3 big takeaways from the Broncos Week 13 win vs. the Jaguars

The Denver Broncos don’t have to win pretty, they just need the “Ws” each week from here on out.

It was certainly an ugly day for the Broncos offense, but they beat the Jacksonville Jaguars 20-10 on Sunday.

The victory comes with another defensive score for Denver in 2016, the team’s fourth. And the third quarter interception returned for a touchdown by cornerback Bradley Roby helped put the Broncos in the win column.

Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak praised his defense after the game.

“They were exceptional. We knew coming in here that we needed to play great defense; win the turnover battle and win the field position battle against this team,” Kubiak said. “I was concerned about our physical make-up with how tired we were, but we found a way. We showed a lot of character coming back after last week with the long trip to come out of here with W.”

Here are the three biggest takeaways from the Broncos win on Sunday:

Paxton Lynch rough around the edges

We’ve seen Lynch start two games this year, and he’s shown plenty of things he needs to improve on in both starts.

Against the league’s third-ranked pass defense, Lynch was unable to do much against the Jaguars and finished the game with only 104 yards passing. There were opportunities to do more with the ball as a passer, but Lynch failed to connect with receivers on multiple throws.

Kubiak didn’t place all the blame on the rookie’s shoulders, saying he and the team need to help Lynch out more.

“Well, he got his first win, so that’s what I feel best about. I thought he did some good things in the first half. He got us in position for a field goal right at the end of the half. He did a good job at two-minute (offense) and didn’t turn the ball over, which we knew would be huge here,” Kubiak said.

“I’m not sure we helped him much in the second half. We got to do, I have to do, a better job for him. But we came in here and did what we needed to do to win. It’s a step forward, keep going and we’ve all got to get better, but we hung on.”

Lynch was happy to get the win after the game, but he said he knows a more efficient offense is needed.

“I like winning the most. I know a couple of those deep balls, I probably should have given those guys a chance to make the catch.  Obviously, I didn’t,” Lynch said. “That goes with the other side of the ball too.  The Jaguars are a good defense and they played well too.”

“I just think obviously we had a lot of three and outs in the second half.  That’s not good to do to your defense because they’re playing their tails off and you don’t want to keep them on the field.  It’s a big thing we need to do going forward is to get first downs and play better on our side of the ball.”

Seeing Lynch miss on deep targets to Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders is not something he normally does. Lynch has a strong arm — maybe one of the strongest in the league — but his passes sailed Sunday in Jacksonville. Obviously, the timing was off with his two star receivers, and that will only improve with more time playing together.

On a side note, I’m seeing a lot of Broncos “fans” calling out Lynch as a bust. How’s this for perspective? In his second NFL start, John Elway went 9-of-24 passing for 106 yards.

It doesn’t mean that Lynch equals Elway, but those on social networking proclaiming the Broncos made a mistake drafting Lynch need to have some patience with the talented rookie.

The defense picks on Blake Bortles

The Broncos defense was relentless in its pursuit of Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles.

As expected, Bortles was a turnover machine against the league’s most dangerous secondary. The “No Fly Zone” kept the Jaguars receivers from getting open for most of the day, and they intercepted him twice.

After the game, Roby explained what he saw on the pass he picked off for six points.

“The receiver lined up and when he ran across, I undercut him and anticipated the play,” Roby said. “Von (Miller) did a good job putting pressure on the quarterback. That’s what we do, we play together and create turnovers.”

It was Miller who sealed the game by forcing his blocker back into Bortles and causing a fumble that Shane Ray scooped up.

Miller said after the game that’s just the way the Broncos approach things on defense.

“That’s the type of defense that we play. I don’t know what happened last week, and we had our chances to close the game, especially last week. But we let last week go, and we have a great team. And great character in the locker room,” Miller said. “I’m excited about this last month of the season. I’m always motivated, and we have a great defense.”

Up next for the Broncos is second-year quarterback Marcus Mariota of the Tennessee Titans, who has yet to throw an interception in the red zone during his pro career. We’ll see if the Broncos can be the first to do that next Sunday.

Kapri Bibbs provides a spark, then gets hurt

The rushing attack hasn’t been very strong for the Broncos since C.J. Anderson suffered a knee injury against the Houston Texans in Week 7. Since then, rookie fourth-round pick Devontae Booker has been working as the team’s starter, and he gets a heavy workload most weeks.

In the two games before Sunday’s contest against the Jaguars, Booker had 48 carries combined but only for an average of 3.23 yards per carry.

Against the Jaguars, Booker was unable to create a healthy yards-per-carry average again, and it was backup running back Kapri Bibbs who provided a much-needed spark on offense.

Bibbs came in as a reserve runner, and he helped set up a touchdown for Booker.

The rookie scored on a 6-yard run after Bibbs gashed the Jaguars with a 24-yard run. However, Booker needed quite a bit of assistance to score as left tackle Russell Okung basically dragged him into the end zone.

“’Book’ had maybe 40 yards, and they were some of the toughest 40 yards I’ve seen. There wasn’t a lot of cracks out there. The kid battled. We had one back for a period of the game so it took everybody we had,” Kubiak said.

Bibbs exited the game early with an ankle injury, but he did finish with 49 yards on only five carries against the Jaguars.

There’s no update on his status after the game, but if healthy one would imagine that Bibbs has played himself into a larger role.

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