Broncos play against Chiefs proves that moral victories exist
Broncos play against Chiefs proves that moral victories exist.
I bleed orange and blue. Every week, I sit myself down in front of my TV and cheer my heart out. I’ve done it for years now and will continue to.
These last four years have been horrible — plain and simple. Most game days aren’t fun anymore, but I am by nature a positive person, or at least, I am trying to be.
Last Sunday, the Denver Broncos, who were missing four Pro-Bowl-caliber defensive players — Von Miller, Jurrell Casey, Bryce Callahan, and Mike Purcell — held the most powerful offense in the NFL (the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs) to only one touchdown on their home turf.
How is that not a moral victory? The Broncos have overall one of the youngest rosters in the league, while also having the youngest offense in the league. They led for most of the game, never had a three and out, were efficient on third down, out-rushed the Chiefs, and won the time of possession battle.
Again, I ask, how is that not a moral victory? We are watching someone in Patrick Mahomes who will perhaps go down as the greatest to ever play the game. We are going to have to deal with him for the next decade. And we have the right coaching staff and players to do it.
Vic Fangio designed a masterful defensive game plan, keeping the Chiefs to 0-for-4 in red zone touchdown opportunities. Not only that, the Chiefs only converted 30 percent of their third downs.
Furthermore, Melvin Gordon ran like a mad man and Shelby Harris had an excellent game returning from his COVID absence. If you watched the game with a level head, in my opinion, you would find a plethora of positives to take away.
Building off of Gordon and Harris, the Broncos were in the prime-time Sunday Night Football slot. The entire football world was watching, and based on recent history, we could have expected the Chiefs to blow us out.
Instead, it took the defending Super Bowl Champs 59 minutes and 30 seconds to put us away.
Cris Collinsworth hit on some solid points regarding the Broncos. He had basically reiterated what most of us have been saying for a while, which is that the Broncos are a wildly young team with loads of talent, and that talent simply needs more time to build chemistry.
He went as far as saying that a lot of us were expecting the team to take a massive leap, but with a young team like ourselves, we just need to be patient and take our lumps when they come.
Crazy concept, isn’t it? Drew Lock looked solid for the second game in a row, and Tim Patrick welcomed his first child, Bashaud Breeland into his family, absolutely sonning him on a beautiful Drew Lock touchdown pass.
I get that a loss is a loss, but with a young and developing team, small victories can help finish the big picture. It is not and was not reasonable for us to expect an 11 win team this year. What the Broncos struggle with is putting together a complete game in all phases, and that’s normal for a young team.
Being that this is the case, we have to get used to finding the small victories to build on, because we are another year or two away from truly competing for the Lombardi trophy.
Small victories can also mean moral victories. The Broncos held their own on Sunday night against the best team in football, and it took said team the entire game to put us away.
And that, my friends, is why moral victories exist.