In the ‘race to get better,’ Broncos still left lacking and lagging

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Broadway musicals are reviewed on opening night, so it’s giving the Denver Broncos some grace to wait even three weeks.

But so far, they suffer from a similar malady as last year’s edition: Against quality foes, they can’t close the deal.

The circumstances chance from game to game, of course. A blocked field goal here, a curious decision to not go for a game-winning two-point conversion there. A leverage penalty that followed a month’s worth of frittered opportunities to finish.

After Sunday’s 23-20 walk-off loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, the Broncos are now 2-8 in one-score games in the last two seasons, with the wins coming over the woebegone New York Jets after a missed potential game-winning field goal with 51 seconds left and a Tennessee Titans team starting a rookie quarterback in Week 1.

Whether close or by comfortable margins, they have just one win over a quality opponent in the last two seasons: the 26-7 throttling of eventual NFC South champion Tampa Bay in Week 3 last year. Every other win came against a team that finished with a losing record or a club that sent out its JV squad.

The Super Bowl talk?

It’s just talk.

Facts are facts, and they’re not designed to make you feel good: Through three weeks, this Broncos team isn’t Super Bowl-caliber.

And after a summer of Super Bowl chatter, it’s fair for Broncos Country to be disappointed with the early returns.

It doesn’t mean they can’t get reach their ultimate goal. It’s a long season. The next six games offer the Broncos a chance to get back on their feet.

But in the “race to get better,” the Broncos are behind.

“We’ve gotta get better fast, and if we do, I think this will be all right,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said.

But in the moment, the Broncos are mid-tier.

That vaunted defense, the one of which greatness was expected? It’s 19th in the NFL in total defense. It ranks 18th against the pass and 21st against the run and 16th in scoring defense. It’s mid.

The Broncos are 19th in the league in total offense, too. They’re 18th in yards per play and 23rd in third downs per game. And they just had their lowest first-down total in their last 57 games. They’re 17th in scoring offense. Also mid.

And the penalties … well, Sunday, the Broncos were anything but mid, and that was the problem, with more than three times as many penalty yards — 90 — as the Chargers had (25).

“We’re losing the game,” running back J.K. Dobbins said. “It’s not necessarily the other team is beating us. It’s the fact that we’re losing the game.”

THE CHARGERS HAD WHAT THE BRONCOS DIDN’T ON SUNDAY

Now the Broncos stare up at the Chargers, a team battered by injuries to tackle Rashawn Slater, running back Najee Harris, edge rusher Khalil Mack and guard Mekhi Becton, among others … and yet they remain undeterred.

At the end, the Bolts had more fight, more juice, more grit, more power.

At one end of the field, they repelled the Broncos in goal-to-go, aided by an offensive-pass-interference penalty against Troy Franklin that knocked the Broncos backwards. At the other, Justin Herbert escaped the collapsing pocket to find Keenan Allen, who overcame the blanket coverage of Riley Moss to create just enough buffer for a 20-yard touchdown catch.

The Broncos went three-and-out. Then Herbert and Co. slammed the door.

The scoreboard says they’re close.

The numbers also say they just had the franchise’s worst first-down discrepancy in 59 years, one week after surrendering over 450 yards to the Indianapolis Colts without forcing a single punt.

These are hardly the items on the CV of a defense worthy of comparison with the “No-Fly Zone” of 2015.

Those of us who were around for that year know what a great defense looks like.

This year’s unit has flashes of brilliance, which shine brightest in a pass rush that leads the NFL in sacks. Nik Bonitto hit Herbert five times, including two sacks. Cooper, Dondrea Tillman and Jonah Elliss all hit Herbert, again showing the depth on the edge.

Talanoa Hufanga was a guided missile and broke up two passes Brandon Jones had 11 tackles and an interception. John Franklin-Myers put two rough games behind him and had his best pass-rushing game of the season.

But Bonitto kept one Chargers drive alive with an offsides infraction on a punt. Hufanga accumulated 41 yards in penalties. And in the final moments, when the defense needed to lock down the Chargers, Herbert wasn’t touched, going 4-for-4 for 36 yards as he diced up this defense.

“Sacks kill [two-minute drives],” Franklin-Myers said. “And we didn’t get one in that two-minute.”

And for a second-consecutive week, the Broncos couldn’t do quite enough. They succeeded late against the Titans in Week 1, with one crucial series that saw the defense push the Titans out of field-goal range after a muffed punt return.

But when the Broncos stepped up in class, the defense didn’t have enough — for two consecutive weeks. And with that, any 2015 parallels must go into deep freeze for a while. This unit must earn its way into comparisons with an all-time group through tangible accomplishments, and to date, it doesn’t have them.

STILL, THE BRONCOS HAVE A CHANCE TO GET RIGHT

It’s worth noting that the Broncos possibly just played two of the toughest games on their schedule.

The Indianapolis Colts may be for real. Sunday, they did what the Broncos could not do to Tennessee they stampeded over them in the manner many expected of the Broncos a fortnight ago.

And the Chargers? They now appear to be the team to beat in the AFC West. They became the 12th team since the AFL-NFL merger to open a season 3-0 with three divisional wins. Nine of the previous 11 finished with winning percentages that would translate to at least 12 wins in a 17-game schedule.

So, the Broncos need to focus on themselves. And after the next two games against the Bengals and Eagles, Denver’s subsequent four opponents are a combined 1-11.

Thus, despite the frustration of the moment, you can see 6-3 from here, which would put the Broncos comfortably in playoff position by the time they return to division play with back-to-back home games against the Las Vegas Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs in November.

But still …

“We gotta learn how to win the game,” Dobbins said. “It’s simple. Ain’t nothing too crazy. We just gotta learn how to win the game.”

There’s a path to where the Broncos want to go. But in the race to get better, the Broncos’ engine hasn’t fired.

Sean Payton wrote some big checks.

Early on, his team isn’t ready to cash them.

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