Hard Fall From a Mile High

A bye week couldn’t come at a worse time for the Denver Broncos, who have more than just a loss to Kansas City and season-ending injuries to two players to stew over.

For a team that had a realistic hunger for the Super Bowl entering the season, the premature death of its playoff hopes is tough to swallow.

Although not mathematically eliminated from the postseason at 7-7, the Broncos know the score. Coach Mike Shanahan proclaimed those hopes dead after last week’s 26-23 loss in Kansas City, saying, “We just know we are out of the playoff race.”

That realization was a jolt to many Broncos this week.

“When you start the season off knowing you have a great team, and then to end up like this, it’s disappointing,” running back Terrell Davis said. “It’s definitely disappointing.”

Linebacker Bill Romanowski said the Broncos entered the season with “what felt like a Super Bowl team. I still feel we have a lot of talent on this team. But, for whatever reason, we didn’t get the job done, and that includes every guy in this locker room.”

Added linebacker John Mobley: “I wanted another championship ring, quite honestly. And I thought we had the horses to get it done.”

Shanahan confided to a Denver columnist that “coming out of training camp, I really believed this could be the best team we’ve ever had.”

How did it go so wrong?

Injuries played a critical role, especially fullback Howard Griffith’s potentially career-ending neck injury in training camp, wide receiver Ed McCaffrey’s broken leg in the season opener and Davis’ two knee operations. Additional injuries wiped out most of the remainder of the wide receiver corps and disrupted continuity in the offensive line.

For the most part, quarterback Brian Griese avoided a recurrence of shoulder problems that dogged him the previous two years. A concussion, however, knocked him out of the Kansas City game, and his backup, Gus Frerotte, saw his season end with a separated shoulder, as did defensive end Kavika Pittman with a torn calf muscle.

Beyond that, this was a team that simply didn’t make big plays.

“The bottom line is making plays,” defensive end Keith Washington said after the Kansas City loss. “We didn’t get it done this game. We didn’t get it done this year.”

Rod Smith has had a Pro Bowl-caliber season with 98 catches for 1,195 yards, but he has limped around on sprained ankles for the last six games. With no healthy, experienced receivers, the Broncos lost their swagger on offense, turning into a team that dinked all game and rarely threw long.

They became predictable and uncharacteristically unproductive on offense. The defense, while showing improvement since Shanahan took a more active role in that unit at midseason, was unable to take up the slack.

The Broncos won their first two games and didn’t have another winning streak, alternating wins and losses over their last nine outings.

“The first game we played [a 31-20 victory against the New York Giants] was probably the most complete game we played this year,” Davis said. “We had all our guns right there. We were looking at bigger and better things.

“But ever since that game and the next game against Arizona, we really didn’t have anything going.”

The Broncos will return to the field on Dec. 30 against archrival Oakland at Invesco Field, then wrap up the season Jan. 6 at Indianapolis.

The Oakland game loomed large when the schedule was released last spring.

“You would have thought this game probably would determine the division,” Davis said. “But it’s not.”