BRONCOS DOMINATE TURNOVER BATTLE
Lock and the offense did their part by not giving the Raiders free possessions, and the defense did its job, as well.
The Broncos forced four turnovers on Sunday against the Raiders and held a plus-4 turnover margin for the first time since Week 12 in 2018.
Three of Denver's takeaways came in the second half, as the Broncos picked off Derek Carr twice and forced a fumble to set up a go-ahead score. Carr had not thrown an interception in his last nine games against Denver, a streak that dated back to early in the 2015 season.
Justin Simmons ended that streak in the third quarter, and Kareem Jackson snagged another in the fourth quarter.
Michael Ojemudia also forced a pair of fumbles, his third and fourth takeaways of the season.
"We definitely make an emphasis to getting the ball back to the offense and we do a lot of work with punching the ball off, getting your head on the ball, so we work on that type of stuff," Ojemudia said. "During the game, when you're in those moments, you just have to execute."
If the Broncos had a fault on Sunday, though, it was their inability to capitalize on those turnovers. Denver scored just 14 points off the four turnovers, including just one touchdown. After Jackson's interception, the Broncos had the ball in field-goal range and could have taken a 10-point lead with under 12 minutes to play, but Lock took an 11-yard sack that forced Denver to punt.
"We had some big hits that jarred the ball out twice, which was great to see," Fangio said. "We had a couple picks, one from each of our safeties, that were good to see. It's rare that you lose a game when you are plus-four; I'm not sure what the stats are but it's really, really high."
DENVER STRUGGLES LATE
After the Jeudy touchdown, the Broncos forced a Las Vegas punt with 2:46 to play and a chance to ice the game, but the final three minutes weren't kind to the Broncos.
Taking over at their own 10-yard line, Melvin Gordon III took his first carry for seven yards and forced the Raiders to burn their first timeout. On the next play, though, Gordon ended his 15-yard carry by stepping out of bounds and stopping the clock. On the next play, a holding call on Noah Fant wiped out a 19-yard Gordon gain.
Backed up in a first-and-20 situation, the Broncos were unable to gain another first down. They did force the Raiders to burn their final two timeouts, but Gordon's decision to go out of bounds allowed the Raiders to regain possession with 1:47 to play, rather than just north of a minute.
Big plays by Zay Jones (37 yards) and Darren Waller (10 yards and 21 yards) pushed the Raiders into the red zone quickly, but the Broncos buckled down inside the 10-yard line. With the Raiders facing fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line, the Broncos called a timeout to save time for the next drive, although nearly 10 seconds came off the clock between the end of the third-down play and the timeout. Then, after a Josh Jacobs touchdown, the Broncos burned their final timeout before the two-point conversion.
"We just wanted to make sure that we knew exactly who they had in there and how we wanted to play it," Fangio said. "I thought it was more valuable at that time to use that timeout. I would have liked to save it obviously but the game at that point was coming down to that two points or not."
The Broncos had just 24 seconds to get into field-goal range, and Lock found Jeudy to give Brandon McManus a chance at a 63-yard field goal. For the second time in the game, though, McManus' long field goal attempt was blocked.
"We haven't been able to finish games when we have the lead the right way," Fangio said. "We've protected the lead in four of our five wins. [In some], we had to go out there and preserve the win and we did. We had others when we didn't. We needed to do better when we had the ball on our last drive. We went out of bounds. We had a penalty, which hurt us. Those are the things we have to improve on."
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January 04, 2021 at 11:02AM
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Jeudy's big catch, defense's four-takeaway day overshadowed in 32-31 loss to Raiders - DenverBroncos.com
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