Here's how the blowout loss to the Bills sealed another Broncos season to forget

DENVER — At least no fans were there to see it.

In falling 48-19 to Buffalo at Empower Field at Mile High on Saturday afternoon, the Broncos suffered their most lopsided home loss in nine years, surrendered more points at home than they had in 10 years and suffered through a defeat that was their third at home this season by at least 25 points … but no fans will carry the memories of witnessing the carnage in person.

Buffalo danced off the field, celebrating its first division title in 25 years. The Broncos shivered in gusty, piercing winds that provided an apt metaphor for yet another season stuck in the cold.

Past glories have never seemed farther away.

With Brandon McManus out because of a COVID-19 close contact and Von Miller still on injured reserve, no Bronco who took the field Saturday was a part of their Super Bowl 50 team.

That left safety Justin Simmons as the senior member of the team in terms of continuous tenure.

When Simmons arrived via the 2016 NFL Draft, the “No-Fly Zone” was intact and the standard by which secondaries were measured. The Broncos were defending Super Bowl 50 champions, and even with Peyton Manning in retirement, seemed poised for another strong run built on a generational defense.

Simmons got a glimpse of the standard.

Eleven weeks into that season, he and his teammates returned from their bye with a 7-3 record, first place on the line and the sight of the franchise’s three Lombardi Trophies shining in a case in the center of the locker room. The trophies provided a reminder of the organizational standard and what was at stake as the team looked to marshal itself for another January run.

Then, the Broncos lost four of their next five games to tumble out of the playoff picture. They haven’t come close to being in the postseason conversation since then. They haven’t even been a .500 team after 14 games since then.

Since an overtime loss to Kansas City in Week 12 of the 2016 season — a game which augured the end of the Broncos’ era of excellence — the Broncos have the league’s sixth-lowest winning percentage, just .368. Should Cleveland defeat the New York Giants on Sunday night, the Broncos will be fifth-worst in that span, better than only the Jaguars, Giants, Bengals and Jets.

If you’re known by the company you keep, the Broncos are in desperate straits.

“We all know the expectations here in Denver and the winning tradition that this organization has,” Simmons said Saturday. “To be here my whole career and not be a part of the playoffs and have four straight losing seasons is tough. It’s a tough pill to swallow.”

Time and the accumulation of defeats hasn’t made losing any easier, although now the memories of the glory days are fading. Just one of the “No-Fly Zone” starters remains in the NFL.

But perhaps the most frustrating aspect is that through the mounting defeats of the last 68 games of Broncos football, the sources of the failures often change by the week.

My old friend and former co-host Ryan Edwards of KOA-AM 850 calls it “Leaky Boat Syndrome,” and no term is more apt. You think you have one hole plugged, and another begins spitting water into the hull.

For example, the Broncos came into the game in the league’s top 10 in fewest penalties and penalty yardage … and then handed the Bills a field goal with two discipline infractions on one drive, one of which saw cornerback Michael Ojemudia throw a punch, per what coach Vic Fangio relayed from his conversation with an official.

“I’m very disappointed in Michael there, losing his cool,” Fangio said.

Saturday’s defeat was also a loss to which all three phases contributed.

The Broncos’ outmanned defense allowed 534 yards — more than the team has given up in any single game since Super Bowl XXII on Jan. 31, 1988. It feel prey to discipline penalties on one third-quarter series that resulted in Ojemudia’s ejection.

Their offense had some steady bursts as it played a close-to-the vest game plan, but failed to post a gain of 20 or more yards. Ultimately, the offense was felled by mistakes: a K.J. Hamler drop, a pass that sailed through Jerry Jeudy’s hands, some apparent timing issues on Lock’s passes to Jeudy and, most dramatically, Tre’Davious White’s third-quarter strip-sack of Lock that Jerry Hughes recovered and ran 21 yards into the end zone for the score that turned the game into a runaway.

Punter Sam Martin was perhaps the Broncos’ most consistent and effective contributor. But the special teams surrendered a 53-yard Andre Roberts kickoff return and saw fill-in kicker Taylor Russolino miss two extra points and a 51-yard field-goal attempt as he tried to fill in for McManus.

“Obviously, there was some wind out there, but it didn’t bother [the Bills’] kicker,” Fangio said.

Russolino isn’t a part of the Broncos’ future. With McManus expected to return, he will become an odd footnote in a season whose sadness is surpassed only by its strangeness.

But plenty of players who took part in the Broncos’ ninth defeat of 2020 are in the future plans.

“I will say, just because it’s a losing season doesn’t mean that there aren’t positive things that you can grow off of,” Simmons said. “That’s the mindset.”

That has been the mindset for the other three losing seasons that preceded this one, too. And from 2017 to 2018 and 2018 to 2019, there was improvement, albeit modest in nature: from five wins to six and six wins to seven.

That won’t happen this year; even wins against the Chargers and Raiders in the next two weeks will only allow the Broncos to match their 2019 mark.

The Broncos can point to a flood of defensive injuries that finally caused their defensive dam to burst in the last six quarters. In that 90 minutes of football, the Panthers and Bills poured through for 816 yards, seven touchdowns and 62 points — which prorates to 41.4 points per 60 minutes.

After playing the bend-but-don’t-break game successfully in recent weeks, Denver’s defense finally snapped like a dry twig.

Cornerback was the biggest reason why. With four cornerbacks on injured reserve and A.J. Bouye serving a 6-game suspension, the Broncos ran out of “next men up” — and that was before Ojemudia’s ejection.

And then there is the big picture of Lock, whose career passer rating in his first 16 starts is 79.8. His 2020 passer rating of 75.4 is 33rd among 35 eligible QBs (minimum 180 attempts).

Saturday’s loss offered a glimpse at how early-career struggles can become eventual success. Josh Allen’s rating for his first 16 games was 70.8; now he is playing at an elite level — and perhaps never better than he was on Saturday.

Lock and Allen are two of the 26 quarterbacks since 2010 who made their first 16 starts in that span. Of those quarterbacks, seven — including Allen — were clear hits. Lock, Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones fall into the TBD category. Sixteen were misses who did not develop into viable long-term starting passers.

Yes, Lock still has a chance. But it is unwise to consider only Allen’s example when there is a cluster of quarterbacks like Brock Osweiler, Brian Hoyer, E.J Manuel, Brandon Weeden and Blaine Gabbert who are in the same statistical category and failed to launch.

The optimism that accompanied Lock’s first five starts last year has mostly vanished.

It could come back, just like players such as Courtland Sutton, Ja’Wuan James, Albert Okwuegbunam, Von Miller and others are projected to stream back next year. Their returns would give the Broncos a shot only exceeded in benefit by a COVID-19 vaccine.

They will be fighting to reignite a flame of relevance and energy. It can be done — and the Broncos need only look at their opponents Saturday for an example. After all, the Bills missed the playoffs for 17 consecutive seasons before breaking through in 2017. The Broncos’ skein is at a comparatively reasonable five.

But at this moment, the Broncos remain in the cold. They stand shivering as they watch yet another NFL season go by — a campaign in which once again, they were a fringe character.