Broncos Can No Longer Rely on Dominant Defense to Mask Offensive Woes

Not long ago, the Denver Broncos appeared to be chugging right along. After quarterback Trevor Siemian lit up the Cincinnati Bengals for 312 yards and four scores in Week 3, Denver looked to be on an early collision course toward a sixth straight AFC West title.

A blowout win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the following week only reinforced the perception that Denver was again among the teams to beat in the AFC.

Over the past couple of weeks, however, a different narrative has emerged regarding the defending Super Bowl champions. It's a troubling one that can't be dismissed any longer after Thursday's listless 21-13 loss at Qualcomm Stadium to a San Diego Chargers team that's now 2-4.

The Broncos offense is a mess, and it's reached the point where their stout defense can't mask that deficiency any longer.

There are those who will blame the team's consecutive losses after four straight wins on the absence of Siemian in Week 5 and head coach Gary Kubiak (who stayed behind in Denver to recuperate after being hospitalized with migraines earlier in the week) Thursday night.

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But the truth is the Denver offense hasn't been right all season.

As Nick Groke of the Denver Post reported leading into the Cincinnati game, wide receiver Demaryius Thomas admitted he was concerned both with the Denver passing game (26th in the NFL at the time) and its inability to convert red-zone trips into touchdowns (a 33 percent success rate in wins over the Carolina Panthers and Indianapolis Colts).

"It’s a little worrisome," Thomas said. "You can’t keep kicking field goals. It’s any given Sunday, Monday or Thursday. One day a team might come out and score three touchdowns on our defense, and if we kick five field goals, we lose the game. We’ve got to figure out what we can do to get in the end zone."

Then came Siemian's outburst in Cincinnati, followed by the blowout in Tampa Bay. The Broncos were undefeated and averaging nearly 28 points per contest.

But even as the passing game showed signs of life, the run game came off the rails. The Broncos rushed for 282 yards in those first two contests. In the two wins that followed, that number was cut in half.

Week	Opponent	Att.	Yards	Avg.
1	Carolina Panthers	29	148	5.1
2	Indianapolis Colts	31	134	4.3
3	Cincinnati Bengals	23	52	2.3
4	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	32	89	2.8
5	Atlanta Falcons	24	84	3.5
6	San Diego Chargers	16	84	5.2

However, the team's dominant defense masked the offensive inconsistency. Against the Colts, the defense found the end zone twice. Von Miller and the pass rush throttled opposing quarterbacks. Takeaways afforded Siemian and the offense a short field.

Against Atlanta, the team's luck ran out. The run game struggled again, gaining just 84 yards. Rookie quarterback Paxton Lynch and the passing attack faltered under constant pressure from a Falcons defense that had failed to generate much before that day.

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And a Broncos defense that has bailed out the offense time and again dating back to last year's Super Bowl run finally cracked, allowing over 200 total yards to Falcons tailbacks Tevin Coleman and Devonta Freeman.

Still, that 23-16 setback didn't inspire a lot of concern heading into a matchup with a reeling Chargers team. With Siemian returning, the offense would get back on track. The defense would take out its frustrations from last week on a Chargers team that had dropped 10 AFC West games in a row.

Special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis (who acted as head coach against the Chargers) told ESPN.com's Jeff Legwold that despite Kubiak's absence, the Broncos were ready to get down to business:

"

[Kubiak] set a template for us. It's seamless, because he's not a micro-manager. He does so many good things for us and he lets a lot of our guys do their job to the utmost anyway. We don't see a big change this week. We're going to try to keep whatever we can do to win a game, that's the main thing. I think with our staff, that's going to be a real seamless transition.

"

Instead, the wheels came off.

For much of the game against San Diego, the Denver offense wasn't anemic. It wasn't lethargic. It was nonexistent.

In the first half, Siemian completed six of 11 passes for 39 yards. Star wideouts Emmanuel Sanders and Thomas had one reception apiece. Tailback C.J. Anderson had all of 12 yards on six carries.

That the Broncos only trailed 10-3 was a testament to a defense that single-handedly kept the team in the game.

The second half brought more of the same. Again and again the Denver offense did nothing in the third quarter. Three times the defense held San Diego to field goals—including after a Jordan Taylor fumble set up San Diego with a short field.

But by the time the Broncos generated some offense in the game's final stanza, it was too late.

That Denver even had a chance for a last-second Hail Mary attempt is, once again, a testament to the defense. Denver held Chargers tailback Melvin Gordon to 3.5 yards per carry, and over half his 94 yards on the ground came on one play. It held quarterback Philip Rivers to 178 yards passing, with almost half of those coming on the game's first drive.

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But the defense couldn't overcome the Broncos' failure to hit 90 yards on the ground. It couldn't overcome a moribund 30-of-50 performance from Siemian. It couldn't overcome a pair of lost fumbles.

And it most certainly couldn't overcome another horrific performance from the offensive line. Yes, Siemian was only sacked twice, but the Denver front was flagged for holding five times. One wiped out an Anderson touchdown. Another resulted in a safety that put San Diego up three scores.

You want the root of the problem? It's that line. Denver entered the week 29th in the NFL in sacks allowed. Per Football Outsiders, only the dumpster fire that is the Miami Dolphins has been worse in pass protection.

The absence of right tackle Donald Stephenson was blamed as a big cause of the six sacks Lynch took in Week 5. Stephenson was back against San Diego, and all the team did was swap out those sacks for holds that "prevented" them.

Either way, the result was the same: The offense marched backward.

A Broncos team built around running the football hasn't been able to do that for a month. In turn, that's putting tremendous pressure on a young quarterback to carry the offense behind a line that's giving him precious little time to get rid of the ball.

To no one's shock and amazement, that isn't working.

Miller and the Denver defense gave it their all Thursday night, just as they have all season. The 21 points they surrendered should be worn as a badge of honor. San Diego entered the red zone five times. It found the end zone once.

But the Denver defense can't do it all itself. It can't constantly compensate for an offense that is struggling in every phase of the game. They managed to hold things together over the first month of the season, but now the Broncos have cracked two weeks in a row.

And unless Denver can get straightened away offensively in a hurry, the dam will break.

Gary Davenport is an NFL analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter: @IDPSharks.