DENVER _ Stop me if you've heard this one before.
The Broncos are in deep doo-doo without Trevor Siemian.
OK, good. You're all still reading.
"Taking it one day at a time," said the gentleman named starting quarterback of the Broncos for a reason in the losing locker room. It should be noted Siemian was made available to media after the Falcons turned the Broncos into a late Sunday brunch, 23-16. That's something, because injured players who are two or three weeks away from returning to game action don't usually take questions after games in which they didn't play.
And perhaps it's worth noting Siemian's shoulder injury also has required no sling, and that defenders Bradley Roby and Derek Wolfe sought out the quarterback for an extended conversation _ interesting, one, because this defense often keeps to its own and, two, because it recognizes they need him.
The Broncos next play at San Diego on "Thursday Night Football." Whether they stay atop the AFC West, suddenly tied with the Raiders at 4-1, depends on the shoulder injury that confined Siemian to holding a Microsoft Surface tablet in gray gym shorts on the sideline and popped Lynch into a situation for which 22-year-old rookies aren't prepared to survive.
Does Siemian expect to square off against San Diego? That's the question here _ not which quarterback should be under center for the Broncos.
"He's very close," coach Gary Kubiak said. If I were a betting man and Von Miller handed over $5 of his massive contract, my money's on Trevor Siemian vs. Philip Rivers.
Sunday was an ugly reminder to slow the roll on the Lynch train. Maybe it departs later this season, but six sacks and a case of happy feet won't win AFC West rivalry games.
"I'm glad I got the experience, but I'm upset we didn't come away with the win," Lynch said. The ease with which Lynch shushed away a wholly forgettable first career start suggests the coaching staff didn't put the blame for this stinker on the rookie quarterback, either.
"The coaches have just told me if you feel like you need to get out of there (the pocket), get out of there and run with it," Lynch said.
What I wanted to see Sunday, or whenever the Broncos finally lost, because it was bound to happen eventually, was their locker room after a defeat. It's a shock to the system around here when the Broncos lose. It happens so rarely. They're 57-14 since that famous primetime comeback win at, ahem, San Diego in 2012. Sunday's yuckity-yuck ended a nine-game winning streak that dated to a game at Pittsburgh around Christmastime last year.
And it didn't feel like the Broncos were wholly surprised at the defeat. That's troubling, since their four losses in '15 were trailed by a locker room scene that felt like someone had stolen their lunch money and, dadgummit, they're going to pay.
"Just because we lost the game today, we don't change the whole game of football," Aqib Talib said.
Don't put this one on Lynch. The prized rookie looked more like the latter than the former, but the entire offense stunk up Sports Authority Field like a fish house during a power outage. The banged-up, pieced-together offensive line played Red Rover, and the Falcons came over for six sacks _ two more than in their previous four games combined. Demaryius Thomas had a deep ball slide through his palms, and C.J. Anderson's 3.7 yards per carry suggests Devontae Booker should hear his name called more often.
But Lynch isn't ready, in the way a top-of-his-class pilot isn't ready to fly a 757, in the way a Sunday tailgater isn't ready to serve meals at The Broadmoor. Someday, maybe. Not now.
Sunday was more Tebow than tantalizing.
"The bottom line was we just didn't think that Trevor was ready," Kubiak said.
The decision to roll with Lynch didn't come until Saturday, Siemian said.
"We didn't want to expose him," Kubiak said. "We didn't think he was ready for that to happen."
As I wrote Sunday, the Falcons are the best offensive team since Peyton Manning's 2013 Broncos. Atlanta's offense is a college intramural team where every guy was all-state in high school. Wait and see: the Falcons won't be held to 23 points more than a couple of times the rest of this season. The Broncos defense did its job just fine.
But what had been framed as a quarterback controversy is no more, at least for now. Siemian is the clear No. 1, Lynch the No. 2. Perhaps that changes if Siemian tosses up a couple of stinkers, or if Lynch lights up practice like teammates say he sometimes does.
We've seen this movie before. Sunday won't be the last you see of Lynch this season.
What strikes me, however, is how his teammates utterly trust Siemian, whether that's due to his NFL-leading fourth-quarter passer rating, or that members of the defense seek him out after games. That's not a slight toward Lynch. This time last year the rookie had a bye week in the American Athletic Conference schedule. (What a difference the middle word makes.) But Lynch has been here five months; Siemian's been here 17, and they associate him with Peyton Manning and the Super Bowl champs. Whether he played, they saw Siemian in winning locker rooms, and there's no doubt "Trev" is the best option at the moment.
Of all the crazy numbers from a golden era of Broncos football, this one might be the most striking: 15 consecutive road wins in the AFC West, the longest such streak in NFL history. That's aura territory. The Chargers, Raiders and Chiefs are the rivals that should know your favorite binge watch on Netflix, not to mention which play call you prefer on third-and-7.
"That's not the type of game you want to put him in," Kubiak said of Lynch on Sunday.
If the Broncos are to extend that wild streak of road wins _ on a short week, no less _ Siemian must get healthy quicker than you can say: Trevor forever, or at least for Thursday.
