Here's how the Broncos said, 'Enough' -- at least for one night

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Late Thursday night, with rain falling on an empty MetLife Stadium and the Broncos once again teetering on the edge of losing a winnable game, the Broncos and Bradley Chubb decided they’d had enough.

Enough of the blown leads in the final 10 minutes of games — five in all since the start of the 2019 season heading into this week.

Enough of the questions Chubb has endured regarding his recovery from a torn ACL suffered in this same week last season.

Enough of receiving opportunities and giving them right back.

The only thing they wanted to give the Jets on fourth-and-3 from midfield with 2:05 left in regulation and a slender 2-point lead was a pass rush and pain.

Mission accomplished. The Broncos poured through the Jets’ pass protection. Chubb corralled Jets quarterback Sam Darnold and prevented from escaping as he did on the first series of the game, when he eluded Alexander Johnson and Justin Simmons en route to a 46-yard touchdown run.

Sack, celebration, and after Melvin Gordon galloped for the game-clinching 43-yard touchdown one play later, ballgame. The Broncos had an unexpectedly entertaining 37-28 win that should, at least for a moment, calm the choppy waters through which the Broncos must try and sail.

“It’s huge because all week we talked about how we can’t be the same team that’s up two points and the offense drives down with two minutes left, kicks a field goal, and we lose by one,” Chubb said.

Chubb finished with 2.5 sacks — one of which came when Darnold lost his balance without being touched, leaving Chubb in position to be credited with the sack. But he was also a steady force, generating pressure that the Broncos supplemented with blitzes from Johnson and fellow inside linebacker Josey Jewell. Those two players combined for three sacks, two by Jewell, who played perhaps the best game of his career with 10 total tackles and a pass breakup to go along with his sacks.

“[Darnold] is a great scrambler and one way to try and help that is by adding another guy to the rush,” Broncos coach Vic Fangio said. “And kudos to our secondary, we gave up some plays, but those guys had to cover a good bit.”

This game showed that the Broncos’ defense could play the bend-but-don’t-break game to maximum effectiveness. None of the Jets’ drives that saw a snap made in the red zone resulted in a touchdown, as they settled for five Sam Ficken field goals. Darnold’s first-drive gallop for a score — the longest touchdown run made by a quarterback against Denver in nearly 54 years — was the only touchdown posted by the Jets offense.

But it also showed something more: the difference between a struggling team and a bad team.

The Broncos are a struggling team with the worst possible injury luck. The ineffectiveness of understudy quarterback Jeff Driskel forced them to start Brett Rypien, who had three excruciating interceptions but also two touchdown passes and some solid throws.

The Jets are a bad team. They have injuries, yes. But they also poured gasoline on themselves and lit matches at every opportunity.

Three of their 11 penalties nullified third-down stops for the Jets defense. Denver turned each of these second chances into points: two field goals and a Rypien-to-Jerry Jeudy touchdown pass.

Bad teams do what the Jets did: Hand over mistakes like invitations to a party. If the Broncos were on the Jets’ level, they would have declined through miscues of their own.

Instead, the Broncos capitalized. This is something that they failed to do when the Tennessee Titans — a team that was one game away from Super Bowl LIV — gave them similar opportunities through the missed kicks of Stephen Gostkowski in Week 1.

So, this should bring the “Tank for Trevor” talk to a halt; the Jets look to be in pole position for the No. 1 overall pick, for which Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence is the overwhelming favorite.

The Broncos are unlikely to be a playoff team; according to pro-football-reference.com, just six of 186 0-3 teams since the regular season expanded to 16 games in 1978 made the playoffs. But they could end up normalizing as the type of team they were in going 7-5 last year after an 0-4 start.

This doesn’t mean the Broncos have the answers to their long-term questions. Indeed, once starting quarterback Drew Lock returns, the dominant arc of the season will likely be exactly what most expected throughout the first eight months of the year: finding out whether Lock can be a long-term answer.

But Thursday showed that there is a line the battered Broncos could draw in the sand. Three excruciating losses in a row was enough.