Broncos have terrible day in 48-19 blowout loss to Bills

A tale of two halves in this game.

In the first half, the Denver Broncos hung tough with the Buffalo Bills. If not for a missed field goal and extra point, the score could have been 21-17 at the break. Instead it was 21-13, but with Denver scoring a touchdown just before halftime it seemed they might have some momentum in the second half.

That was not the case. Josh Allen and the Bills exploded in the second half. They couldn’t be stopped and couldn’t stop scoring. When it was all said and done, the Bills were 11-3 and the Broncos 5-9 after this 48-19 drubbing.

First Quarter

Denver started off good driving down the field to start the game, but the NFL forced the Broncos to play without Brandon McManus in this game as he entered day six of testing negative for COVID-19 after a close contact a week ago. His replacement, Taylor Russolino, went wide right on his field goal attempt that would have given Denver an early lead.

The Bills would follow it up with a clock eating 13-play, 59 yard touchdown drive to take a 7-0 first quarter lead.

Full first quarter recap.

Second Quarter

After falling down two scores early in the second quarter, the Broncos special teams came up big after a three and out by Drew Lock and the offense. They recovered a muffed punt and gave the Broncos offense a second chance to put points on the board.

They did exactly that with this 10 yard touchdown run by Melvin Gordon on a third and eight.

Josh Allen then led the Bills on a long scoring drive to answer the Denver score. Despite a heavily penalized drive and faced with a first and goal from the 30 yard line, Allen needed just two plays to fire in a touchdown strike from 21 yards out to put the Bills back up by two touchdowns.

With less than two minutes to go in the half, Lock methodically drove the Broncos down the field with four consecutive short passes to get them out to midfield. A roughing the passer call got them into field goal range, then Lock found Jerry Jeudy who made a great catch at the Bills six yard line.

One play later, the Broncos cut the lead back to one score. The new kicker missed the extra point, however, so Denver would be down 21-13 at halftime.

Full second quarter recap.

Third Quarter

The Bills asserted their dominance over the Broncos all third quarter long as they come out and score back to back touchdowns to take a 35-13 lead midway through the quarter. The Broncos defense did catch a break on the Bills third drive as they held on fourth down inside the five yard line to keep the score from getting really bad on them.

Even so, the Bills would add another field goal late to extend their lead to 38-13 as the Broncos offense and defense had been unable to do much of anything in the second half.

Full third quarter recap.

Fourth Quarter

The blowout continued into the fourth quarter as Drew Lock and the offense could find no way to produce any kind of offensive drives in the second half. Meanwhile, Josh Allen was simply unstoppable.

It would be hard to believe that the score was 21-13 at one point. At 5-9, the Broncos head to Los Angeles to take on the Chargers in Week 16.