BRONCOS

The Broncos win over the Lions is far from meaningless

Dec 23, 2019, 6:26 AM | Updated: 8:46 am

In a lot of ways, the Broncos win over the Lions yesterday didn’t mean anything. And if Denver is able to beat Oakland on Sunday in the season finale, it’ll be another victory that naysayers will dismiss.

Win or lose, the Broncos aren’t going to the playoffs for a fourth-straight season. And regardless of how the final two games turn out, Denver is going to finish with a losing record for the third-consecutive year, the first time that’s happened since 1970-72.

All of that is true. In reality, there isn’t any difference between 5-11, 6-10 or 7-9, other than the additional wins wind up hurting the team’s draft position. It’s hard to argue those facts.

But that way of thinking fails to account for the nuance of sports, where things like momentum, belief and confidence come into play. Those are things that good teams all possess. Those are traits that franchises competing for a championship all share. So trying to get those going in Denver, when they’ve been gone for so long, is vitally important.

Broncos Country learned this lesson firsthand back in 1996.

That was Mike Shanahan’s first season as the team’s head coach and Denver went into the last game of the season with a 7-8 record. They were out of the playoff race and heading to Oakland for what looked like a daunting task.

The Raiders were only 8-7, but they were very much alive for a playoff spot. Their season, which began with an 8-2 start, was hanging in the balance. They had everything to play for, while the Broncos had nothing on the line.

Despite playing without rookie running back Terrell Davis, however, Denver was able to pull off the upset. They entered the game as a five-point underdog, but scored 14 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to pull off a 31-28 win, spoiling the Raiders first season back in Oakland.

The victory didn’t mean anything in the standings; the Broncos still finished in a three-way tie for last place in the AFC West. And it pushed them down to 15th in the 1996 NFL Draft, where they grabbed a linebacker out of tiny Kutztown named John Mobley.

But the win was valuable.

It still proved that the team was buying into Shanahan’s program. The fact that he was able to get them to rally for a win on the road, with vacations slated to begin the next day, was evidence that he had his roster’s full attention. Everyone had bought in.

It also showed progress, and not just because Denver improved from 7-9 in 1994 to 8-8. The Broncos dominated that day, demonstrating that the system being implemented was starting to click.

John Elway threw for 320 yards and two touchdowns. Aaron Craver, subbing for Davis, rushed for 108 yards and a score on 20 carries. And the defense made big play after big play in the fourth quarter, as Greg Robinson’s defense started to show the playmaking abilities that would become their signature in future years.

In a lot of ways, that game became the springboard for one of the greatest stretches in Broncos history. The next season, Denver finished 13-3 and won the AFC West. In 1997 and ’98, they went 12-4 and 14-2, winning back-to-back Super Bowls in the process.

Do the Broncos go 39-9, win two division titles and hoist the Lombardi Trophy twice in the following three years if they mail it in against Oakland? Maybe. But it seems unlikely.

Establishing a winning culture is crucial to any team. That started in Denver under Shanahan when his team went on the road and spoiled the Raiders season, despite having nothing to play for in the season finale.

The same thing could happen in the last two weeks of the 2019 campaign. That’s not to say the Broncos are going to rattle off the kind of success they saw from 1996-98, as those teams boasted Elway, Davis, Shannon Sharpe, Gary Zimmerman and handful of other Ring of Fame players. But it could create a winning culture that carries over into 2020 and beyond.

If Denver is able to beat Oakland on Sunday, they’ll finish 7-9; that’s a one game improvement over last season. While not drastic by any means, there’s a big psychological difference between 6-10 and 7-9. Suddenly, it feel like the Broncos are trending in the right direction.

In a lot of ways, they will be. They’ll have finished the season on a 4-1 run, all with Drew Lock behind center. That type of success with a rookie quarterback will create a sense of optimism that will bridge from now until training camp in July; there won’t be nearly as many open spots on the hill at Dove Valley if that hype train gets rolling.

But it’s not just the quarterback who will benefit from a strong finish. It’ll also go a long way toward convincing everyone, from the players to the other people in the building, that the current coaching staff knows what it’s doing.

Vic Fangio can accomplish what Shanahan did in ’96; he can improved the team’s record by a game, knock off Oakland in the finale when the Raiders had a chance to make the playoffs, and keep his team playing hard even though they had nothing at stake. That’d be a huge accomplishment for a first-year head coach.

A strong finish will also help Rich Scangarello, the Broncos much-maligned offensive coordinator. Given how anemic Denver’s attack has been for most of the season, languishing near the bottom of the league in most statistical categories, the resurgence under Lock would put some wind in the coach’s sails.

Scoring 23 against the Chargers, 38 in Houston, 27 versus the Lions and a big number against the Raiders would help erase a lot of those early season failures. It would demonstrate that Denver’s OC can make it work with a young quarterback.

Wins in the final two games are far from meaningless. They can jumpstart the Broncos turnaround, sending them into the offseason feeling positive, upbeat and optimistic.

That might sound like a bunch of mumbo jumbo, but it’s a real factor in sports. There’s proof of it happening once in Denver; it can certainly happen again.

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The Broncos win over the Lions is far from meaningless