Digging holes
It's all well and good to keep fighting and attempting furious comebacks. But when do we wonder about the need for the comebacks in the first place?
In their three losses this season, the 2024 version of the Denver Broncos feels a little bit like the football equivalent of putting off a final paper until the night before it's due.
I remember the time in college that I pulled a true all-nighter. I procrastinated all the time, and I had plenty of late nights. But I can just think of the one time that I put myself through the full all-nighter experience.
It was kind of remarkable how much I was able to get done in the course of 10 hours or so. Being the goody-good rule follower that I was before those college days, I still couldn't imagine not turning in an assignment altogether. Even if I could now imagine not having started it the day before it was due.
From there, the panic and the desperation set in. There was the realization that I had no choice but to put my head down and get as much done as I could.
In an attempt to rationalize that approach, or to even argue that it was successful, I might have said that I worked well under pressure. I probably did say that. But even with the surprising amount of writing I was able to get done, and even with the delivery of the paper by the deadline the next morning, I wasn't really successful.
That paper wasn't good. I didn't feel good about it. Looking back at it, I think the best way to describe the final outcome is that the last-minute, panicked effort almost worked.
That might also be an apt description for Bo Nix's career so far. It describes so many of the individual plays when Nix drops back to pass. And it describes at least a couple of the Broncos' losses this year with Nix as their starting quarterback.
In today’s Kanefabe newsletter
Admiring a team’s efforts to never give up and come back, while also wondering about what it means and the limited returns when the need for those comebacks becomes a trend.
I’m glad you’re here. On we go.
The almost comebacks
Take Denver’s loss to the Los Angeles Chargers this past Sunday. The Broncos fell behind 23-0. Nix was incompetent. The game felt flat. The outcome felt inevitable. Then, when it was too late and on the verge of hopeless, Nix and the Broncos mounted a desperate and panicked comeback.
The path to the failed comebacks were different in their other two losses, to the Seattle Seahawks in week 1 and to the Pittsburgh Steelers in week 2. But the Broncos ended up in the same place, putting last minute points on the board and bemoaning the fact that time was running out.
It's good to see determination and resilience from your team. At the same time, cases like this raise loftier questions about why they are there in the first place, especially when the efforts consistently come up short.
What's the difference between the Broncos and the more consistent, higher quality teams? What would it look like if the Broncos didn't have to respond to the pressure of big fourth quarter deficits in the first place? How much does it matter when the team gets a surprising amount done in a short amount of time, but it still isn’t enough?
It’s just like I used to wonder: how did I get that paper done? Was that really a success?
And when the answers involved immediate light-headedness and a stomachache from multiple 20-ounce bottles of Coca Cola, I would also wonder: what would it be like to not put myself in that position in the first place?
Being a sucker
The good guys in professional wrestling matches often dig holes for themselves. This often happens because the bad guy tricks them.
It happens because the good guys are suckers.
The arc of any match's story is built to generate crowd excitement as they cheer for the baby face to triumph over the heel. One of the easiest ways to rally the fans behind your cause is to mount a big comeback. And that means the good guy needs something to come back from.
One familiar formula involves the heel claiming a big advantage at some point in the match. Maybe the villain gets the ref to look the other way and takes a cheap shot. Maybe they create a chance for a dastardly pal to beat up their opponent. Maybe the heel acts like they are begging off, only to get the upper hand when the baby face tries to fight with honor.
Once they have that step up on their baby face opponent, the bad guy exploits the opportunity. They beat up the good guy. They taunt the crowd. They maximize the pain. That darned heel builds tension and creates an atmosphere where most spectators want nothing more than for the baby face to dig deep, fight back, and give the heel some comeuppance.
These familiar stories unfold in a few different ways. Sometimes, the baby face completes the comeback. They dig out of the hole. But sometimes, the underhanded and devious tactics of the heel are just too much. The baby face might make some real progress in their desperate efforts, but ultimately the hole is too deep.
And maybe, just maybe, the baby face wonders how things could be different if they weren't a sucker.
More about fourth quarter comebacks
Matthew Stafford has 45 game-winning drives in his career, to go along with 36 fourth quarter comebacks. Tom Brady had 58 game-winning drives in his career, to go along with 46 fourth quarter comebacks.
That gap seems small to me. Given Brady’s career accomplishments, you might assume that Brady had significantly more than that.
Just going by gut feeling, I wonder if that's because Stafford had a lot of chances for comebacks because of his teams dug more holes. He did spend the majority of his career with the Detroit Lions in the pre-Dan Campbell era, after all.
Brady obviously still had an impressive number of fourth quarter heroics throughout his all-time-great career. But he also had a lot more games where his team didn't need to come back in the first place.
Bortles!
Blake Bortles threw for 4,428 yards in 2015. He threw 35 touchdowns. The catch, of course, was that Bortles also threw 18 interceptions that season. He accumulated a lot of his production in desperate second half comebacks, most of which came up short in a 5-11 season for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
In certain fantasy football circles, Bortles left a legacy that season. To some, it's called "pulling a Bortles" when a quarterback has a good fantasy day because he puts up big numbers trying to bring his team back from a scoreboard deficit that he helped create.
Bortles retired two years ago. He left us with that reference for fantasy football, and with a joke that will always land with certain viewers of The Good Place.
Now what, Bo-lievers?
Do we want to see more opportunities for Bo Nix to show resilience and a never-give-up attitude in the fourth quarter this year? Maybe we do, with the understanding that game scripts vary. It goes back to the Bortles of it all. If it's a competitive game where the Broncos have gone back and forth with their opponent, then bring on the fourth quarter comeback.
But if it becomes a trend that the last-ditch efforts are needed because of Nix flopping and flailing and leading a hapless offense? That's when we quickly reach the point of diminished returns on celebrating those late-game almost-comebacks.
That's when we might quit celebrating how much they get done in moments of desperation. And we might reasonably shift the questions to why they're digging so many holes in the first place.