Not long after the Chiefs made it look like the Raiders should be relegated to the UFL, the Broncos struggled to overcome a team that has struggled on a weekly basis, in every phase. And so the boos flew in the direction of Denver’s offense, sometimes as loud as anything the woeful Dolphins heard from their home fans a week earlier.
“They booed me before and they’ll boo me again,” quarterback Bo Nix told reporters after the 10-7 victory. “It’s not going to be the last time. Obviously it’s unfortunate. You don’t want your own fans to boo you, but that’s part of it.”
It is the right thing to say publicly. It’s hard not to privately wonder if Nix and the other Broncos were privately thinking, “What the fuck? We’re 8-2.”
In football, 11 players on the field try to do one thing and the other 11 players on the field try to do the exact opposite. When an offense fails, the opposing defense deserves some of the credit for it.
The offensive players are giving their best. But their efforts are countered by a defense that is also trying to do its best. Add to this the fact that fans are now programmed to crave yards and points (thanks to the continued proliferation of fantasy football and prop betting), and the frustrations are compounded by their own potential personal financial interest in Nix and others making their “overs” and/or scoring touchdowns “at any time.”
Regardless, Broncos fans were expecting a blowout. A match that would be decided at half-time. A game that would let the starters leave for the last quarter. A match that the media would be complaining about non-stop on social media not because it was close but ugly on the part of both teams but because it was not close and ugly on the part of just one of them.
What everyone got was a close game that was indecisive until Raiders kicker Daniel Carlson missed a 48-yard field goal that would have tied the score at 10 with 4:26 left. Even then, Denver’s offense needed three first downs to ice him, and they did.
Those efforts were not met with applause. By then, it was too late to make Broncos fans happy with what they had seen. Even as his favorite team emerged from the game as the first NFL team to record eight wins this season.