12 penalties for 103 yards. One negating a touchdown, one resulting in a safety.
Two turnovers. One leading to a San Diego field goal, the other ending a late drive with a chance to bring the game within one score.
On Thursday night, the Denver Broncos saw the scoreboard swing at least 12 points the wrong way due to their own errors in a game they lost by only eight. It’s a recipe that simply doesn’t result in wins in the National Football League, especially on the road.
“Way too many mistakes for us to overcome,” quarterback Trevor Siemian told KOA radio after the game. “We’re going to fight every game, every chance we get, we know that but way too many mistakes to overcome.”
“No real consistency, no rhythm,” he added. “As soon as we got going it felt like it was another self-inflicted wound that caught us up. We had to play against the Chargers and ourselves tonight so that’s tough anytime you have to do that.”
Of the 12 penalties, six were holds. Each member of the Broncos starting line had a penalty to their name. Any time the team got something going on the ground, it came back. It added up one of the ugliest offensive outputs for a Broncos team since Tim Tebow was the quarterback and subsequently the team suffered their first divisional road loss since. . . Tim Tebow was the quarterback.
In their flashy uniforms, the Orange & Blue looked dull, scoring just 13 points on the day. 10 of those points came off of two San Diego muffed punts, the other three coming on a late drive in which the team opted to kick an early field goal and line up for an onside kick.
The other 11 possessions looked like this:
Punt (five plays)
Punt (six plays)
Punt (three plays)
End of half
Punt (three plays)
Fumble (four plays)
Punt (three plays)
Missed field goal (seven plays)
Safety (one play)
Fumble (seven plays)
Turnover on downs (four plays)
The Broncos simply did not make plays on the offensive side, as banged up Trevor Siemian was forced to throw the ball 50 times, completing only 3o.
“We knew going in they’re a heck of a front and we didn’t do as well as we needed to,” interim head coach Joe DeCamillis told KOA. “We had way too many mistakes all the way across the board. When you turn the ball over, you make mistakes and you have penalties, it’s hard to win a game.”
After back-to-back ugly performances, the only positive may be that the team now gets a mini-bye week with an eleven-day break before they take the field again.
“We have a few days off here, we have the Monday night coming up against Houston and we have to regroup,” DeCamillis explained. “Our leader [head coach Gary Kubiak] is going to be back and we have to do everything we can to get right back in it.”
They will certainly have plenty to work on.
