The Denver Broncos: A Mid-Season Collapse

Things never go the way you think they will.

Entering the 2009 NFL Regular Season, the Denver Broncos were expected to be...well...lousy. Coming off a late-season collapse in 2008, Denver had a new head coach, a new quarterback, and a new defensive coordinator in Mike Nolan. All recipes for disaster.

Hardly anyone predicted them to be great, let alone an above .500 team. Experts predicted them to be atrocious, especially at defense. And with Jay Cutler having been traded to the Bears for Kyle Orton and two first-round selections in the NFL Draft, they sure wouldn't be great at the quarterback position either. Like I said before, all recipes for disaster.

However, things never go the way you think they will.

With the first game against the Cincinnati Bengals fast approaching, Denver was just looking for a win. And...they got it. In unbelievable fashion. With 11 seconds left in the ball game, Denver down six to the Bengals, they were just looking for a miracle. And what they got was just that. With 11 seconds left at Paul Brown Stadium, Kyle Orton was looking for Brandon Marshall. He threw and the pass was deflected by one of the Bengal corners. That should have been the end. However, the deflected pass was instead caught by Brandon Stokely and ran into the end zone for an 87-yard touchdown. Simply unbelievable. So, final score 12-7. Broncos win in miracle fashion.

Now, no one really believed that this was a quality win against the Bengals. After all, Cincinnati was coming off of a 4-11-1 season the previous year. They certainly weren't predicted to be a contender.

However, with one win came six straight for the Denver Broncos and after six weeks of football, the Broncos were 6-0 going into the bye week, in sole possession of the AFC West. As I said before, things never go the way you think they will.

So, were the Denver Broncos for real? Were they indeed as good as their record suggested? They had beaten quality teams in New England, Dallas, and San Diego. Could we now start to look at this franchise as a for-real contender?

Not so fast!

This is why we play sixteen games in a season, folks. With six straight wins to start the regular season came three straight losses against Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and...wait...Washington? The Washington Redskins? Really? The same team that barely beat the lowly St. Louis Rams, barely beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and lost to the Detroit Lions, a team coming off a disatourous 0-16 season? Really? The Washington Redskins? This is why we play sixteen games in a season. To see who are the contenders...and who are the pretenders. And right now, the Denver Broncos are looking to be leaning more toward the pretender side of the street.

So, with what looked to be shaping up as a nice season for the Broncos after week six quickly turned into a mid-season collapse for the once 6-0 Broncos. Now 6-3, the Denver Broncos are now starting to resemble a team from last year, a team that, like this year's Denver Broncos, started off the 2008 season 6-2. Who is this team that I am speaking of? No other than the Washington Redskins. The Washington Redskins who, like Denver, had wins against quality opponents such as Dallas, Philadelphia, and Arizona. The Washington Redskins that ended the second-half of the season 2-6, ultimately finishing 8-8 and missing the playoffs. Do you see the resemblance?

Well, let's look at the quarterback play for both teams. Jason Campbell, in 2008, started off the season with 8 TDs and no INTs. Kyle Orton started off the 2009 season with 9 TDS and 1 INT after seven games. Both quarterbacks were managing games well and achieving wins for their teams. However, at the mid-way point of the 2008 season, the tide changed for the Washington Redskins. They could not score points and their team was losing. It seems much the same for the Denver Broncos of this year. All of a sudden, their defense is playing poorly and their offense cannot produce points on the board. Déjà vu all over again?

That being said, are the Denver Broncos on pace for a collapse similar to last year's? Or will they turn their game around and finish strong? All of these questions can only be answered over time, and predictions don't mean a thing. After all, no one believed the Denver Broncos would start the season 6-0. 

Things never go the way you think they will.