Mile High Report
The Denver Broncos closed out the season with yet another win that will leave the national media doubting everything about the AFC’s number one seed. The reality is that Sean Payton and the Broncos offense came in with a straight vanilla game plan believing their defense would be able to completely shut down Trey Lance and the Los Angeles Chargers offense.
He wasn’t far wrong and the team was able to get by. Two big turnovers by the defense accounted for most of the points needed for the win. They got an early lead and with the Chargers potentially being in rematch mode in two weeks, Payton didn’t want to give them anything useful to work with for that game. A win is a win and that’s all that matters.
Congratulations to your 14-3 Denver Broncos!
After a long 81-yard opening drive that stalled out inside the Chargers 10-yard line, the Broncos added to their field goal lead with a pick-six touchdown by Ja’Quan McMillian. The 45-yard return secured a double-digit lead for Denver in the first quarter.
Denver’s offense floundered on subsequent drives failing to convert on third down, but Trey Lance and the Chargers offense did do anything putting up 32 total yards on four first quarter possessions.
Broncos 10, Chargers 0. Full first quarter recap.
Denver’s offensive game plan seemed to be overly vanilla and that started to cause problems for them late in the first half with multiple punts. The injuries also began to pile up with both P.J. Locke and Garett Bolles going down in the first half.
Meanwhile, Trey Lance got hot in the second quarter completing 9 of 11 passes with one of those incompletions being a spiked ball to stop the clock. If they had more time, they probably score a touchdown on that final drive, but with just seconds left they had to settle for a field goal to close out the half.
Broncos 10, Chargers 3. Full second quarter recap.
After trading three-and-outs, the Broncos got the ball with good field position on their second drive. They needed seven plays to go 52 yards, but back-to-back overthrows by Bo Nix with a chance to put up a touchdown would lead to another field goal after drives stalled inside the 10-yard line.
The rest of the quarter was a battle of punting back and forth to each other as the defensive battle set in on both sides.
Neither team was able to add to the score, but the sack counts and pass breakup stats were getting some movement.
Broncos 13, Chargers 3. Full third quarter recap.
The fourth quarter began with a quick screen pass to Marvin Mims Jr. that seemed to picked up just enough for a first down, but the officials got a virtual measurement that pushed it short. Then on third and inches, the handoff to RJ Harvey went for...
