Broncos finally find too much to overcome

By BERNIE LINCICOME
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The Denver Broncos have explained other narrow escapes this football season by complimenting themselves on finding a way to win, as if the formula for being barely adequate was more dependable than real dominance, as if survival was preferable to command.

This time, the Broncos found a way to lose, several ways in fact.

How did the Broncos lose a game they should have won? Let me count the ways.

Interception. Fumbles. Poor tackling. Dumb play calls. Poor play execution. Lousy special teams. Bad quarterbacking. LaDainian Tomlinson.

No shame in that last one. Tomlinson is likely to be the Most Valuable Player in the league. The Broncos had no counter for him, responding with nameless ciphers and with Jake Plummer, not a reliable weapon as much as a growing defect, week after week proving more surely that he may not be bad enough to fire but he is always just good enough to lose.

"In my eyes, he's the best," said Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams, not likely to start an argument with that opinion.

So the Broncos have lost the two biggest games they will play to two of the best players they will meet, first Peyton Manning, and now Tomlinson, and the result is the hard conclusion that the Broncos are not as good as either the Chargers or the Colts.

As for the rest of the ways the Broncos lost, they are familiar, if not as critical as Sunday night against the Chargers, a team that refused to lose from 17 points down in the second half.

Against lesser challenges, Plummer's interceptions have been generally harmless. Not this time. Nor could the pair of late Plummer fumbles be overcome.

And how in the world anyone would expect the hulking Broncos defensive end Ebenezer Ekuban to cover the deft Tomlinson ought to have to push a football with his nose the entire 51 yards that Tomlinson dashed with a Philip Rivers pass for one of his four touchdowns.

And the double dose of stupidity of Mike Shanahan daring a fourth-down play with more than 3 minutes to play instead of punting the ball followed by Plummer depositing his pass into the arms of San Diego's Drayton Florence emphasizes exactly where the Broncos are now, between a Rivers and a hard place.

"I felt we needed to do something," said Shanahan, on choosing the fourth-down risk. "They were controlling the tempo of the game in the second half. They were 4-for-4 in the red zone. They were moving the ball and we were behind (by a point)."

San Diego looks like a team reaching for greater things while the Broncos resemble a team declining into desperation.

From Shanahan's fiddling and groping to find a lineup to Plummer's thinning competence to the defense's mounting failures to the formidable task a few days ahead in Kansas City, where dreadful things routinely happen to better Broncos teams than this one, the Broncos are retreating to the very edge of the postseason.

One more loss and the Broncos are looking up wild-card tiebreakers.

It is very late in the season for a contender to be as unsettled as are the Broncos, especially a contender not affected by injuries. It is not as if the Broncos have had to fill in vital holes with untested players. Except for tackle Matt Lepsis, every change has been by choice, from concern, out of dread.

It is hard to know whether the leading rusher on the team, Tatum Bell, is really too injured to play or whether he is simply out of favor with his coach.

Shanahan chose the other Bell this week, who did respond with a pair of touchdowns.

"I just didn't think he (Tatum Bell) was full speed and ready to go," said Shanahan. "It's a credit to him that he wants to play hurt. We'll go on our gut and see how he practices and see if we think he's ready. If not, he won't go."

The Broncos are stuck with Plummer, and he will be the quarterback until he is either injured or the Broncos fall hopelessly behind in the playoff race, not likely for several more weeks.

"Obviously, had we lost this game," said San Diego coach Marty Schottenheimer, "I would have extolled the quality of this football team and the way they play. They play hard. They understand that the only thing that matters with regard to the score is what it is when the game is over.

"I kept preaching that through the whole second half because that is really the truth. The only time the score is of any consequence is when the game is over."

Since the Chargers won, Schottenheimer does not have to extol, merely gloat.

"They beat us in our backyard," said Shanahan, "so I give them a lot of credit for finding a way to win."

It is not as if winning is hidden like an Easter egg or like a lost sock in the dryer. The Chargers did not have to find victory, it ran right up and stuck its tongue out.