The Denver Broncos lost to the Green Bay Packers on the road 27-16 to start the season 0-3. Despite another tough loss, the Broncos played a solid game in all but one area - turnovers. Few teams are good enough to overcome a playoff contender like Green Bay with a minus three in the turnover department.
Head Coach Vic Fangio is seeing a lot of good out there, but not enough to bring out the wins.
“Yeah, we’re 0-3, that’s our record, that’s a fact,” Fangio said after the game. “I do see a lot of good out there, but not enough. We’re not doing enough good things that the good teams that win do, which is protect the ball. It hasn’t been a problem in the first two games, but it was today. We’re not getting the ball turned over, as everybody has alluded to. And we’re not stopping them enough, even though our stats might show that. We’re not playing good enough defense.”
The 0-3 record is part of a larger downfall in the post-Peyton Manning era in Denver. They just don’t know how to win anymore.
Broncos record ...
— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) September 23, 2019
... in their last 8 games: 1-7
... in their last 16 games: 4–12
... in their last 32 games: 9-23
... in their last 48 games: 17-31
Through three games, the story for the Broncos has been finding ways to shoot themselves in the foot. In Week 1, the defense was shredded by Derek Carr play after play. In Week 2, Garett Bolles held everything and everyone. Now in Week 3, turnovers. As Joe Flacco put it, it’s the same story for them.
“I don’t think it’s any tougher, no,” Flacco said of the loss being tougher. “It was kind of the same story for us – that we did certain things well and other things that we didn’t. At the end of the day, we couldn’t put it all together.”
But it also doesn’t quite feel like the sky is falling even now. You see too many positives and good executive outside of those critical errors that have cost the team games to start the season to think they shouldn’t be winning some games here soon.
If the leaders on this team continue to grind this out, I think there is a good shot they could end up .500 by the time they play the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 7. I feel both the home games against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tennessee Titans are winnable games, so if they can steal one from the Los Angeles Chargers too that could reset the season a bit.
I know the @Broncos have issues, but I still see a good football team out there just trying to figure out how to put it all together. I sure hope they don't lose faith and keep grinding this out. Feels like they are close. #BroncosCountry
— MileHighReport (@MileHighReport) September 23, 2019
They just have to keep grinding this out.
“We will just keep working,” Chris Harris Jr. said. “We have a lot of new players with all new coaches and a new system so we will just continue to improve and continue to perfect this system the best we can. Hopefully we can bounce back next week.”
While overall depth is a concern, Von Miller made a good point that the team has some good players. He sees this as a rough patch.
“It’s a tough one,” Von Miller said of the defeat. “We have good players on this team. We have great coaches. We did some things well, but there are some things we didn’t do so well. I have been on teams where you couldn’t do anything right or you felt like you were missing something. I don’t feel like we are missing anything. We just need to go out there and play. It is a rough patch for us.”
I may disagree a bit with him there about it being a rough patch. Andrew Mason’s tweet above suggests this rough patch might be a rough acre.