Denver Broncos: Three reasons they lost to the Rams

The Denver Broncos have lost four games in a row, dropping to 2-4 this season after a comeback attempt against the Rams fell short.

The Denver Broncos have lost four games in a row, dropping their record this season to 2-4. The team’s one-point victory over the Oakland Raiders in week two feels like a distant memory at this point, even though the Broncos made a solid comeback against the undefeated Los Angeles Rams.

Denver ultimately lost the game 23-20, and there are a variety of reasons why they were unable to get an important win at home.

Let’s take a look at what went wrong in this one and why the Broncos dropped such a critical game for Vance Joseph’s future with the team and ultimately the outlook for this team in the 2018 season.

1. Run Defense

For the second consecutive week, the Denver Broncos’ run defense was absolutely atrocious. And even that might be a little too kind.

The Broncos gave up a whopping 270 rushing yards in this game, just one week after allowing more than 300 rushing yards to the New York Jets.

Despite the fact that the Broncos couldn’t stop the run, they managed to climb back into the game in the second half, but when they had momentum on their side, the Rams took it back with beautifully designed run plays not only from Gurley but wide receiver Robert Woods on a jet sweep and Jared Goff on a third-down scramble.

The odds are probably rarely — if ever — in your favor when you allow seven yards per carry over the course of an entire game, much less for almost 40 carries.

The bottom line here is that the Rams established the line of scrimmage as their personal property, and the Broncos didn’t do much about it. Linebackers were not filling gaps, and Gurley had gaping holes to run through all game.

This was unquestionably the primary reason Denver lost the game.

2. Offensive ineptitude early

The Broncos were unable to overcome a dreadful start offensively, which included just three points in the first two quarters of the game.

The main culprit would seem to be Bill Musgrave and/or Case Keenum.

Keenum was hit a couple of times in the first half and Denver was simply unable to sustain drives, even when they got the ball down to the one-yard line they were forced to settle for a field goal because of a taunting penalty by Emmanuel Sanders.

There was a huge swing in the game after that penalty by Sanders and the Broncos sort of seemed to play on their heels the rest of the game. Once the score was 20-3, the Broncos’ offense started to click a bit and move the ball, actually converting on some opportunities to score touchdowns, but it ended up being too late.

3. Converting third downs

Did we mention the Broncos’ offense is a struggle bus?

The Broncos converted just three of their 10 third-down attempts in this game, and film study will be required to discover exactly the reason for that.

One explanation could again be the abandonment of the running game, though it’s difficult to say the Broncos should have stuck with it when they went down 13-3 in the first half.

Still, the fact cannot be denied that Denver had just 17 rushing attempts compared to 39 for the Rams, and 60 yards rushing. There was no flow to the Denver offense, it just felt like Bill Musgrave was trying things, seeing if they worked, and building off of plays if they did work.

It looks like the Broncos have designed a number of very low percentage plays to convert third downs. Case Keenum is partly at fault for that because he’s turning 50-50 pass plays into zero percent pass plays by throwing uncatchable passes.

One case of that was near the end of the game when it really felt like the Broncos were coming back and they had the ball in a goal-to-go situation. Keenum threw a fade up to Jeff Heuerman but the ball sailed so far out of bounds it looked like a purposeful throwaway.

Those types of misfires are happening far too often for the Broncos.

Overall thoughts

Losing is the worst, the running game is horrendous on both sides of the ball, and many will continue questioning Vance Joseph and this coaching staff (perhaps rightly so, as ultimately the results speak volumes), but the Broncos actually came back and played pretty tough in this game.

Individual players stood out as always (hello Bradley Chubb breakout game) and the Broncos as a whole managed to mount a comeback against one of the best offensive teams in the NFL.

They are 0-2 in these games, so I’m not trying to say anything, but the Broncos have lost to the NFL’s last two undefeated teams by a combined seven points.

Now, the team is going to be deflated after a tough loss yet again going on the road to take on the Arizona Cardinals, who are definitely among the worst teams in the NFL this year.

Unfortunately, at 2-4 with nearly 600 rushing yards allowed over the last two games and four straight losses, the Broncos are too.