DENVER (AP) -Things have gotten so bad for the Denver Broncos that they’re starting to point fingers – at themselves.
Denver’s 2-7 slide since November began puts them in some bad company with bottom feeders Detroit, St. Louis, Washington and Kansas City. Only the Broncos still have a shot at the playoffs thanks to their sizzling 6-0 start.
The Chiefs (3-12) visit Invesco Field on Sunday, when the Broncos will try to salvage their season and end a three-year playoff drought. They’ll need lots of help.
There are 10 scenarios in which the Broncos will get an invitation to the postseason party, but none appears very realistic. Aside from all the other AFC wild-card contenders losing Sunday, the Broncos’ best bet is to beat the Chiefs and for two of these three teams to lose: the Jets, Ravens and Steelers.
Denver would need only one of those three to lose if it beats K.C. and Houston beats New England.
the game,” Broncos coach Josh McDaniels said. “I know there’s a lot of other factors at play and there’s so many different scenarios that if you’re sitting there trying to calculate all those you might miss the first quarter.”
The only score they’ll be tracking is their own.
“I’m not going to root for anybody,” Brandon Marshall said. “I’m just going to sit back and play my part and hopefully everything will fall in our favor. I’m not even going to watch or pay attention to the scores. Hopefully things work out for us.”
They sure didn’t last week, when the Broncos lost at Philadelphia. Then they learned the Jets leapfrogged them in the AFC wild-card race when the Indianapolis Colts frittered away their shot at an unblemished record by losing to New York 29-15 after pulling their starters in the third quarter.
Neither did the league do the Broncos any favors this week by moving the Jets’ season finale against Cincinnati into prime time. If New England wins at Houston earlier in the day, the Bengals won’t have a chance of moving up to the No. 3 seed in the AFC bracket, so the Jets could end up with another virtual forfeit and a ticket to the playoffs.
ry factor in moving it to Sunday night. If the Jets win, they are in the playoffs. If they lose, they are out and someone else is in.”
Actually, if Baltimore wins at Oakland, the Ravens get a wild card.
McDaniels holds no grudges against the Colts or the NFL over these decisions that could have deep ramifications in Denver.
So, what kind of shot does he expect the Bengals and Raiders to give the Jets and Ravens, respectively?
“It will affect us,” McDaniels said, “but it’s not our business.”
“They’ve earned the right to do whatever they want to with their football teams, whatever they think is best for them. You earn that right over how you play over 16 games and we’re 8-7, and if we were 12-3, we might be in a different situation and we would be discussing that,” he said. “You don’t want to wait until now and then start crying foul because somebody else might rest some players for the playoffs. I mean, that’s your (own) problem.
Despite a regime change, a staff makeover and a roster rollover, the Broncos find themselves in the same precarious position as a year ago, fighting for their playoff lives after a late-season fade.
Last time, they were whipped at San Diego, becoming the first team to blow a three-game divisional lead with three weeks left and costing two-time Super Bowl winner Mike Shanahan his job.
NFL merger to go unbeaten through six games and miss the playoffs, joining the ’78 Redskins and the ’03 Vikings.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, but one area where they’ve really regressed from last year is the offensive line. They’ve been unable to bore holes for the running game or keep quarterback Kyle Orton upright.
McDaniels called out his O-line this week when saying it wasn’t the running backs’ fault that the Broncos’ ground game has been stymied.
As is their custom, none of the offensive linemen was willing to talk Wednesday despite the threat of league fines. Even Ryan Clady declined interview requests after making his first Pro Bowl, saying, “I need to go get treatment.”
It’s been a month since the offensive line played well, in a 44-13 rout at Kansas City.
The Chiefs are healthier this time around and they’re vowing not to go through the motions Sunday, insisting they have a lot at stake themselves.
“We need confidence going into the next season,” Chiefs linebacker Andy Studebaker said. “It’s a way to set the tone for the offseason. Beating them would be good for us.”
Besides ringing in 2010 with a win, there’s another, purely personal incentive to beat Denver.
to replace you and you want to kill that notion.”
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