Here’s how the Broncos made an enemy into a 'friend'

Turning points often come when a team is at the brink of disaster — or simply having failure accumulate to the cusp of the point of no return.

And they’re not always obvious.

Yes, Phillip Lindsay’s 55-yard touchdown gallop in the third quarter Sunday was the big blast that awoke the slumbering Broncos. But as Broncos coach Vic Fangio saw it, the alarm started going off and rousing his team two snaps earlier, when Drew Lock hit DaeSean Hamilton for an 18-yard connection.

“I think that’s the play that got us going,” Fangio said. “It was third-and-8. If we don’t convert that and we punt then the whole tone of this conversation today would probably be different. It just takes one play. That was a big, big play and we had a big run there by Phillip and all of a sudden, we’re back in the game.”

Prior to that point, the Broncos had been 0-for-6 on third downs of at least 8 yards against the Chargers. Over the course of the season, that left the Broncos with a 20-percent success rate on third downs with at least 8 yards needed to reach the line to gain, having gone 9-of-45 in that scenario.

“Third down hasn’t been a friend of ours this year offensively,” Fangio said.

After that Hamilton conversion, the Broncos faced just one more third down of long yardage Sunday. They converted it via Lock’s 43-yard pass on third-and-16 to Jerry Jeudy.

But across the board, the Broncos improved on third downs of all distances. They came into Sunday 30th in the league, converting just 36.3 percent of their third-down opportunities, then started the game by converting just one of eight third-down chances.

But from the Hamilton catch onward, the Broncos moved the chains on four of their five third downs.

For the entire game, the Broncos converted 5 of their 13 third-down opportunities. That isn’t great; it’s below the league average of 40.2 percent over the last two years.

But for the Broncos, it was an improvement over their typical form. It was their seventh-best success rate in the 23 games under Fangio, and it improved their record to 5-2 when they convert at least 38 percent of their third downs, compared with 5-11 when they don’t.

“The ability to convert the third downs I think is hopefully something that we can rally on and continue to do a better job there,” Fangio said.

It might be the leading indicator of whether the Broncos’ offensive revival is for real, or just a mirage.