They had already failed their standard, impossible as it was.
On the Raiders’ second drive of the game, quarterback Geno Smith zipped a couple of first-down balls into narrow windows in Denver’s defense, and rookie Ashton Jeanty did the rest. He was tough. Tougher than the 11 in throwback Bronco orange early on Thursday night. He popped Talanoa Hufanga in the helmet on his way to the goal line, fell into the end zone for the first red-zone touchdown anyone had scored at Empower Field since Week 8, and a sea of Broncos walked off to the sideline as if they’d been put in time-out.
So at halftime of a 7-7 slopfest, safety Talanoa Hufanga pulled the entire Broncos’ locker room together.
We gotta be better, Hufanga recalled telling them. Everybody.
And he placed the onus squarely on Denver’s defense. It didn’t matter that the offense struggled to move the ball — again. Hufanga deemed that first-quarter Jeanty touchdown unacceptable because any touchdown is unacceptable at this point to Denver’s defense.
“It’s set every week that — they can’t score at all,” Hufanga said postgame.
“It’s tough for us to even give them a touchdown,” the 25-year-old continued. “We want to hold teams to field goals, or get off the field if we can’t get turnovers.”
They did not give the Raiders anymore points of any kind in a 10-7 win that followed a familiar script for the Broncos. Vance Joseph’s unit played hero, with six sacks and no points allowed in the final three quarters. They have played hero three out of the past five games. And across a seven-game win streak, Denver’s offense is pushing the limits of how much it can put on its defense to win a football game.
“We’re not doing them any justice,” running back J.K. Dobbins said postgame. “Like, I feel bad the way we play on offense and the way they play on defense. Because they’re doing so great, and we’re doing so bad.
“And they’re our brothers too. So, like, it just sucks. Because they’re out there, so many plays, playing their butts off — like, we can’t keep doing it to them. We’ll figure it out.”
Yes, the Broncos’ offense thinks this pattern is unsustainable.
The Broncos’ defense, however, thinks this pattern is sustainable.
“We all know what we’re capable of,” outside linebacker Dondrea Tillman told The Denver Post. “We know what type of defense we have. And we can stop anybody, really, when we’re playing the right way.
“So, we put the pressure on our back.”
A month ago, after a grind-it-out win over the Jets in London in which the Broncos scored a single touchdown, head coach Sean Payton said he hoped to consider Denver “a defensive team all season.”
For 10 games, Joseph’s unit has played better when its back is against the wall. The Broncos entered Thursday night tied for the fewest red-zone touchdowns allowed in the NFL. They dealt with the Raiders starting in Denver territory twice more after that first-quarter Jeanty touchdown, and allowed no points. They stopped Las Vegas on nine straight third downs after a Brock Bowers 31-yard catch-and-run early in the second quarter. And for now, they relish in this.
“It’s – ‘All right, this is what we’ve been dealt, and we’re going to get off the field,’” cornerback Riley Moss said postgame. “And that’s what makes a good defense, is being able to bend in situations that aren’t advantageous for you. But you grind it out, and you don’t make excuses, and you get it done.”
They have won six games in the span of a month, which included a trip to London and a quick-turnaround weekend jaunt to Houston. Five of those six games have been one-score games. Multiple players admitted that this weekend’s mini-bye — having already played Thursday — is much-needed for recovery. Improbably, though, a slew of key pieces are getting better by the week.
Defensive lineman Zach Allen now has five sacks and 15 quarterback hits in six games as he closes in on another All-Pro bid. Outside linebacker Nik Bonitto rebounded from a pair of quiet weeks to record 1.5 sacks and two tackles for loss. Hufanga and fellow safety Brandon Jones have picked up invaluable slack in Pat Surtain’s absence. Yes: This is all happening without the Broncos’ best defensive player.
Is this a comfortable script for Payton, who felt like he was “looking on the wrong section of the third-down sheet” at times on Thursday? No. He made that clear postgame.
“We are never comfortable as coaches,” Payton said. “… If my answer were to you, ‘I’m comfortable,’ that’d be silly, right? So, obviously, we gotta clean up the penalties, we gotta clean up some of the execution. And that is an ongoing thing that probably never ends.
“You’re searching for that Shangri-La, right now. We’re a team that’s sitting at eight wins. I think we’re the only team sitting there. So, and yet, we’re constantly looking internally.”
Yes, the Broncos are 8-2, as Dobbins said. But they want more. They can’t have more with an offense that went three-and-out on eight of their 13 drives Thursday night. Joseph’s defense has bent before, against the Colts in Week 2 and the Giants in Week 7.
But they don’t believe they will again.
“We can be a lot better than what we put out there tonight,” Moss said postgame. “I can be a lot better than what I put out there tonight.
“And everyone on the defense believes that, too.”
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