Can the Denver Broncos keep winning despite a suspect defense?

For the first 3 weeks of the season the Broncos offense led them to 3-0. They put up 41, 39, and 34 and looked somewhat similar to the record setting pats of last year. But could they do what the Pats couldn’t do, win without consistent defense? The answer is No. Today I got to watch my first Broncos game of the season besides the last 5 minutes of their game against the Chargers. I got to see what would happen if someone stopped the offense. Just as I had seen last January, when your defense can’t play consistently, your offense will eventually have a bad game and you will lose. It took the patriots 18 games to figure this out but luckily for Denver they figured it out in week four. That will give them plenty of time to fix it and make a run, which they look fully capable of doing. The Broncos can’t believe they would continue to win on blown calls by Ed Hochuli and missed field goals by Martin Gramatica. The defence has to step up and not let guys like Darren Sproles catch 66-yard screen passes or the seemingly washed up Larry Johnson rip them for nearly 200 yards on the ground. A large chunk of which was running out the clock in the fourth quarter.

Now for the fun part, a quote from Mighty Ducks 3:

What’s the one great things all teams have in common? Defense. See, unlike scoring, defense never quits. But to play great defense you need one thing above all else. Confidence. – Coach Orion

Confidence is exactly what I didn’t see in the eyes of the broncos. With the exception of Champ Bailey, who was playing like a man possessed, the Broncos didn’t seem to be playing with the belief that they could make stops. They were out there on their heals begging for flags and out-of-bounds calls. They just didn’t have the fire that you’ve seen from the defenses of the past few Super Bowl champs: Giants D-line, Bob Sanders for the Colts, the Steelers attacking D, the Pats from 4 or 5 years ago, Tampa and Baltimore. Those teams defenses played with such ferocity that teams were scared to play them, and as Coach Orion said, they never quit.