Broncos reach Amen Corner

Dave Christie, Special to the News

Published October 23, 2006 at midnight

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The Broncos wake up this morning atop the division, thanks to a victory over the punchless Brownies. A defense that has managed to pluck the 1934 Detroit Lions out of obscurity for the sake of comparison leads the Broncos into this season’s next chapter.

Welcome to Amen Corner.

At Augusta National, holding a lead on the front nine of the Masters sets the table. The real contenders emerge only after they’ve navigated Amen Corner and remain upright. The Broncos are on the front page of the leaderboard after six games, but a lightly tested defense will not pull them through the next seven weeks of the season alone. A champion needs a complete game, and the Broncos still don’t have one.

A favorable early schedule provided an opportunity, and the Broncos have capitalized. Every opponent was given a reasonable chance to wriggle off the hook in the fourth quarter, but the Broncos defense has managed to save the day. Denver’s inability to score points will have much more severe consequences as the quality of the opposition takes a dramatic leap.

The Broncos defense has been channeling the ’34 Lions on a sorry group of offenses. Four of their five victories have come against teams ranked 26th, 28th, 30th and dead last in the league in total offense. Picking on these 90-pound weaklings has given Broncos fans, and possibly even Mike Shanahan, a false sense of defensive invincibility.

The seven-game, Amen Corner stretch begins Sunday with the Colts. The Colts score more than 28 points a game. It takes the Broncos offense an average of more than two games to put that many points on the board. The Colts know how exploit the gaps in Denver’s pass defense, and Shanahan will have no choice but to remove the childproof cap from his offense. Cross your fingers, Broncos fans, because if Jake Plummer once again shows an inability to handle a grown-up offensive scheme, this could get ugly.

Next, the Broncos tee it up in Pittsburgh against a team that is suddenly the greatest show on grass. Denver hasn’t scored as many points all season as the Steelers have in their past two games. Shanahan can’t expect a good Broncos defense to continue to get historic results while going up against offenses of this caliber.

Besides a day of rest and relaxation at Oakland’s McAfee Coliseum and Day Spa, the next seven games all paint the same scenario. These are not teams that need a GPS system to find the end zone. If their offense remains in hibernation, the Broncos’ record will start sinking into mediocrity.

As the Broncos enter Amen Corner, their offense has put them in all sorts of trouble, spraying it off the tee and missing greens. Fortunately, their defense has saved their bacon by making sand saves and draining long putts. But unless their offense somehow flips the proverbial switch, the Broncos will stagger from Amen Corner at 8-5, wondering what hit them.

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