Denver Broncos: Grading our 3 Keys to Victory over the Chargers

No fumbles, no picks, big bucks, stop!

We don’t want to go down the what-if rabbit hole but what if the Denver Broncos cut their turnovers in half for the 2018 season?  What would that look like, more importantly, what would their record be?

6-4, 7-3?

Turnover and penalty deficiencies are the hardest things to overcome in an NFL game.  If we’re honest, talent is pretty close across the 32 teams.  Coaching is a bigger factor but still, all 32 NFL coaches have an intimate knowledge of the game.  Truly, what separates teams week-in and week-out is mitigating mistakes.

Denver Broncos

Just ask the Chargers if they feel that their 14 penalties had anything to do with their loss.  While they wouldn’t criticize officiating, guaranteed they’d point to shooting themselves in the foot via penalty as a major reason they lost.

Not only did the Broncos not commit a turnover (not even Emmanuel Sanders‘ called-back fumble would stick), they did not allow a sack.

Taking a ride on the Keenum love train, we want to recognize his mastery on Sunday at getting rid of the ball and not getting caught for a big play behind the line.  It’s also worth noting that Case was a steely-eyed missile man in the late fourth quarter, even overcoming a bad PI call to move Denver into Brandon McManus‘ range for the gamewinner.

The Broncos can make mistakes, every team does but it sure was nice not having to endure the “big” mistakes for the whole game.  No holding calls to kill drives, no turnovers, no big sacks.  It was not a perfect performance from the Broncos but it was free of game killing mistakes and that felt really good.

From the defensive side, we had a big ask for our outside ‘backers: