any shot to make the playoffs, they’ll have to win out.
Their next three games are, unfortunately, on the road against the 6-7 Raiders, in Los Angeles against the 8-6 Chargers and at home to end the season against the 10-4 Chiefs.
Denver had a massive opportunity in front of them on Sunday. They just fell short.
