Says

If the Denver Broncos actually have a winning formula, they sure couldn’t find it on Thursday against the Las Vegas Raiders. According to Nick Kosmider of The Athletic, they had more penalties than first downs in their narrow 10-7 victory, and they failed on third down in 11 of 15 attempts.

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As Kosmider pointed out, the Broncos won because they put Raiders quarterback in a straitjacket, sacking Smith six times. Their yardage total for the night was 188. Las Vegas ended up with exactly the same stats on third down attempts as Denver, which should give you an idea of how painful this game was to watch if you’re a fan of good offense.

“We have a tough, resilient football team and we find ways to win,” said quarterback Bo Nix, who was picked off twice and finished with a passer rating of 54.2, his lowest of the season. “Right now, it’s the defense leading the charge. They just continue to get us the ball back. They had a bunch of sacks tonight, a few when they were in field-goal range and knocked them out. You’ll win a lot of games with a defense playing like that. We had a little spark with a special teams play. At some point, we’ve got to start moving the ball and scoring some points.”

Nix looked uncomfortable in the pocket all night long, even when said pocket was clean. Third-and-long was the order of the evening for the Broncos, and after a while they started to hear it from the hometown crowd.

“They should,” running back J.K. Dobbins said when asked about the booing that descended on the team after the Broncos’ first three drives came up empty. “We’re not very good at times. They should be mad because we have so much talent. We’ve just got to figure it out. The guys who are on offense, we’ve got to figure it out — and we will.”

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The answer is to find an offensive rhythm that would result in a winning formula. No one quite knows how to do that just yet, but the level of urgency is rising to the forefront in Denver. The Chiefs are coming to town, and they know a thing or two about winning via offensive rhythm.

“We’ve put ourselves in great position for the second half of the year,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey said, “but we’re living dangerously. We’ve got to clean that up.”