“Why not?”: Broncos holding tight to a glimmer of hope

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The Denver Broncos are down, yet not quite out, at least in their eyes.

Currently riding a brutal seven-game stretch in which the team dropped six games—including a five-game losing streak—nearly no-one outside of the UCHealth Training Center is giving the Broncos any chance to salvage their season.

In fact, The New York Times NFL Playoff Simulator—which runs all three decillion (a very large number) possible outcomes for the rest of the season—gave Denver a seven percent chance of making the playoffs, and that may be a generous number to what others around the town and country would give Denver.

Even sitting at 3-6, however, the people inside the team’s facility still believe this season is up for grabs. Whether it’s hope or a true belief, they’re not quite done fighting for this year.

“We understand that we have a good football team. There is plenty of season left to fix it,” Joseph said, holding a positive attitude the week following their 41-16 loss to the New England Patriots. “Everyone is still working, and everyone is still confident in what we can get accomplished.”

Currently, only three teams have fewer wins in the NFL than Denver—the 0-9 Cleveland Browns, the 1-9 San Francisco 49ers and the 1-8 New York Giants. The Broncos sit half a game back of the Indianapolis Colts for the second-worst record in the entire AFC.

“I think we’re disappointed in where we are. I am, but we’re not broken by any means because we believe we can win, and we’ve worked that way each week,” Joseph said, keeping the spirits up. “We just haven’t had the results that we want the last four weeks.”

Saying all of that, there is a reason the Broncos have optimism. Entering the final seven games of the season, the Broncos sit three games back of the division-leading Kansas City Chiefs—with one game between the two teams still remaining—and only two games back of the Buffalo Bills—who just benched their starting quarterback—for the final wild-card spot.

However, it would take an impressive streak for the Broncos to overcome either of those deficits—potentially an inverse of their last seven games. When running back C.J. Anderson was asked if the team can win seven straight games to close out there regular season, he said, “Yeah, why not?”

“We’ve got nothing else to lose,” Anderson said. “We’ve been losing. We’ve got nothing else to lose, so why not?”

It’s not just their words that don the message they believe they can turn around the season, either. It’s their actions. After going winless in Brock Osweiler’s first two starts, there was a belief that the Broncos would turn the keys over to first-round pick Paxton Lynch going into Week 11. If they did this, it would appear they were ready to concede the end of the season for evaluation purposes.

Instead, they stuck with Osweiler for Sunday’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals, showing they are still playing for this season.

“The mindset is to go out there and get a win this week,” Osweiler said with positivity. “We truly believe as players in that locker room that if we can get this win. Hopefully, we can create some momentum with that and get a little streak going. At the end of the day, our goal is still out there for us to go out there and take. Obviously, we have to get a win this week.”

The last time the Broncos had a seven-game winning streak was the first year of the Peyton Manning era when the team won 10-straight games. Osweiler was on that team, but never saw the field as Manning’s backup. For them to win seven-straight to close out the season, it would be nothing short of amazing. According to Anderson, it starts with believing.

“You’ve got to speak into existence and continue to play hard and continue to tell yourself, ‘You can do this,’” he said taking the approach of a coach. “As leaders on this team, continue to push it and continue to lift the team up to let them know that this is possible. It’s been done, so why can’t it be us?”

The Broncos’ motto after the first four games of the season was “More.” The final seven games the most fitting slogan appears to be “Why not?”