Horrible non-call in Broncos loss gets made fun of by perfect account

The Denver Broncos had plenty of issues in their loss against the Chargers on Thursday night. They held an 11-point lead in the first half. They increased the lead back to 11 points on their first drive in the second half. They ran the ball poorly in the second half and the defense couldn't stop anything the Chargers were doing until it was too late.

Penalties played a huge role in the game, unfortunately. The Denver Broncos had seven penalties for 61 yards in the game, including an ill-advised fair catch interference by Tremon Smith, a bad horse collar tackle by Jonathon Cooper, a personal foul on Justin Strnad, and multiple plays where the Broncos' defense lined up offside.

They shot themselves in the foot a time or two in this game against the Chargers, but they also were on the wrong side of a really bad missed call on a deep ball to Marvin Mims, which happened at one of the most critical points in the game. Mims beat Chargers cornerback Tarheeb Sill on a brilliant route down the right sideline. Nix underthrew the pass, but Still was caught out of position and Mims did a tremendous job working back to the football.

Still never got his head around and pulled Mims's left arm down while impeding his path to the football -- clearly. An obvious pass interference penalty at a crucial point in the game which would have set the Broncos up near the goal line when they were down by 3 points.

Missed pass interference penalty came at critical point in Broncos loss to Chargers

People have said Nix should have made a better throw, which is a fair point, but we see plays like this all the time in the NFL. And it wasn't just Broncos Country complaining about a call and seeing a play with orange-colored lenses.

This was such an obvious penalty that an unlikely source came out and made a post about it on X.

It's hysterical that this wasn't called pass interference, regardless of your opinion about Bo Nix's throw here. It doesn't matter. If this play had been properly officiated, it would have been a spot foul and automatic first down for the Broncos at the 11. At worst, this non-call cost Denver three points.

Again, the throw is irrelevant. There are a lot of plays like this week in and week out in the NFL where a ball is underthrown, sometimes even on purpose, to get a call like this. Mims had enough of a step on Still in this instance that Nix is going to be kicking himself for not just putting it out in front, but this is one of those times when he should have been bailed out.

Unfortunately, it didn't happen. And the Chargers didn't really get called for much at all on Thursday night. The Broncos had 7 penalties for 61 yards including some really ill-timed infractions, while the Chargers had just two penalties for eight yards called against them. Pretty odd, to say the least, especially when stuff like this was getting missed.

The Broncos seemingly benefitted early in the game from a non-call on an ineligible man downfield, but you don't typically see games where one team is so much more heavily penalized compared to another.

It wasn't this one bad non-call that cost Denver the game against the Chargers, and it's no sour grapes, either. The Broncos abandoned the run too early in the second half and simply didn't make enough plays to win the game, especially defensively. But a play like this with less than 11 minutes left in the 4th quarter and the Broncos down by three? Well, it was undoubtedly huge.

And it's hilarious that LASIK, of all folks out there, had the Broncos' back in noticing it.