The Denver Broncos found another way to lose on Sunday, dropping a game to the Indianapolis Colts. As the team has done multiple times now this season, it controlled the game for nearly 60 minutes but couldn’t execute down the stretch to pull out the win.
With the loss, the Broncos fall to 2-6 in what has become a lost season. The team only scored 13 points in this one but it wasted a solid defensive effort that held a good Colts team down nearly all game. But the Colts were able to find a way on the final drive to set up a game-winning field goal by Adam Vinatieri to sink the Broncos.
Here are four takeaways from the game:
1. The offense still has too much Royce Freeman
We have talked about this before, but Freeman is involved in the offense too much and it slows down anything the team is doing.
It’s clear that the Broncos want a balanced rotation at running back and are taking a true committee approach. The strange thing is that it is hard to understand why.
Phillip Lindsay carried the ball 14 times for 59 yards (4.2 yards per carry) in this game. He also caught five passes. Freeman had 12 carries for 40 yards (3.3 yards per carry). The team is losing a full yard, on average, when Freeman gets a carry instead of Lindsay.
Lindsay is also a player that gets stronger with each carry and it is clear that he hits the hole with more burst and has better vision than Freeman. The Broncos are stymying their own running back, who made the Pro Bowl last year, by mixing in Freeman so much.
2. The defense played good enough to win
The Broncos’ defense didn’t do anything extraordinary in this game, but they did keep the Colts from scoring too many points and that is the object of the game.
Denver forced Indianapolis to punt five times and held them to convert only four of their 12 third-down conversions. In addition, the Broncos registered four sacks on the day. They also forced and recovered a fumble.
This is a story you’ve heard before. The defense did enough to help the team win, but the offense didn’t hold up its end by putting points on the board.
3. Another late penalty leads to loss
How many times are the Broncos going to have a game seemingly won, only to see a late penalty on the opposition’s final drive lead to a loss?
In Week 2 against the Chicago Bears, a roughing the passer call against Bradley Chubb, and a very questionable one at that, helped set up the Bears’ game-winning field goal.
Two weeks later against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Chubb sacked Gardner Minshew and knocked the ball loose, recovering the fumble to put the game away. But Von Miller was flagged for roughing the passer and seven plays later, the Jags kicked a game-winning field goal as time expired.
Sunday, the Colts had just completed a miraculous deep pass out of their own end zone when Jacoby Brissett avoided a sack by Miller, but they were still far from field-goal range. Just two plays later, A.J. Johnson helped them out.
After catching a 5-yard pass, Nyheim Hines was slung to the sideline by Johnson, leading to a penalty for a horse-collar tackle. That got the Colts 15 yards closer and with Vinatieri’s aging leg, that made a massive difference.
4. Joe Flacco was absolutely right
If you’re not a fan of Flacco as the team’s quarterback, you’re not alone. But after the game, he spoke to the media and had some words that were great for a couple of reasons.
For one, you rarely hear athletes say things like this and for two, he was completely right.
The “situation” he is referring to came right at the two-minute warning. The Broncos were facing 3rd-and-5 from the Colts’ 43-yard line. They line up in shotgun and . . . hand it to Lindsay. That is conservative, playing “safe” and every other descriptive term you want to lose. But it was a terrible call.
Teams that play not to lose end up losing, as the Broncos did on Sunday.
