Recap: Vance Joseph’s rejuvenated team looked to make it four consecutive wins as they traveled to San Francisco to take on the struggling 49ers. But the team got a bit of bad news when wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders was lost for the rest of the season after suffering an Achilles’ injury during practice last week. Rookie Phillip Lindsay and the Broncos’ running game has taken center stage as of late but he was limited to 30 yards and a score on 14 carries. The Denver defense had no answers for the 49ers’ combination of quarterback Nick Mullens and tight end George Kittle. And by game’s end, Von Miller and company wound up surrendering a surprising 389 total yards in the loss.
Next Week: Joseph’s squad is playing much better football these days and now has a tricky Saturday afternoon home affair with the Cleveland Browns. But this series has quite the history and most of it favors the Broncos who own an 11-game winning streak in this setting (5-0 at Denver) dating back to 1991.
Playoff hopes: There are simply too many teams ahead of the Broncos in the conference standings to believe that this team has a realistic shot at the playoffs. It’s certainly not impossible but Joseph’s club needed to keep pace with the other contenders and it failed to get the job done on Sunday.
Next: No. 17