Broncos-Vikings: The good, the bad and the ugly from Sunday
Nov 18, 2019, 6:29 AM
The Broncos traveled to take on the Vikings in Week 11 and things were rolling early like we hadn’t seen in years. The offense was on fire, and Denver held Minnesota scoreless through the first half of the game.
After three quarters, the Vikings had only scored seven points. Then, things fell apart in the fourth quarter and the Broncos ended up losing the game by a score of 27-23.
Broncos head coach Vic Fangio had a similar message for his team who has now lost four games in the fourth quarter of the 2019 season.
“Yeah, I mean – yeah, I think we’re close – but we haven’t gotten over the top well enough yet. We did in our previous game with the stop and then the ensuing first down to close it, but this game, we didn’t get it done. We’ll eventually get it done. These guys are good guys. They’re working their butts off. They enjoy coming to work. They like playing. We’ll just keep grinding and keep pounding, and eventually we’ll get through,” Fangio said.
The Broncos are back on the road in Week 12, as they head to Buffalo to take on the Bills. Like the Vikings game, this is a tough opponent with a physical style of play. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s take a look at the good, the bad and the ugly from Week 11 loss.
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The Good
Courtland Sutton is a stud. The Vikings defense is strong, but their secondary is the place you could pick on them – and that’s exactly what the Broncos did to start the game with great success. Most of that was going to Sutton early and often.
Sutton was targeted nine times and caught five passes for 113 yards. He should have been targeted at the end of the fourth quarter when the game was on the line, but the Vikings put extra defenders on him and that forced quarterback Brandon Allen to look elsewhere in crunch time.
Fangio was pleased to talk about the second-year receiver after the game.
“Good. I’ve been impressed with Courtland all year. He’s tough to handle. We thought we could get some balls to him this game up the field and we did. That pass interference for a lot of yards is part of that, which kind of gets lost in the shuffle. They gave him a lot of attention too, but he still is a great player for us and one that we can build around,” Fangio said.
The scary thing is, we haven’t seen the best from Sutton yet in 2019. He’s already ahead of the development curve I thought he was on, and there is still plenty of more potential there. If the Broncos can figure out their quarterback situation, it would greatly help Sutton who has the makings of a star in this league.
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The Bad
The offense wasted time and was too conservative late in the game, leading to the fourth-quarter comeback of the Vikings. In fact, it was a comeback that we haven’t seen in the NFL during the last five years.
A graphic came up during the game highlighting that teams with a 20-point lead at halftime were 99-0 over that span. It led to some pretty funny “hold my beer” memes on Twitter during the game.
— RubeChat (@KFANRubeChat) November 17, 2019
Many people will blame the defense for collapsing in the fourth quarter and they are certainly well within their rights to do that. However, I’m not letting the offense off the hook. When they needed it the most, the Broncos offense could not move the chains and keep Kirk Cousins and the Vikings offense on the sideline. This was a whole-team breakdown on Sunday.
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The Ugly
The injury to fullback Andy Janovich was so severe that the CBS broadcast chose not to replay the play he was hurt on. You know the graphic was going to wind up on the internet, and re-watching the play in slow motion is certainly not for the faint of heart.
Nicki Jhabvala from The Athletic gave everyone a heads up when retweeting a video of the injury happening.
Ew, don't look. https://t.co/RPTioonQRP
— Nicki Jhabvala (@NickiJhabvala) November 17, 2019
Janovich was signed to a three-year extension last month and now will likely be shut down for the year. He’s getting an MRI on Monday to see the extent of the damage, but with only six games left in the season, the veteran fullback has little chance of playing again this year.
