Denver Broncos: 5 Takeaways from the Raiders Win

A tale of two halves.

The first half, like so many Denver games since 2015, was a disaster.  There was a defensive “too many men” call.  There was a wasted timeout on defense.  There was the timeout called with just a few seconds left in the half after letting the clock run leading up to that call.

Bill Musgrave‘s offense looked out-of-sync and overmatched, racking up punts and an interception on their way to a scoreless first two quarters.

The weird timeout at the end of the first half was a shot at doing that Patriots score to end the half and get the ball to start the second thing.  It didn’t work but it also didn’t cost the Broncos anything.

Joe Woods, the secondary coach elevated to defensive coordinator can’t be happy with the performance of his secondary.  Roby was shaky, Tremaine Brock had good and bad plays.  Chris Harris Jr. was his usual self.  Justin Simmons led the team in tackles, never a good sign.

In the second half, the Broncos settled in, on both sides of the ball, wore the Raiders down and ground out a win, all that matters.

The challenge to the spot at the Denver 46 added time to the clock and ultimately gave Denver the time it needed to win the game.  That’s a credit to Joseph who otherwise didn’t demonstrate anything that would raise questions about his abilities as a coach.

We’d like to think that John Elway and Joe Ellis are quite a bit above the silly social media/blog fray that wants to convince that Joseph is or should be on the proverbial hot-seat.  The  Denver Broncos are 2-0 and healthy.

What else matters?