Broncos blitzed by four straight TD drives, outclassed across the board in 41-10 loss to Ravens: “We got whooped”

BALTIMORE — D.J. Jones minced no words.

The Broncos defensive lineman had a bottom-line thought for a bottom-line business after a bad day at the office and delivered it with Lamar Jackson-like efficiency.

“We got our asses whooped,” Jones said. “We got whooped.”

Indeed, Denver did. By a count of 41-10 against Jackson, the two-time MVP, and a Baltimore outfit that out-classed the Broncos in all three phases and in the coaching department, too.

The Broncos had won five of six, but that good vibe got snuffed quickly.

The Broncos had been among the NFL’s best defenses, but Sunday raised significant questions.

The Broncos had built something of an offensive identity against a string of bad defenses but regressed when put to the test against a real contender for the first time since Week 6.

“Obviously they beat us, pretty much, in all three phases,” head coach Sean Payton said. “We didn’t do a good enough job coaching, we lost to a good football team and it’s disappointing.”

They took a pummeling across the board and now the question is how quickly Payton’s team can put it away. They’ve got a road trip to the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs and a home game against surging Atlanta on deck that will dictate just how much room for error remains — if any — for the stretch run.

If they can get even one of the next two, then game on for late November and beyond.

If the gap between Denver and the top of the league is truly as large as it looked Sunday, Payton’s group is in trouble.

The distance between these teams never felt wider than the middle segment of the game.

Denver closed to within 17-10 thanks to a Wil Lutz field goal with 54 seconds left before halftime but felt like it left points on the board after a Garett Bolles holding penalty wiped a Bo Nix touchdown run off the board.

Jackson, who finished with a perfect passer rating in a game for the fourth time in his career, shifted into warp speed.

The Ravens covered 70 yards in two plays, the second a 53-yard touchdown pass to Zay Flowers that held all the components of Denver’s rough defensive day. Poor execution in zone coverage. A pinpoint Jackson throw. A botched tackle attempt by safety Devon Key. Inability to catch the top-end talent in purple.

“I just slipped on the grass,” said Key, a frequent target of Jackson and the Ravens.

It got worse.

Baltimore opened the second half with a bruising touchdown drive, the Broncos went three-and-out with their first drive and the Ravens waltzed down the field and scored again.

In that span, the Ravens scored 21 points and racked up 219 offensive yards on 23 snaps.

The Broncos ran four plays and netted minus-2.

“I don’t even know what happened in the third quarter,” right guard Quinn Meinerz said. “But I believe they had what, probably a 12-minute drive or something like that? At least that’s what it felt like.

“When you have an entire quarter taken away from you as an offense, that three-and-out really cost you. That’s what we need to do moving forward is, when our defense gives us a three-and-out, we need to hold onto the ball, drive down, get some points and get some points in the red zone.”

One minute, Nix was in the end zone and the Broncos were thinking it’s going to be 17-14 before the break and the next they were down 38-10.

“It’s a big swing,” Payton said. “You know when you play a good team like this on the road, you’re wanting to get it into the fourth quarter and we weren’t able to do that.”

Not even close.

After punting on their first possession, the Ravens scored on seven straight drives. Tucked in the middle of that: Four straight touchdown marches that turned a potential fight into an early knockout. Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph’s group got shredded in a way that’s been rare since that 70-20 blowout in Week 3 last fall.

Joseph on Thursday noted the balance and explosion in Baltimore’s top-ranked offense but had an approach he was set on taking.

“You have to take something away and my preference is the run game and make them throw it,” he said. “We’ll see how that works out on Sunday. We have a plan to get both stopped, but we’ll see how that comes out.”

It did not come out well.

Jackson torched the Broncos, completing 16 of 19 passes for 280 yards and threw two of his three touchdowns to Flowers. He only ran three times — one turned a quality pass rush into an easy first down — but routinely extended plays to find good matchups down the field.

“There’s going to be a number of things when we do our meeting tomorrow and say, ‘Alright if we played them again next week, what would we do differently?'” Payton said. “Certainly (keeping Jackson contained) would be one of them.

“He’s too good a player.”

The Broncos didn’t just miss opportunities Sunday. They handed far too many to a team that already had several advantages.

In the grand scheme of 17 games, 5-4 still leaves plenty of routes to postseason contention. The complexion of this one casts at least some shadow on any belief that the Broncos actually have enough to get there, but wide receiver and captain Courtland Sutton (six catches for 122 yards) said he remains confident.

“We had a lot of opportunities that could have went another way,” Sutton said. “But one of my boys always says, ‘If ‘if’ was a fifth, we’d all be drunk.’

“That’s a great way to go about it. We can say ‘if this, if that’ all day, but we didn’t capitalize when we needed to and that’s the moral of the story, I think you can say, for this game.”

Broncos defense nevermore in Baltimore

After a stellar start over the Broncos’ first eight games of the season, defensive coordinator Vance Joseph’s unit was shredded by Lamar Jackson and the Ravens on Sunday in Baltimore. In terms of yards allowed per play, it was the Denver defense’s worst showing this season by more than 2 yards. In terms of points allowed, it was the second-most since the Dolphins’ 70-point massacre in Miami last September. But there has been worse over the Broncos’ eight-year playoff drought. Here’s a look at where it stacks up:

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