ENGLEWOOD – It was the day after a heartbreaking, demoralizing, gut-wrenching and maddening defeat to a division rival and the Bronco players' parking lot was mostly empty, save for the spaces they share with the coaches.
Rare is the hour in victory or defeat, predawn darkness or 10 o’clock news that the coaches’ spaces are not occupied.
As the players licked their wounds on a Tuesday day off, the coaches were on to the New York Jets. Will Vance Joseph have a difficult time rallying his players for this Sunday’s game in the Meadowlands after his Broncos’ gagged away a 10-point, fourth quarter lead to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, 27-23, on Monday night?
“No, I don’t think so,’’ he said. “Our team is different. We have a lot of guys on this team that have put a lot of work in, even after the game last night. We’re all disappointed we didn’t win that football game because they played their hearts out. The facts are that we’ve been in four tough football games and we’re 2-2. It’s the first quarter, we have a lot of football left.
“Last year, we were 3-1 and really happy and we didn’t finish well. I think this league is about playing your best football late, and I think we’re heading that way. You watched us play those last two games here, and it’s two good football teams—at Baltimore and obviously the Chiefs here. We played good football, but we have to make more plays in these games. We have to be more detailed and we have to obviously coach better—help our team win these close games.’’
Since Walter Camp tweaked the rugby rules in the 1870s so that there were 11 players to a side instead of 15, and touchdowns became worth more points than kicks, football losses have been followed the next day by armchair quarterbacks second guessing the play calls. (“Hey, Walt, what’s with that overhand throw?”)
The defensive calls were questioned after Mahomes converted a second-and-30 situation with less than 3 minutes left by first scrambling right and completing a 23-yard pass to Demarcus Robinson against man coverage and then a 35-yard completion to backup tight end Demetrius Harris (after the play clock appeared to run out).
“Our DBs, in my opinion, played well with the first route, but as he escaped, the second and third route, that gave us problems,’’ Joseph said. “We could not get him on the ground. I was really surprised by that part. We have great rushers, we have guys who can run, we have guys who are great tacklers and finishers. We could not get him on the ground at all. He escaped us probably seven or eight times and he’s in the grass, but he escaped. Kudos to him.’’
On offense, the criticisms are mostly directed at not running the ball more, especially when Broncos’ backs Phillip Lindsay, Royce Freeman and lead blocker Andy Janovich were steamrolling the Chiefs’ front. Freeman clearly should have had more than 8 carries after he converted them into 67 yards rushing – 8.4 yards per carry – while establishing physicality advantage the Broncos had over the Chiefs.
“Royce the last two week is hitting his stride,’’ Joseph said. “He is playing at a high level. To watch him last night, obviously we’re blocking well up front, but he turned nothing into something. That’s Royce. That’s what he was in college.
“I’m looking forward to getting him more touches. He played about 16 or 17 plays last night, but he needs more opportunities because he is playing good football.”
Several times, Joseph laid blame on himself and his coaching staff. It seemed the Broncos’ coordinators had a great plan for three quarters. But once Mahomes started improvising off broken plays in the fourth quarter, all plans disintegrated.
“I thought we had great plans in all three phases,’’ Joseph said. “The bottom line is in this league in tough games we have to be our best as coaches when it matters. You can call a great game for three and a half quarters, but for half a quarter when the game is on the line, we have to be our best.
“That is my job to help our players pull these games out. Our players played hard. We can do a better job of making better and cleaner calls for our guys to be successful in those tough moments in the game.”
