The Broncos season, the inaugural campaign in the post-Shanahan era, came to an end with an unceremonious thud at Invesco Field today – that sound you heard? It was the sound of an angry fan base letting their boos rise out from the Front Range, and echo across the face of the Rockies for the entire region to hear.

The Chiefs racked up the rushing yards – over 300 total, including a stunning 259 by Jamaal Charles. Not many other stats stood out – except that while Orton threw for over 400 yards, he also threw for 3 INTs, 2 of which came back for six. Of Orton’s 431 passing yards, 213 belonged to Jabar Gaffney, in a thinly-veiled exercise in point-making by McDaniels, seemingly set on making sure everyone sees that the offense can move the ball without Marshall.

Much of what I want to say about this game really belongs in the season recap – an article I will painfully put together and release later in the week. This game itself was really more of the same – what we’ve seen since mid-October. Reliance on one receiver. Stubbornly insisting that Knowshon Moreno is a short yardage back, as well as a great decision every time the team faces first and 10. Stingy defense with bouts of poor coverage or bad tackling. Below-average punting. A giant unspoken “f-you” in the face of Peyton Hillis.

Today’s game is hardly worth a full article. That’s why I won’t even try to break 350 words today – I’ll simply end with this. You wanted your own team McDaniels, and now you got it. The league figured you out, and nobody’s afraid of you. The rest of the division is getting better, and you’d better catch up quick. You blew up this team, and so far I’m not impressed with your rebuilding efforts. You’d better dazzle us in the off-season, because nobody will be sad to see you shipped out of town on the first bus down I-70. Broncos fans are impatient people.

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Ryan Clady gets a reception, then gets tackled hard. An illegal procedure call negated the play.

An extreme case of red-zone impotence has finally come back to bite the Broncos, costing them a game that they had in their back pocket. Problem is, there’s no little purple pill for this variety of dysfunction. The only remedy is touchdowns, touchdowns, and more touchdowns.

Now I’m not one to just go completely fan-boy when the team wins, then doom and gloom when they lose, but this game showcased some serious deficiencies. And for the first time in a long time, I don’t blame the defense. Yeah, they could have stuffed the Raiders on that last drive, and yeah, the pass interference penalty didn’t help things any. But this time, I have a problem not just with the offense, but with the play calling. How many times do you think a team can score when they start their drive at 2nd and 11? It happened – and it happened a lot. First down and 10, handoff to Moreno, stuffed at the line. At what point does McDaniels admit that the first down run just isn’t working. I’m starting to feel like I’m watching the Dan Reeves era Broncos, complete with Sammy Winder getting squashed on first down, only this time, we don’t have Elway to save the day. Let me make this clear – you cannot win games when your 2 main problems are first down yardage and red zone efficiency. You can’t. Even Jamarcus Russell can beat you when you leave the door wide open like that. One touchdown, four field goals – including 2 figgies on impressive opening drives. They could have taken the heart right out of the chests of the Raiders in the first 10 minutes, instead they left hope. It’s the opposite problem of last year, when you couldn’t possible expect the offense to overcome the deficits the defense left them in. This time, you can’t possibly expect the defense to be playing at such a high level all the time and carry the weight of a powerless offense.

I bought into the McDaniels system, complete with Orton at the helm, and I did so early on. I remained on board through the 5 game skid, and felt vindicated over Thanksgiving weekend. Now, as much as I want to stay on board and see out the season, I’m surveying the softest place to jump. There is no reason to think this team will make the playoffs. I’m already looking ahead to 2010, and there is some serious work to be done before next season. I have a feeling McDaniels knows this, and had better be formulating some plans in the back of his head. The Denver faithful will not be patient.

While it wasn’t a completely horrible game, anything the Broncos did well was washed away by the heart wrenching loss to the despised Oakland Raiders. This one will be hard to get over.

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McDaniels and Orton watch from the sideline

You know things are getting dicey when your 2 million dollar backup gets pulled in the first half for a quarterback with a gimpy ankle that can barely walk off the field. A week of practice would get Simms comfortable, the conventional wisdom said. The conventional wisdom hasn’t watched the Broncos yet this year. Simms was completely ineffective, only managing to complete 2 passes for 10 yards.

The turning point of the game, in my opinion, was the very first drive of the game. The Broncos opened up with an offensive drive that pushed all the way to the red zone, mostly due to Knowshon Moreno and Correll Buckhalter. The drive was stalled when Simms got caught from behind and dropped the ball. The Chargers recovered, and the tone of the day was set. Just like in Baltimore, when the tone was set on the first play, the Broncos would never recover from the deflation of missing the end zone on that drive. Later on, Moreno would fumble the ball at the goal line, and as a result the Broncos left 2 touchdowns on the table. Add a questionable on-side kick call by McDaniels which basically gifted a score to the Chargers, and the rout was on. The Broncos could do no more than post a meaningless second-half field goal, setting a new low for offensive impotence this season.

Instead of breaking down the failures point by point, I feel compelled to ask a couple questions that have been plaguing me the last few weeks. How is it that a team that went 6-0 by beating good teams and making remarkably astute halftime adjustments, appear so woefully inept and unprepared four weeks in a row? You could make the argument that the league has figured out the system, but you can’t tell me that Belichick hadn’t “figured out the system”. Wade Phillips couldn’t “figure out the system”? The difference is not that defenses have figured them out, it’s that Denver just seems unprepared. They aren’t making adjustments, they aren’t improving in the second half. Albert Einstein once said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

Here’s another question – granted that Kyle Orton has a command of this offense that Simms just does not have, when down 23 points, why is Orton and his bum ankle on the field? I know you play each week to win that game and you play until the final whistle – I get that. But aren’t you better off either letting Simms take his lumps or giving Brandstater a few snaps, allowing Orton to heal further? The Broncos have a mere 4 days to prepare for the Giants on Thursday. If Orton reinjures his ankle, we’re in for the same results next week as we’ve seen this week. A season that once looked promising is now slipping away faster than you can say “wild horses”.The defense has gotten extremely soft in the middle, the offense has only managed 30 points in the last three games and looks completely lost. With today’s win, the Chargers retake control of the AFC West, and makes it all but impossible for the Broncos to make the playoffs.

Every week, I remind myself that the  wins the Broncos have are better than I thought they’d do, and so everything else is gravy. Unfortunately, the gravy has not been free flowing, and it’s still hard to swallow watching your team get utterly dominated week after week. Make no mistake – as they stand now, this team is bad. What makes it most painful, is that for six weeks we saw what they could do, and now we’re seeing the other side of the coin. Expect more of the same against New York this Thursday, and hope the long break allows Denver to get their heads on straight.

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