Lammey: 3 keys to victory for Broncos over the Jaguars

The Denver Broncos find themselves in a must-win situation against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 13. If the playoffs started today, the Broncos would be out after losing a heartbreaker against division rival Kansas City Chiefs last weekend.

With a record of 7-4, nothing is guaranteed. The Broncos have five games remaining, and they need to win out if they can.

And that starts with the 2-9 Jaguars, which Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak said this week that he believes the team won’t overlook.

“They won’t have any problem getting our attention. I can tell you that. They’re an extremely talented football team,” Kubiak said. “If you look across the board, the talent that they have in place. I can think of six games that they’ve lost by less than a score to really good teams right now that are in the playoff hunt or are looking to be in the playoff hunt.”

“We respect what they’re doing playing good defense. They have a really good special teams group, something we struggled with last week. We understand. We’re going to have to play really well.”

Here are the three keys to victory over the Jaguars in Week 13:

Pick on Blake Borltes

The Jaguars are known for turning the ball over, and quarterback Blake Borltes is largely to blame. Bortles is tied with Brock Osweiler and Ryan Fitzpatrick for the NFL lead with 13 interceptions. During the 41 games of his pro career, Bortles has accounted for 73 turnovers with 25 fumbles and 48 interceptions.

He had a breakout season in 2015, but Borltes seems to have regressed this year. His mechanics look worse than they did when he came out of college a few years ago.

Bortles has a looping throwing motion that is long and labored. There’s a good chance, with the Broncos pass rushers swirling around him, we see a strip-sack at least once in this matchup.

Future Hall of Fame linebacker DeMarcus Ware said this week that the defense has noticed how much Jacksonville turns over the ball.

“We take note of it on defense, especially how much they give the ball up. We always make sure — as pass rushers — stripping that ball out and working a little bit extra this week,” Ware said. “He does have a funky ball pattern, but regardless, if you can get to the quarterback you can always try to get that strip-sack and make those big plays.”

Bortles can get hot in garbage time, but if the Broncos don’t call off the defense we could see the young quarterback struggle all game long.

Make Paxton Lynch comfortable

Rookie first-round draft pick Paxton Lynch will start against the Jaguars on Sunday. The Broncos need to make him comfortable in the second start of his career.

And offensive coordinator Rick Dennison said this week that’s the plan.

“We’ll put him in the right situation …We tend to try and do that. We try to give them all the best chance to win because that’s what we need to do for our team against a very talented group,” Dennison said.

Lynch thrives in the shotgun, the formation he ran almost exclusively in college. In his first start against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 5, Lynch had a 73.1 percent completion rate with 169 passing yards, one touchdown and no interceptions. It’s clear that when comfortable, Lynch can make plays with his arm.

Kubiak said he thinks Lynch is better now than he was earlier this year against Atlanta.

“He’s further along. He’s further along mentally and further along in what we ask him to do on a weekly basis,” Kubiak said. “ (He’s further along) in how quickly he processes information as compared to six, seven weeks ago.”

Lynch could be a franchise-caliber quarterback, and the team has been developing him behind the scenes with the idea that one day he could be its starter.

The future of the team could be Lynch, and the future is now. If they make him comfortable, Lynch could lead the Broncos to the first win of his career Sunday.

Play better on special teams

The game against the Chiefs was especially bad for the Broncos special teams unit. Penalties and turnovers were the order of the day, and those mistakes cost the Broncos dearly.

Special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis was brutally honest when talking this week about his team’s play against the Chiefs.

“That was the worst game that I’ve ever been a part of special teams-wise. It was tough to go through,” DeCamillis said. “It’s uncharacteristic because the one thing that we pride ourselves on since we have been here is our coverage teams, and we just didn’t play well.

“Everybody had a turn, including me. When you play like that (you) obviously don’t do a good job. We have to get that picked up really quick.”

Returner Jordan Norwood muffed two punts against Kansas City — one in the second quarter that he was able to recover and another in the fourth quarter that fell into the hands of the enemy.

This week, the Broncos activated wide receiver Kalif Raymond off the practice squad. Raymond was seen as a potential return specialist coming out of Holy Cross this year.

He went undrafted, but Raymond was able to flash his ability in training camp. He’s lightning quick, great foot frequency, and can change direction without losing much speed.

During the preseason, Raymond caught two passes for five yards on offense in addition to returning nine punts for 45 yards (5.0 average) and nine kickoffs for 215 yards (23.9 average).

Kubiak revealed on Friday that Raymond would get a chance to play against the Jaguars.

There’s no doubt about it, the Broncos don’t have things easy the rest of the season — or ahead of them on Sunday.