At least the Denver Broncos got five sacks.
Hey, I had to find a way to start off positive.
For the second time in two home games, the Denver Broncos failed to close out a win after the offense took the lead, losing to the Jacksonville Jaguars 26-24. For the first time since 1999, and just the fourth time in franchise history, the Broncos start a season 0-4.
What’s worse, since December of last year, Denver is 0-8.
Welcome to the world of suck.
On the MHR Radio Podcast (Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify), the frustration for Adam Malnati and I has hit boiling point.
As always, I’m bound to leave someone off of the list, so please mention them in the comments.
Winners
Courtland Sutton
The second-year Broncos receiver played one helluva game. Sutton finished with six catches for 62 yards and two touchdowns.
Emmanuel Sanders
As with Sutton, Sanders was fun to watch on Sunday and he played with incredible heart. The veteran had five catches for 104 yards. I’ll throw in Noah Fant here with an honorable mention for getting his first career NFL touchdown.
Justin Simmons
Once again, the Broncos safety was all over the field on defense. Simmon finished with seven tackles and two passes defended.
Dalton Risner
The rookie left guard is a good one, and will be, hopefully, for the next decade. I’ll also include the Broncos offensive line in this for not allowing a sack to that talented Jaguars defensive front.
Bradley Chubb
At least in the first half, it seemed rookie quarterback Gardner Minshew would have nightmares of Chubb on him. The second-year edge recorded his first sack of the season, as well as seven tackles, one tackle for loss and three quarterback hits.
Von Miller*
The Broncos edge finished with two sacks to make him just the 34th player in NFL history to reach 100 career sacks. Miller is the fourth-fastest player in league history to reach that milestone. Miller also finished with six tackles, two tackles for loss, and four quarterback hits. The reason for the asterisk is the roughing the passer penalty. I think it was a roughing penalty, but I’m not sure there was anything he could do about it.
Losers
Vic Fangio
For the second time in two home games, the defense shits all over itself with the chance to win the game. A defensive genius has his team prepared for that situation, and it was clearly not. The other reason he’s on the “losers” list is due to how his team came out in the second half. Yes, part of that is on the players, but what the hell happened at halftime and afterward?
John Elway
As the MHR Twitter account asked, is Denver paying for the draft failures from 2013-17? When the coaches change and the team is still horrible, it falls on the organization. And right now, Elway runs the football operations. With how bad the team has been the last three years, he’s done enough to no longer have a job.
Joe Ellis
If there was any kind of competent leadership at the top, the move to fire Elway would happen. But Ellis will not make the move, unless the team goes 0-16. Even then, I don’t see it.
The Broncos
The entire franchise makes the list, for all the reasons listed above.
Broncos Country
For three years, Denver fans have endured garbage from this franchise. The Broncos are better than this — at least, they used to be. This is not acceptable, and fans have every right to be pissed off and demand accountability. Denver is used to making history, but now it’s of the horrible variety.
Broncos run defense
The guys up front should be embarrassed with how they got dominated in the second half. Denver allowed 269 yards rushing on Sunday. As Andrew Mason pointed out, four players have rushed for at least 200 yards in a game over the last two years in the NFL. Three of them were against the Broncos. Leonard Fournette is the latest. The Jaguars running back finished with 29 carries for 225 yards. At least Denver didn’t give up a rushing touchdown.
Both
Joe Flacco
Once again the Broncos quarterback led what should have been a game-winning drive. For the game, Flacco was 22-for-38 passing for 303 yards and three touchdowns. The reason he’s both a loser and winner is the costly interception at the end of the first half that completely flipped momentum.
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