The Broncos have their most important game to date coming up. Not only are they sitting in the armpit of the AFC West with a 3-6 record, but they are facing a divisional foe in San Diego on Monday Night Football.
Monday nights have been a 50-50 coin toss for the Broncos under Josh McDaniels. Their last weekday game saw the Steelers (and all of their fans) come in to Denver to tear up the Broncos in a 28-10 loss. Their only other MNF game under McD was a 34-23 win in San Diego that saw special things from the special teams.
This is the Broncos’ first and only Monday night game of the season. Not only must they put on a good showing for the league, but they’ve got to put their best face forward for themselves. It’s been about a year since the Broncos have won back-to-back games.
Josh McDaniels says that stringing together games in “necessary” if the Broncos hope to make a late season run.
“Our season now is going to be judged about how much we improve,” McDaniels said on Saturday.
The Broncos have studied the Chargers in terms of how they are able to consistently put their rally caps on late in the season. The Chargers haven’t lost a division game in November or December since 2005.
McDaniels said that the Chargers have been able to take some of the weaknesses they’ve had in the beginning of the year and flipped them into positives by the end of the season. They’ve taken things such as penalties, turnovers, and special teams’ yards, and have turned them into advantages.
“They have an uncanny ability to take some of the things you look at and say ‘we’ve got an opportunity there’ and then flip it on you,” said McDaniels.
They’ve been able to turn something that wasn’t a strength into a positive going down the stretch. If that is to happen this year, the Broncos had better watch out for the Chargers’ special teams’ unit which has given up three touchdowns in the return game, and has had four punts blocked and one deflected.
The Broncos have a legitimate shot at beating the Chargers based on what the team showed last week.
For high levels of change to occur, it must always be paired off with a degree of consistency.
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