The Broncos got their signature win because they truly found their identity

PHILADELPHIA — For the Broncos, the third time this season was the charm.

The third road game. The third tight contest in which they had a late chance to put some more distance between themselves and their foe.

This time, the mental mistakes, the self-inflicted wounds, the little things that turn victory into defeat … those all belonged to the defending world champions, a team that had lost just once in the last calendar year, in a game that saw them play without their Super Bowl MVP quarterback for much of the day.

This time, with Jalen Hurts playing to the finish, the Eagles didn’t — and the Broncos did.

The notion of such a turnaround as the one that resulted in the 21-17 win that finally gave this generation of Broncos a signature win over a legitimate championship contender seemed impossible late in the third quarter, when the Broncos took possession at their 36-yard line and had the following stats to their name:

• 3 points
• 7 punts
• 8 penalties

They trailed 17-3. Their previous drive had gone three-and-out, their third such series of the day.

But by and large, the offensive line had not lost its grip on the game. The ground game was averaging 4.7 yards per carry. And immediately after opening the series with a 7-yard Bo Nix-to-Evan Engram connection, running back J.K. Dobbins picked up five yards.

An 8-yard RJ Harvey run followed two snaps later.

The Broncos trailed 17-3, and yet … they were still playing their game. The one that they played six days ago, that led multiple players to speak of how the offense was finding its “identity.”

A two-score deficit with time starting to dwindle didn’t make Sean Payton and his team panic. The play-calling tenor didn’t change.

They trusted who and what they are becoming. By not wavering from their commitment to the run — and by continuing to fare well up front — the Broncos showed they had the physical toughness.

But they added something more to their identity in Week 5.

“I’ve been mentioning that we’re a tough team,” Dobbins said. “We were showing that we’re physically tough, but we weren’t at championship level of mentally tough, right?

“Well, we showed the mental tough game today. We showed that we are mentally tough as well, and we showed that we’re a dangerous team.”

And b might not have happened to begin with without falling short in the way they did at Indianapolis and Los Angeles.

BRONCOS NOW A “MENTALLY TOUGH” TEAM”

And the only way it could happen, running back J.K. Dobbins said, was by first failing as they did in Weeks 2 and 3, when the Broncos fell to the Colts and Chargers by a combined four points.

“Definitely,” Dobbins said. “You learn better whenever you lose. I’m a type of person: I don’t count losses as loss, as a loss. I count it as a stepping stone, a learning curve.”

Those September defeats came after narrow losses to Cincinnati and Kansas City last year, the defeat to the Bengals coming in overtime, and the setback to the Chiefs happening after Leo Chenal blocked Wil Lutz’s potential game-winning field goal at the final gun.

They were defeats that lingered. But they also taught lessons.

“That everything counts. Everything counts when you go against good teams,” edge rusher Jonathon Cooper said last Thursday. “The mistakes are magnified.

“You’ve gotta be sharp on your details. You’ve gotta make sure you execute; you’ve got to finish the whole entire game — especially teams that know how to win games. They know how to finish, they know how to win, they’ve done it before.”

The Eagles knew — and yet on Sunday, they were the team that didn’t finish, that had mistakes magnified.

For example, Denver didn’t exactly play mistake-free football over the run of play. They committed 12 penalties for 121 yards in infractions, finishing with more than twice as many penalty yards as Philadelphia.

But in the final seven minutes, the Eagles committed three costly infractions. Two of them wiped first downs off the board, including an illegal-shift penalty on Saquon Barkley that erased Hurts’ 20-yard completion down the left flank to DeVonta Smith.

That fourth-and-4 connection would have moved Philadelphia into field-goal range. Instead, the Eagles punted, and by the time they had the football once again, they needed a touchdown — and not merely a field goal — to claim the lead.

With 2:21 remaining, the Eagles appeared to have the Broncos stopped after a third down. But linebacker Zack Baun hit Harvey late, resulting in an unnecessary-roughness call that turned fourth-and-1 into first-and-10, allowing Denver to bleed another crucial 70 seconds from the clock before the Eagles saw the football again.

The precision, the details … unlike in the two September defeats, it was the Broncos who were on point, and their battle-tested foes, participants in two of the previous three Super Bowls, who wilted.

WHERE THEY GO FROM HERE

The Broncos wanted to keep their forthcoming trip to London in the distance as much as possible, despite the obvious logistical issues that go with packing for a two-game road swing. At that, they succeeded.

But now the task is to ensure that Sunday’s win isn’t isolated.

“It’s just one step in the process,” Dobbins cautioned.

After the coming fortnight against the downtrodden New York teams — combined record 1-9 — it gets more rigorous for the Broncos from there. The explosive Dallas Cowboys visit, followed by a road game at the Houston Texans, who appear to have found their footing after an 0-3 start.

Two weeks later, the Chiefs visit Denver. After the subsequent bye comes a trip to Washington, which knocked the Chargers back into a first-place tie with the Broncos on Sunday.

For the Broncos to be the Super Bowl contenders their coach believes they can be, this win cannot be an isolated occurrence.

But the fact that it happened once makes it easier to believe it will happen again.

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