Chris Harris, Jr.: Broncos “are way better than” San Diego

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DENVER – Despite losing to the San Diego Chargers just 17 days before and hanging onto a 27-19 victory over them on Sunday, the Denver Broncos had no lack of confidence on who is the better team.

“We are a better team, we are way better than them,” cornerback Chris Harris Jr. said after the game. “We just didn’t play well Thursday night. We let them keep sticking around. We got to learn to really stop playing with teams when we know we are clearly better and just finish them off.”

Although the Broncos had to make two defensive stops with less than four minutes left in the game to preserve the victory, the Broncos defense handled quarterback Phillip Rivers and the Chargers offense for most of the game, including three interceptions. Even though one went for a touchdown and the other two gave the Broncos offense the ball inside the red zone, it wasn’t enough for Harris.

“We should have had more, shouldn’t we,” Harris said. “We came to play. We knew it was a tough challenge going against [Rivers]. He made some errant throws and we just made him pay for those throws.”

Going into Sunday’s game the Broncos had three starters listed as game time decisions — cornerback Aqib Talib, linebacker Brandon Marshall and outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware. Only one — Ware — played in the game, giving cornerback Bradley Roby his seventh career start and Corey Nelson his first ever career start.

“They probably had the advantage because we had so many new guys on the field, I would probably give them the advantage,” he said.

With the absence of Talib, Harris knew that Rivers would most likely avoid throwing his way. While Harris did not have an interception, he didn’t have many opportunities.

“I have picked off Rivers tons of times,” the sixth-year corner said. “I knew coming into today with Aqib Talib not playing that I wasn’t going to get much work, so I knew my younger guys were going to have to come in and step up.”

While the three other starters in the secondary — Roby, Darian Stewart, and T.J. Ward — all had interceptions, Harris wasn’t too bothered as he reminded Broncos Country, “I’ve taken Rivers to the crib multiple times.”

The one area that Harris emphasized the entire team could work on was closing out games.

“I feel like we punched them way more, we just didn’t finish the game,” he said. “We just kept playing with them and we had opportunities to end the game way earlier and we just kept playing with them and playing with them.”

Although the Broncos would like to close teams out earlier, Ward, who Harris called the “Tasmanian Devil” for his energetic play on the field, said their consistency late in games a sign of what makes them great.

“It’s something that makes us great. In order to be a great defense, you got to have stands like that and win ball games. The best thing to do is win a Super Bowl. But this is a new year and we have new goals and a new Super Bowl to win,” Ward said.

The safety opposite of Ward, Stewart, echoed Ward and Harris’s statements about how great this team can be. The one thing the Broncos have to do to stay dominant is pretty simple, according to Stewart.

“We just got to keep being ourselves, when we are ourselves nobody can beat us,” he said. “That’s the best thing for us to do, is to just keep being ourselves that’s what got us here and that’s what got us to be No. 1 in the league.”

Talk about being No. 1 in the league along with chasing another Super Bowl is very high talk for any team midway through the season. However, sitting at 6-2 at the midway point in the season, the talk seems justified by their play.