With the Broncos out of the picture, do you think gearing up to play for Week 18 will be an issue at all?
I don’t think so. There are a lot of guys on this roster that are playing for second contracts, playing for starting jobs next season, and obviously playing for each other. Even though the coaching staff may have one foot out the door, these players are going to call George Paton “boss” next year, so they have to put their best stuff out there because Paton is an eternal scout. He will grind on this tape and I think just like a preseason game, this game matters to him in that respect.
Any final predictions for Sunday?
It would be great for the Broncos to get a win, but if that doesn’t happen, I hope we see excellent individual performances from the players. I’m hoping we see a galvanized team and a strong performance from Drew Lock, whose career stats are probably worse than they should be just based on his starts against the Chiefs.
I’m hoping we see the offense able to move the ball consistently and the playmakers get involved. Crazy enough, this is one of the first times in two years that all of Courtland Sutton, Jerry Jeudy, Tim Patrick, and Noah Fant will be available in the same game with Drew Lock at the helm. In fact, the only other times we’ve seen it was in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago and Week 2 against the Steelers in 2020 before that.
The group that will be out there on Sunday offensively is the group so many Broncos fans were eager to see leading up to the 2020 season, but because of injuries we never got to see it. I’m predicting those guys do their thing, even if it’s in a losing effort.