As the saying goes, defense wins championships and offense sells tickets. The Broncos have been known for their outstanding defense in recent years, however; the offense was equally good in seasons where the Denver Broncos went on to win Super Bowls.
In 2015 the Denver Broncos had the most dominating defense under Wade Phillips ranking number one in total yards, passing yards, average yards per rush and sacks. In the years leading up to their Super Bowl run the defense was putting up similar numbers.
While the saying does say that defense wins championships, Broncos fans are reminded that in order to get to that point the offense needs to show up. For the past six seasons Denver fans have waited for the offense to show up.
When it was announced in the offseason that the Broncos hired Green Bay’s offensive coordinator Nathanial Hackett and later the signing of quarterback Russell Wilson fans thought their wait was over. It isn’t.
On Monday night in the Broncos appeared in their fourth primetime game in 6 games against the Los Angeles Chargers a team with similar struggles. This was suppose to be the game where everything started to come together for the Broncos offense and in the first quarter it appeared as if that may be about to happen.
Spoiler alert! It didn’t.
In the first quarter Russell Wilson put up the best num- bers of his short Denver Bronco career, going 10 for 10 for 116 yards and a touchdown earning a 148.3 passer rating and giving the Broncos an early 10-0 lead. From there it was all down hill. By the end of the game Wilson was 15 of 28 for a whopping 188 yards. Wilson was sacked 4 times for losses of 28 yards.
Denver’s defense did manage to get two turnovers only to delay the inevitable that spilled into overtime. The Broncos were 4 of 14 on third down (28.6 percent efficiency) with the Chargers accomplishing a better fourth down efficiency of 33 percent.
Denver biggest problem through six games is a glaring issue that doesn’t seem to resonate with coaching because it’s not getting better, in fact it’s getting worse. The Broncos were flagged 10 times for 151 yards.
We all love the moniker, defense wins championships and offense sells tickets but at this rate no one’s buying what the Denver Broncos coaching staff is selling. The Denver Broncos lost to the L.A. Chargers 19-16 in overtime after a muffed punt that put the Chargers in field goal range.
In other sports the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Minnesota Wild on Monday 6-3 in Minnesota. Nathan MacKinnon earned three-points in Colorado’s win along with Valeri Nichushkin While Samuel Girard and Cale Makar each earned 2-points.
Colorado jumped out to an early lead but the Wild responded quickly with a goal of their own. Just before the closeout of the first period the Avs added another goal to head into the second with the lead but early in the second Minnesota tied things up again.
Avs forward Mikko Rantanen chipped in the puck on a rebound that gave Colorado the lead again with 8 minutes to play in the second. The Avs added another at the start of the third increasing their lead to 4-2. Minnesota responded quickly cutting the lead to 4-3. The Avs however added another with about 5 minutes to play and with the Minnesota Wild down 5-3 they pulled their goalie which resulted in another goal by Colorado to wrap up the game and the win.
