Perhaps the champagne party started a little too early in the Broncos' heads.
Denver scored three touchdowns on its first three drives Thursday against the Chargers, who have the ninth-ranked defense in the league in DVOA (adjusted defensive value above average).
The game fell apart from there, with the offense struggling for the rest of the game, with Denver scoring just six points and punting five of the final seven drives, ultimately losing 34-27.
The Broncos averaged only 3.4 yards per play during that span.
Quarterback Bo Nix told reporters He was extremely dissatisfied with the outcome, as the Chargers won the season series by a landslide and won the crucial tiebreaker.
Denver is competing for a playoff spot as the No. 7 seed in the AFC.
“I’m just frustrated,” Nix said. “We're seven points out of two games against them and we've got to find a way to get the ball in the end zone again. That's the frustrating part, the margin of error is one touchdown.”
Perhaps another reason for the frustration is not just the lack of touchdowns, but the confidence head coach Sean Payton has in his rookie quarterback.
Trailing 27-24 with five minutes remaining, the Knicks stole the ball at their own 45-yard line and got a sack to make it 2-20.
Rather than throw the ball in a clear passing situation, the Knicks gave the ball to Audric Estime, who gained 7 yards.
On third-and-13, the Knicks gained seven yards on a throw to Lucas Krul, and Payton punted from midfield on fourth-and-6.
ben baldwinAn analysis guru who predicts the correct decision on every fourth down, he predicted that the most questionable decision of the game was the fourth-down play on which the Broncos opted for a pun. That's because if the Broncos had lost, their odds of winning would have increased by 5.2 percentage points. For that.
Baldwin said they would have had a 44 percent chance of winning if they had converted.
Instead, they allowed a six-play, 90-yard touchdown drive that gave them a 10-point lead over the Chargers and essentially put the game out of reach.
The Broncos need to win one more game to qualify for the playoffs on their own, but could earn a spot with help from another team.
They are followed by three teams with a 6-8 record: the Colts, Dolphins, and Bengals. Denver won the tiebreaker against the Colts and will play Cincinnati in a key game next week.
