Eight simple rules for handling the Broncos' 2019 season

If you’re a Broncos fan age 50 or younger, you didn’t know before now what this moment was like. You’d never experienced consecutive losing seasons from your team until now. You may barely, if at all, remember what it was like to look and see an NFL Most Valuable Player quarterbacking a division rival; before now, that had not happened since Ken Stabler’s days in Oakland.

Welcome to the new reality. The Broncos are 11-21 the last two seasons and now, with Patrick Mahomes towering over the AFC West, they face the same challenge their division rivals saw when they glanced at the Broncos and saw John Elway or Peyton Manning looking down from a football Everest.

Gulp.

It’s a new world. A potentially unpleasant one. But the only way to attack it is to accept the landscape and move from there.

Hiring Vic Fangio was the first step in this, because if you don’t have a top-10 quarterback of your own, the best way to counter that is to build a defense that can bring an elite opposing QB like Mahomes down a notch or two, giving you a chance to grind out some wins.

But the defense, which appears to be the most proven commodity, can’t do it all. The offense must improve, and its short and long-term concerns are pressing.

With that in mind, here are eight simple rules for you to keep the Broncos’ 60th season in the proper context.

1. DON’T GET TOO UP OR DOWN ABOUT THE FIRST GAME

The Broncos have made fast starts a habit in the past six seasons. They’ve never failed to post at least a 2-0 start in that span.

“I was talking to the young guys [and] I said, ‘In ’15, we started off [7-0], and every year I’ve been here, we started off hot when we were winning,” wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders said. “It’s all about starting off hot, so we’ve got to do that.”

But do they? The 2-0 starts of 2017 and 2018 were mirages. The team lacked a core identity. When trouble struck, it madly mashed buttons in order to turn it around.

It is more important for Fangio’s team to establish its identity. A loss in which the Broncos play sound defense, generate pressure on Derek Carr, limit mistakes on offense and fare better at the margins and details is better for the team’s long-term outlook than a miscue-filled win.

2. LEARNING ABOUT LOCK REMAINS A PRIORITY

His current stint on injured reserve doesn’t change that. With the Broncos currently opting for a backup quarterback with as many career starts as Drew Lock — zero — the path is clear for him to play if the season goes sour.

The Broncos’ primary short-term goal is to return to the playoffs and have Joe Flacco be the man to guide them there. But it wouldn’t hurt John Elway’s oft-stated goal of winning “from now on” if they had the chance to learn about Lock — and whether it’s in practice or the games, learn that he is capable of successfully guiding the team.

If he can, fabulous. Build around him. If Lock can’t, and Flacco is a short, rather than a long-term solution, the Broncos could be like the 2010-11 Carolina Panthers, taking a Round 1 quarterback a year after adding one in Round 2.

3. ACCEPT CHANGE

Broadway musicals are reviewed on opening night. But with new schemes on offense and defense and 60 percent of the roster having turned over in the last 18 months, it would be understandable if this team did not gel immediately — especially on special teams, which feels the brunt of changes on the back end of the roster.

After the weekend flurry of waiver claims, 19 members of the 53-man roster are newcomers.

Thirty-two of the 53 have only been around since 2018.

Consider this: The Broncos added seven players from other teams at or within 48 hours of the roster deadline. That is as many as they added in the same roster-deadline time frame of the previous seven seasons combined.

More roster churn would come as no shock, and on the back end of the roster, this could be a weeding-out year.

4. THINK LONG-TERM WITH PHILLIP LINDSAY

And that means giving Royce Freeman a substantial chunk of the carries.

As electric as Lindsay is, the template for the long-term success of running backs with his skill set is to have a complementary back sharing the load. A similarly framed running back with a nearly-identical skill set was Warrick Dunn, who played 12 seasons with the Buccaneers and Falcons from 1997-2008. He was almost always part of a tandem, starting with perennial Pro Bowl fullback Mike Alstott in the late 1990s. As a result, Dunn enjoyed good health and averaged almost as many yards per carry in his age-33 season (4.2) as his age-22 campaign (4.4).

Lindsay is crucial, but the Broncos must resist the temptation to increase his workload and, thus, increase the wear and tear on him.

If the Broncos are judicious, Lindsay could have a career that is lengthy and productive — and the Broncos could have a one-two punch in the backfield they have rarely possessed.

5. REGARDING NOAH FANT: TIGHT ENDS CAN TAKE TIME

Remember these numbers: 38 receptions, 429 yards, three touchdowns.

Those are the rookie averages per 16 games for all first-round tight ends selected since 2000. Tight end is a position that often requires at least a year for even the most talented of prospects to get up to speed. If Fant hits those numbers, be pleased with his development.

If Fant gets to 50 receptions, 600 yards and six touchdowns, be ecstatic. According to pro-football-reference.com, only four rookie tight ends ever hit all three of those standards, most recently the New York Giants’ Evan Engram in 2017. Even future Hall of Famer Rob Gronkowski didn’t hit 600 yards or 50 receptions as a rookie, although he did snag 10 touchdown passes in a 2010 season that offered a glimpse of greatness to come.

Expect some dynamic plays from Fant but do not expect him to be a finished product.

Proper development of a tight end requires patience. This is also why you shouldn’t moan in frustration this year when you evaluate the production of Fant and Lock compared with that of the No. 10 pick that the Broncos traded, Steelers linebacker Devin Bush.

6. THE O-LINE COULD TAKE TIME, TOO

In Pittsburgh, Mike Munchak helped transform a pass-protection scheme that had the league’s second-worst sack rate in the previous 10 seasons to one that had the second-best sack rate during his five years as their offensive-line coach.

The primary quarterback was the same of course: Ben Roethlisberger. While individual sacks can be at the feet of a running back or tight end in protection, the offensive line or the quarterback himself, the Steelers’ improvement in overall rate belonged mostly to the offensive line.

Pittsburgh’s improvement was immediate, but it was in the third year with Munchak that they truly soared. Pittsburgh’s sack rate went from one every 18.9 pass plays in 2015 — Munchak’s second year on the job — to one every 29.7 pass plays in 2016. It never dropped below one sack every 25 pass plays in the next two years.

Expect better play from the line than the Broncos have had in recent years. But to get the full Munchak effect, Denver needs schematic and coaching continuity. His work grows more fruitful with time. If Munchak has three years to cultivate the Broncos’ line, you can expect one of the league’s finest units to blossom.

7. EMMANUEL SANDERS IS THE KEY TO THE OFFENSE

For Flacco to turn back the clock five years and return to his 2014 form, he needs Sanders to be his Steve Smith.

The presence of Gary Kubiak as the Ravens’ offensive coordinator in 2014 is cited most often as the cause of Flacco’s big year. But an equal reason was the presence of Smith, signed by Baltimore after being a salary-cap casualty in Carolina.

Here’s where we note the impact on Flacco. Before Smith tore his Achilles tendon halfway through the 2015 season Flacco threw 43 touchdown passes and 22 interceptions over 26 games in 2014 and 2015, including the Ravens’ two playoff games in January 2015. In the three-plus seasons after Smith tore his Achilles, Flacco threw 54 touchdown passes and 38 interceptions.

Flacco’s interception rate spiked slightly — from one every 43.3 attempts pre-Smith injury to one every 41.8 from that point forward. But without Smith being a top-shelf vertical threat, Flacco’s touchdown rate sagged from one every 22.1 attempts to one every 29.4.

The collapse of the Broncos’ offense last year revealed Sanders’ value to the offense. Without him, safeties didn’t take the Broncos’ vertical threat seriously, and Lindsay and Feeman found their running lanes clogged. With Flacco, a quarterback who thrives with an experienced, dynamic downfield threat, Sanders is more crucial than ever.

8. THE SEASON CAN BE A SUCCESS WITHOUT THE PLAYOFFS

But for this to happen, Lock would have to start some games in the second half of the season and prove that he can be a long-term answer at quarterback.

The best example of this kind of season rests with the 2008 Packers, who finished 6-10 but learned that Aaron Rodgers was a franchise cornerstone. But a more realistic comparison could rest in how the then-Houston Oilers handled the late Steve McNair, playing him in the last two games of his first two seasons after their postseason chances were dashed.

A 6-10 or 7-9 season would be frustrating, yes. But such a year in which Lock plays in December and shows palpable progress would engender a far different emotion heading into 2020 than the last two losing seasons.

A campaign in which the Broncos miss the playoffs and learn nothing about Lock’s long-term viability is a failure on all counts. Such a scenario would likely involve Flacco not returning to his 2014 level, ensuring the franchise remains in the same hazy rut in the standings and its long-term quarterback situation as it has been the last two years.