DENVER — Evaluated through the microscope of a single game, the Broncos are close. Close enough to smell, feel, and touch a victory over a team that roared through the NFC North last year.
They were one second away.
One questionable roughing-the-passer call against Bradley Chubb away — although it must be said, the Broncos were the beneficiaries of a similarly confounding call against Chicago’s Eddie Goldman.
One centimeter of the football away — the amount by which Bears running back David Montgomery appeared to have the ball over the goal line with his third-quarter touchdown run.
Flip those, and maybe you’re talking about the Broncos avoiding their first 0-2 start since TLC was on the charts and Y2K fears were real.
Then you step back from the eyepiece and take in the broader view.
It’s ugly. The Broncos are flailing, and at this moment stare up at most of the NFL.
Sunday’s loss was their sixth in a row dating back to last season. No team has a longer active losing streak.
The Broncos now have endured two losing streaks of six or more defeats in the last 32 games. Put simply, that is as many skids of at least six games in the last two years’ worth of games as they had in the previous 49, when they had two such streaks — one in 1990, and one that lingered from the end of the 1993 season through an 0-4 start in 1994.
Four of the defeats in the current skein came without Chris Harris Jr. and Emmanuel Sanders, and with a different head coach on the sidelines. But Harris and Sanders returned — with Sanders re-emerging as his old, explosive self. Vic Fangio replaced Vance Joseph. Joe Flacco replaced Case Keenum at quarterback. Phillip Lindsay returned to full health and explosiveness.
So much changed. The defeats remained.
Sunday’s loss was the Broncos’ sixth game in a row in which they failed to score 20 points. No other team has failed to hit 20 points in that span, an outcome that seems inconceivable in this offensive-centric era of football.
What was once rare has now become numbingly common.
The fans understand this. That’s why a stream of supporters flowed up and down the stairs and out the door after Flacco threw the interception with 4:51 remaining. The Broncos had three timeouts, trailed by just seven points, and fans who years ago wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving for fear of missing a dramatic comeback headed for the exits.
Of course, those fans missed a rally, anyway. But they are to be forgiven. That’s what going 4-12 in the last 16 games, 9-23 in the last 32 and 12-24 in the last 36 can do.
The wounds of the last two years have yet to form scabs. Full healing appears to be a long way off.
FORWARD, THEN BACK … LATHER, RINSE, REPEAT
For the Broncos as a whole, every step forward seems accompanied by a retreat.
Flacco and Sanders have combined for 184 yards and both of the Broncos’ touchdowns so far this season. But the defense’s pass rush has been neutralized by opponents’ proclivity for passes in two or fewer seconds after the snap, and the Broncos are still looking for their first sack.
“I’ve got to find a way to do my job, no matter how fast they do it,” said outside linebacker Von Miller, who has now gone four consecutive games without a sack for just the second time in his career.
The two-point conversion to give the Broncos a lead with 31 seconds remaining was a gorgeous bit of redemption; the Flacco-to-Sanders pass it was a call that mimicked the one earlier in the fourth quarter that resulted in a Kyle Fuller interception.
But Broncos offensive linemen were whistled for six holding penalties — four against Garett Bolles, two against Ron Leary. Only two teams committed more holding penalties over the last two years than the Broncos’ 66 — 54 of which were accepted — and now the Broncos have 10 holding infractions in the last two weeks. According to NFLPenalties.com, just two teams have more through two games.
And thus, the Broncos walk a tightrope. A stiff gust of wind in the form of a fluttering yellow flag can be enough to send them tumbling to earth.
The goal is to turn the tightrope into a bridge. To be strong enough to withstand the gusts. Consternation over the Chubb penalty, the holding calls and the decision of referee Adrian Hill to put one second back on the clock filled the locker room after the game.
But other moments could have made a difference.
“There’s plays here and there throughout the game — maybe four or five plays that are huge,” safety Justin Simmons said. “One of them, on the defensive side of the ball being that toss sweep to [Cordarrelle Patterson] that went for what seemed like seventy-some yards. You cut plays out like that, the explosives, make them drive down the field against our defense all day long, it would have been a longer day for them.
“We weren’t able to do stuff like that. It doesn’t always come down to one play. There’s always those multiple [plays like that] throughout the game.”
And that’s why blaming a single call or a decision to put one second back on the clock is foolish. Teams that win don’t moan about the calls that went against them. They steel themselves to keep building to ensure that the next time, a lousy call doesn’t make a difference.
How you view this moment as a Broncos fan depends on how you view the world.
If you are an optimist, you feel it is always darkest just before the dawn. You step to the microscope, peer at the signs of progress and think the Broncos are due next Sunday in Green Bay, that their 0-for-Wisconsin (with one tie) streak will end, and that the glitches will be fixed.
If you are a pessimist, you believe it’s darkest just before it’s pitch black. You step back from the lens, wince at the league’s longest active losing streak, glance in the distance and see dark clouds named Aaron Rodgers, Phillip Rivers and Patrick Mahomes on the horizon.
Those are two divergent glimpses of the near future.
But the past two years were gloomy, and the present hasn’t seen many breaks in the clouds.
