Broncos safety Justin Simmons played in the team’s Week One loss to Seattle, but was out on injured reserve with a quad injury until Monday’s game against the Chargers.
He returned to what’s become a real mess, as the Broncos are now 2-4 with their ugly 19-16 overtime loss to L.A.
Simmons was shown on the ESPN broadcast giving a pretty fiery speech on the sideline before the overtime period started. And while Denver’s defense held up its end of the bargain, forcing a pair of punts, the Broncos still weren’t able to get it done.
“Yeah, I pretty much was just saying, ‘We can’t leave here without a win,’” Simmons said before pausing. “It’s tough.”
Given the expectations for the Broncos this season, Simmons was asked where he thinks things have gone wrong. He paused for several seconds before answering.
“I don’t know. It starts with leadership — from a defensive standpoint, from an offensive standpoint, special teams,” Simmons said. “Something’s obviously not going right and we need to find a way to fix it. Everyone knows the definition of insanity and we can’t keep doing the same things week in and week out and think things are going to change. So, from that standpoint, we’ve just got to figure it out.”
Simmons admitted that it was frustrating to get several stops toward the end of the game and not win it. But he did his best to not throw Denver’s struggling offense under the bus.
“From our standpoint, there’s plays that we left out,” Simmons said. “I’ll go back and watch the film, probably left some plays out there where we could’ve put our offense in a short-field situation. I know we hurt ourselves there, I think it was late in the second, early in the third, I think it was a 15-play drive, 16-play drive where, like I said, self-inflicted wounds on third down and just not able to get off the field. So, there’s always those five, six, seven plays through a game that are game-defining plays. And I’m sure they’re going to pop up for us on our tape, defensively.
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how well you play. We didn’t win. So, defensively, we’ve got to find a way to be better.”
Denver’s defense may have had trouble getting off the field at times. But when you allow just 16 points in regulation, that’s a game that ought to be won in most circumstances.
Right now Denver is ranked third in total defense and fourth in points allowed. But because they’re scoring a league-worst 15.2 points per game, the team is 2-4 and searching for answers.