The Broncos gave us all a dreary, little Christmas, losing 26-23 Sunday night to New England.
What would’ve, could’ve and maybe should’ve been a fourth-quarter rally by Denver miraculous enough to give an angel wings was turned into a defeat uglier than a lump of coal, when Patriots kicker Chad Ryland drilled a 56-yard field goal in the final two seconds that will matter to Denver this NFL season.
“A disappointing finish,” coach Sean Payton said, after he watched the Broncos’ chances of making the playoffs plummet to somewhere between fat chance and fuhgetaboutit.
Think New Orleans would take Payton back in a trade for a fourth-round draft choice?
Playoffs? Playoffs! Playoffs? They’re out of the question.
“We’re not going to insert the Jim Mora playoff press conference,” Payton said.
The only real question for this team now: Why is quarterback Russell Wilson still here?
“I came here to win and a win a championship for us,” Wilson said.
Although his five-year, $245 million contract extension has yet to begin, it feels like the Broncos would be better off moving on from trying to revitalize Wilson’s career.
In the course of another lost season for a franchise that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2015, the quarterbacks who Wilson has been beaten by include Sam Howell, Zach Wilson and the immortal Bailey Zappe, who led the Patriots to victory by passing for 256 yards and two touchdowns.
Yes, Wilson rallied Denver from 16 points down in the final nine minutes of the fourth quarter, culminating with his 21-yard TD pass to Brandon Johnson and another toss to running back Javonte Williams for two points that allowed the Broncos to tie the score at 23 with two minutes, 53 seconds remaining.
But then Denver did what bad football teams do. The Broncos who have been playing with virtually no margin for error since stumbling to a 1-5 start could not stop Zappe when it appeared New England coach Bill Belichick was content to let the clock run out and play for overtime.
Not long after halftime, the crowd honored the Denver tradition of booing no-shows at the stadium. On this Christmas Eve, the number of empty seats was a discouraging 16,015. But the turnstile accountants might want to check those numbers. They might’ve been 11 no-shows short. Because for the better part of three quarters, Wilson, receiver Jerry Jeudy and the guys in Denver’s offensive huddle were nowhere to be found.
New England tried to gift wrap this victory, but the Broncos were stubbornly opposed to taking advantage of jolly old Belichick’s generosity. When Zappe coughed up a fumble on the very first snap of the game, the victim of a strip sack by D.J. Jones, Denver took over a scant six yards from the end zone on its first offensive possession.
And what happened next? For all the brilliance on that big play sheet of Payton, who constantly reminds us he’s smarter than anybody in the room, the Broncos gained a grand total of five yards on four snaps, coming away with zero points.
“We’ve got to get the ball in the end zone there,” Wilson said.
Thank goodness for the lightning quickness of punt-returner Marvin Mims Jr., whose 52-yard bolt put the Broncos in business at New England’s 25-yard line on their third offensive possession on the evening. Even Wilson couldn’t mess it up from there, converting the short field into a 3-yard touchdown by Williams that would stake Denver to a 7-3 halftime lead.
New England, which entered the game with an abysmal 3-11 record, then outscored Denver 20-0 in the third quarter. “Our margin of error isn’t what we need it to be,” Payton said.
With eight losses now on Denver’s ledger, and too many teams with eight victories ahead of the Broncos in the race for the final wild-card berth in the AFC playoffs, there’s barely more than a 10% chance they can squeeze into the playoffs, even with victories against the Chargers and Raiders to end the season.
It’s time for this team to start thinking about what’s next. And the biggest question for next season: Is Wilson the right quarterback to get Denver back in playoff contention?
While Wilson makes for an obvious scapegoat, let’s not forget Payton had his team totally unprepared to play a must-win game. He was thoroughly out-coached by Belichick, who has never had a worse team in New England, but made it difficult for the Broncos to get the ball to receiver Courtland Sutton even before he was forced to the sideline with a concussion.
When the Broncos surrendered 70 points to Miami, it was the fault of defensive coordinator Vance Joseph. Giving Wilson that outrageous contract extension before he threw a touchdown pass in Denver might well cost general manager George Paton his job.
All the expensive free agent moves the Broncos authorized by Payton after signing on as coach, however, indicated he truly believed we all would have reason to be ticked off if his first team in Denver failed to make the playoffs.
With nobody left to blame, now we’ll find out if Payton is the man to clean up this mess.
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