Even the ugliest of wins goes on the left side of the ledger.
Sean Payton knows it.
He praised his team Sunday for finding its way to the finish line of a 19-17 victory that won’t find its way into any sort of football pantheon.
“The teams that have that trait generally fare better,” Payton said of handling adversity. “I was glad to see us do that.”
The Denver Broncos, though? No finish line or arrivals or anything much beyond a deep breath in sight. They have a long way to go.
Even the rosiest tinted glasses can’t hide the warts on this team.
Or the 2-5 record.
Or the virtually nonexistent playoff odds that increased infinitesimally when Denver staved off yet another shaky second half on its home field thanks to P.J. Locke’s interception just after the two-minute warning.
Could the Broncos find themselves on the Autobahn? Suddenly whizzing past traffic, gaining on lost time and making like Jacksonville or Detroit last year? Riding a heater to the postseason like the 2-6 Jaguars did or to Week 18 contention like the 1-6 Lions did?
The Broncos found a way to win at home for the first time this season rather than finding a way to lose for the fourth straight time. They staved off more dubious franchise history in the process and made a big run slightly more possible.
Such a burst, however, will require beating at least one of Kansas City and Buffalo before and after the upcoming bye week. Maybe both.
In the meantime, Payton isn’t interested in celebrating baby steps.
Like, for instance, his first Empower Field win as Denver’s head coach.
“Hopefully there are a lot better milestones than that,” Payton said. “I look at this more as, we talked all week: This is a tough league and it’s close. There’s a really fine line in winning and losing. You saw today. We have to start stringing together these opportunities.
“With respect to the question, I hope there are bigger accomplishments than that.”
His players? They’ll revel in it for a day before turning their attention back to Kansas City and that albatross losing streak.
“Shoot, probably get some drinks in,” cornerback Pat Surtain II said of his postgame plans. “Celebrate this victory and then move on.”
Broncos fans probably considered emptying the bottle midway through the second half as a lifeless Packers offense scored on three straight drives to turn a 16-3 deficit into a 17-16 lead.
Wil Lutz, though, drove home a go-ahead field goal with 3 minutes, 50 seconds remaining and handed the Denver defense a chance for a close-out drive. They didn’t get the job done on several opportunities earlier in the season in crunch time and gave up a 29-yard pass to Green Bay running back A.J. Dillon to put the Packers themselves on the verge of field goal range.
Locke, though, tracked a Jordan Love deep ball and intercepted it with 1:40 left, allowing the offense to run the clock out. It was Locke’s first career interception — and it couldn’t have come at a better time.
“That’s huge for us. We always preach about finishing games,” Surtain said. “A play like that, when the ball’s in the air, it’s ours. P.J. made a great play on the ball.”
It’s the play Denver hasn’t made so far this season and has made too few times over the past seven years.
“In the second half, we were just doing a terrible job,” safety Justin Simmons said. “Third downs and things like that. We kept saying, ‘We’re going to make a play. We’re going to make a play. Believe in it.’ And, man, P.J. made it.”
Added linebacker Josey Jewell, “It was nice to finally finish. We need to be able to do that every week. We need to be able to play four quarters strong and consistent.”
That helped make up for a fourth-and-2 touchdown pass earlier in the quarter from Love that bounded off receiver Romeo Doubs and into the arms of rookie Jayden Reed to give Green Bay the lead. Just before that, the Broncos had 10 men on the field and had to burn their second timeout of the half, causing Payton to chew out defensive coordinator Vance Joseph on the sideline.
“Don’t get me started. That needs to be cleaner,” Payton said. “It’s the NFL. It shouldn’t happen. We get caught burning timeouts twice with substitution changes, and we have to get that corrected.”
It served as a role reversal from the first half, when Joseph’s group pitched a shutout and Payton’s offense stalled twice in the red zone and settled for three field goals rather than putting the game away early. The most egregious came at the end of an efficient opening drive, when a Quinn Bailey holding penalty took a Javonte Williams rushing touchdown off the board.
“That was unfortunate. That was a great drive,” said quarterback Russell Wilson, who completed 20 of 29 passes for 194 yards and a touchdown on a turnover-free afternoon.
But Wilson and the offense had a chance at extending a fourth-quarter drive, too, before he missed Javonte Williams on a wide-open naked bootleg pass on second-and 5 and then was sacked on third-and-5 before Lutz’s go-ahead field goal.
“You want to convert another first down there, keep the clocks moving,” said Payton, who brought the play up on two different occasions unsolicited in his news conference. “We weren’t able to.”
On this day, Denver made enough plays to overcome it all. Those wrinkles get ironed out a little smoother in the film room the day after a victory.
“The only thing we can do is build on it, keep on improving and just feel this feeling over and over again,” Surtain said. “Know what it takes to feel this feeling.”
Payton might not be interested in celebrating the small milestones and the baby steps.
But right now? That’s what his Broncos have.
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