The good, bad and ugly from Sunday’s comeback win over the Chargers
Nov 2, 2020, 6:33 AM
The Broncos got back on the winning track against the Chargers on Sunday. They were down by 21 points, but Denver bounced back to win 31-30.
It was a tale of two halves on Sunday. The Broncos offense had only 60 yards in the first half, but they came alive in the second half and fed off how the defense set them up. The team finished with 351 total yards, with almost 300 of those yards coming in the third and fourth quarter.
Broncos head coach Vic Fangio believes the comeback victory could be big for this young offense.
“It can be big. Like I said, the best way you can get confidence is to have good play. You don’t need to be sitting on some psychologist’s couch to get confidence or read a book to get confidence. You’ve got to go out and play well, and when you play good, you get confident. Now we can build on that. We had six quarters where we were not really competitive offensively. Now in the second half, after the first series, we caught on fire and hopefully this will bring us to bigger and better things,” Fangio said.
The Broncos have another winnable game on the schedule next week, as they travel to face the Falcons. If they secure that victory next Sunday, they will be a .500 football team after playing half of the games on the schedule. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s take a look back at the good, the bad and the ugly from the Week 8 win.
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The Good
The Broncos fought back to win. I know many are pointing out how the Chargers have lost multiple leads in their recent history, but they didn’t just give the Broncos the “W.” Instead, Denver’s offense was able to get on track and take advantage of a Chargers team that does let teams get back into games late.
I believe that starting running back Phillip Lindsay provided the spark. With co-starter Melvin Gordon struggling against his former team, Lindsay was able to get things going. His big 55-yard touchdown run in the third quarter seemed to energize the team. Add in some big gains from rookie wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, plus the first pro touchdowns of Albert Okwuegbunam and K.J. Hamler, and that all helped the Broncos get the win.
Fangio talked about what changed on offense in the second half.
“You’re being nice by just saying so bad, it was worse than that. Phillip busted that run, got it going for us. Then, we just stayed with it, started completing some passes. I said our passing game had to improve and it did. We had some really good catch-and-runs too. DaeSean (Hamilton) had a big-time play, Jerry had some plays, obviously Albert O had a big play. We just kept mixing it up and different guys at different times stepped up with the receptions. We had a hard time running it, other than the big one that Phillip ran. It was just an accumulation of a lot of things. We had our struggles on defense too. They’re a good offense, but we did manage to get enough stops there late in the game, holding them to field goals and by God, we won that game,” Fangio said.
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The Bad
The Broncos rush defense certainly missed nose tackle Mike Purcell on Sunday. Purcell was lost for the rest of the season last week due to a Lisfranc injury and his presence was missed in the middle of the defensive line. The Broncos had been a strong rush defense, but against the Chargers they Denver defense gave up a whopping 210 yards on the ground.
The Chargers had not been running the ball well this year, especially after losing starting running back Austin Ekeler to an injury. Rookie Joshua Kelley has split time as their lead back with veteran Justin Jackson. Both are good runners but not considered star players or players on the rise in the league. On Sunday, those two combined for more than 120 yards on the ground but the Chargers also got 67 rushing yards from third-string back Troymaine Pope. As a team, the Chargers averaged a healthy 5.5 yards per carry.
Chargers rookie starting quarterback Justin Herbert appreciated what the running game was able to do for him in Week 8.
“The guys up front did a great job blocking and we have some special backs that can make people miss and make something happen. I was really happy for them and it’s unfortunate that we didn’t come out victorious. The way they ran the ball was really well tonight,” Herbert said.
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The Ugly
When Fangio came out in the second half, he looked beat up. He has been wearing a clear face shield to go along with the pair of glasses that usually rests upon his nose. In the third quarter, both his face shield and his glasses were gone.
Many wondered if there was some sort of physical altercation that happened in the locker room at halftime. Last week, Broncos defensive end Shelby Harris lunged at Fangio and there was plenty of shouting in Week 7 and in Week 8 at halftime. Fangio had blood on his shirt and a bandage over his nose.
There were no fisticuffs but instead a collision on the sideline that caused Fangio to look like he went through the ringer. Fangio solved the mystery for all of us after the game.
“On the interception that we threw near our sideline, one the guys got knocked into me and my big nose got in the way and got cut,” Fangio said.
