The Broncos fell victim to their own mentality against the Raiders

 

Even-keeled. Calm. Comfortable. Unbothered.

These are all words that were used to describe two of the most important people in the Denver Broncos organization in 2019—head coach Vic Fangio and starting quarterback Joe Flacco.

The personality of a team often takes on the characteristics of one of those two positions, and with both in Denver being very similar in that regard, it’s clear to see why the team has become a reflection of them.

In many cases, this can be a positive. You don’t want your team to get too high on the highs or too low on the lows. But on Monday Night Football, under the bright lights of the Oakland Coliseum, with the world—or at least the West Coast—watching, that mentality doomed the Broncos.

As the Raiders—a historically aggressive team with a fiery head coach—came out ready to throw the first punch and incite a brawl, the Broncos came out looking like the happy-go-lucky hippie that’s wondering what everyone is so mad about.

Unfortunately for Denver, the brawl was on, and before they could throw their hands up and say “whoa, whoa, whoa” they took an uncontested right hook to the chin.

The Raiders offense came right out of the gates with a 10-play, 77-yard touchdown drive that left Denver’s heavyweight defense stunned. Then, on the Broncos’ first play of the game on offense, Oakland’s scrappy group of defenders landed another punch, crushing Noah Fant in the backfield for a five-yard loss, the first domino in an eventual three-and-out.

From that moment, as the fired-up Oakland defense danced their way off of the field, it felt as if the scales were tipped, and the Broncos did little to nothing to turn them back the other way.

Eventually, calm and collected started to feel more like lackadaisical and uninspired.

Down 14-0, with the ball and a chance to cut Oakland’s lead in half before halftime, Flacco and the Denver offense trotted on the field with as much hop in their step as a kid who just got told to do their chores. With 3:30 on the clock, the Broncos ran the ball twice to start the drive before Flacco hit Sutton for a quick pass. After just three plays, Denver had run 1:30 off the clock and gained just 16 yards.

Eventually, they moseyed their way down to the 36-yard line with 23 seconds on the clock, but a couple of incomplete passes and a holding penalty left them with nothing but a 64-yard field goal attempt that fell short.

The lack of urgency was painful to watch.

In the second half, Denver seemed to finally wake up a little bit, but even down two scores with just over four and a half minutes left in the game, Flacco and the boys couldn’t be bothered to rush their process, consistently letting more than 20 seconds run off between snaps.

Though they eventually scored, they kicked the ball away with just over two minutes on the clock and never saw it again.

What’s concerning here is this, like many of the issues that doomed Denver on Monday, came up during training camp.

On the first day of their joint practices with the 49ers, the Broncos too-calm approach got the best of them.

Here’s an excerpt from our observations that day.

From the second that the teams broke from their individual groups and made their way to their respective fields, it was clear the 49ers defense was bringing the energy, as they chanted and danced in unison.

And when things got live, the energy translated between the lines.

The offense got their tails kicked that day, never quite finding a way to get on San Francisco’s level from an energy standpoint. After practice, Rich Scangarello said, “My message to the offense is we have to meet their intensity, obviously.”

In that situation, Denver got a mulligan, and they brought the energy on Day 2. Unfortunately, there are no mulligans in the regular season. What should have served as a lesson on that day went by the wayside, and it cost the Broncos a chance to start 1-0.

So where does Denver go from here?

Inherently, it’s not a bad thing to have a calm and cool personality as a team, but Denver seems to be missing that energetic leader that can light a fire under a team that lacks it.

One would think Phillip Lindsay would be the perfect man for that job, but veteran defensive lineman Shelby Harris had a very interesting quote last week when asked about Lindsay potentially becoming a leader in 2019.

“When you have a veteran team like this, nobody is really listening to someone in year two,” he said, much to my surprise. “There’s a lot of adversity that he hasn’t seen in the league yet… How can you go to somebody that hasn’t been through it?”

Well then…

My advice: Stop worrying about the “experience” column and let the kid inject some caffeine into the veins of this team. Your “win” column will thank him later.