Mile High Report
We’re finally here. It’s the last week of the regular season and the AFC West Champion Denver Broncos have a chance to lock up home field advantage throughout the Playoffs, and with the added bonus of the Super Bowl being at Levi Stadium, a place that Denver doesn’t seem to mind playing at.
Here’s how the Broncos win their fourteenth game of the season.
Their last game against the Chiefs was a lot closer than it should have been, but through most of the game it had the feeling that it wasn’t as close as the scoreboard may have demonstrated. The Broncos absolutely dominated time of possession, and over the last few weeks they’ve been a lot better at putting together extended offensive drives. Over the last four games they have 11 drives of 10 or more plays, with a 19-play drive being their longest.
If they’re able to keep the clock moving, keep the Chargers’ offense off the field, and finish drives with touchdowns, then this game will be over quick and they’ll be able to put it out of reach even quicker.
The Broncos, while they have a top-three defense in yards, top-four defense in points, and have the most sacks in the league, they rank 25th in turnover margin at -5 and 27th in takeaways with 12 (nine interceptions and three fumbles). It really is impressive, in a way, that Denver is able to hold offenses to such few yards without managing even one turnover a game.
Especially considering they’re going against back ups on Sunday, it would mean a lot for this defense, who has relatively struggled since the bye week, if they’re able to generate multiple turnovers on Sunday. Maybe Talanoa Hufanga can finally keep a hold of a pick because he should have at least five this year. And given how good the offense has been at elongating drives, maybe just even one turnover can put this game out of reach.
The Chargers this year have given the ball away 19 times, right around the middle of the pack in giveaways. They have one of the better offenses in the league too. Vance Joseph needs to come up with something to fix this lack of game-changing plays.
If it wasn’t for that incredible defensive effort by the Chiefs to pick Bo Nix off on their side of the 50 yard line, that game last week would’ve been not nearly as close as it ended up being. And I have a feeling that they’ll have a similar game plan this week.
This point goes hand-in-hand with the first one. If the Broncos want to dominate time of possession then they’ll need to stay ahead of the sticks. No bad penalties are allowed. And they were pretty clean last week too in the penalty department. Offensively they only had that bogus false start and pass interference calls go against them. If...
