PITTSBURGH — With des­per­a­tion so real it echoed and rat­tled around an emp­ty NFL sta­di­um in these COVID times, the Bron­cos loud­ly and proud­ly fought to break their sad pat­tern of habit­u­al los­ing. Rather than curse the bum luck that forced quar­ter­back Drew Lock to the side­line with a bum shoul­der, Den­ver refused to go qui­et­ly before los­ing 26–21 to the Steel­ers here Sunday.

Moral vic­to­ry? Please, don’t even sug­gest that to Bron­cos defen­sive end Shel­by Har­ris, who doesn’t want your ice cream cone to remove the bit­ter taste of defeat from his mouth. He plays foot­ball to win a cham­pi­onship ring, rather than be offered a sym­pa­thet­ic pat on the back.

“Same los­ing ways,” Har­ris told me Sun­day, in a one-on-one inter­view with The Den­ver Post. “Going through the same stuff. We’ve got to change the culture.”

The rea­sons Den­ver dropped to 0–2 with a sec­ond straight woul­da-shoul­da-coul­da defeat are as long and legit as the team’s injury list, which includes Lock’s bat­tered right shoul­der, as well as the bust­ed ankle of star line­backer Von Miller.

And did we men­tion No. 1 receiv­er Court­land Sut­ton couldn’t play in the sec­ond half as the Bron­cos ral­lied from a 12-point deficit and had a chance to win until back­up QB Jeff Driskel was sacked on a fourth-down play from the red zone, with less than two min­utes remain­ing in the final quarter?

“It is next-lev­el next man up,” Bron­cos guard Dal­ton Ris­ner said. “We’ve got guys going out and drop­ping like flies.”

The NFL does not believe in tears. Or excus­es. So here’s the bru­tal truth. Vic Fan­gio is the first Den­ver coach to begin back-to-back sea­sons by los­ing two straight games since Mac Speed­ie in the 1960s.

There’s no need to revis­it that sad his­to­ry when there’s an even big­ger cur­rent con­cern for the last-place team in the AFC West. For the sec­ond sea­son in a row, Lock got him­self hurt while he stum­bled awk­ward­ly try­ing to avoid the pass rush.

“What you have to do is stay healthy as a quar­ter­back,” said Lock, who not only lost a fum­ble but also got bruised like an orange under the full weight of Pitts­burgh line­backer Bud Dupree dur­ing the first quar­ter. “I am not going to say I won’t stay aggres­sive. I just need to not let these awk­ward things happen.”

Upon get­ting hurt in August of last year, Lock couldn’t do any tru­ly mean­ing­ful foot­ball work for three months, due to a sprained thumb. Now, after only his sev­enth start for the Bron­cos, the young gunslinger’s throw­ing arm is in a sling. Lock expects there’s an MRI in his imme­di­ate future.

Man, does 2020 stink. The hits, both big and small, just keep com­ing in a year when every­thing, includ­ing pro foot­ball, is defined by the coronavirus.

“You’re com­ing out of this COVID and this long off­sea­son. There’s going to be more injuries,” Ris­ner said. “It’s going to be a banged-up year.”

What sports miss­es more than any­thing dur­ing the pan­dem­ic are fans, and not just because they buy $12 beers at the sta­di­um. Pitts­burgh is as Amer­i­can as steel and foot­ball, and its res­i­dents get their ya-ya’s out, roar­ing in defi­ance of rust-belt shack­les when their local foot­ball heroes take the field.

But as the last Sun­day of sum­mer offered a beau­ti­ful farewell, Heinz Field was as sad as an aban­doned steel mill. Games played with­out fans are as close as the NFL gets to a bubble.

“It’s just weird. The whole cli­mate at the sta­di­um is as dif­fer­ent as it can pos­si­bly be for a foot­ball play­er,” said Har­ris, who thought he had seen every­thing since turn­ing pro in 2014.

There is no crowd noise. There is no hype music. “There is no get-up, except what’s inside you,” Har­ris said. “You have to get your­self in that zone. The real play­ers are going to be the ones mak­ing plays. Because that’s what they do. Ballers ball.”

Despite trail­ing 17–3 at half­time, the Bron­cos so stub­born­ly refused to quit I could hear them fight, whether yelling sup­port for Driskel or cel­e­brat­ing an inter­cep­tion by safe­ty Justin Simmons.

As we saw in an eeri­ly qui­et Empow­er Field at Mile High, when Ten­nessee beat Den­ver with a late field goal, the lack of home-field advan­tage invites a bold come­back by the visitors.

After Har­ris forced a fum­ble from Steel­ers run­ning back Ben­ny Snell with 9 min­utes, 41 sec­onds, remain­ing in the fourth quar­ter, Den­ver pulled with­in five points of the home team on a touch­down pass by Driskel, who threw for 256 yards in relief of Lock.

“Our whole team had great fight,” Fan­gio said. “The fight was great.”

But in the NFL, los­ing close is as annoy­ing as cig­ar smoke.

In every sea­son since win­ning Super Bowl 50, the Bron­cos have firm­ly estab­lished a new tra­di­tion no team wants to embrace. Pre­sent­ed a chance at vic­to­ry, Den­ver reg­u­lar­ly finds a way to be on the wrong side of four or five cru­cial plays that result in defeat.

Is there any solace in going down swinging?

“There’s noth­ing we can take out of it, because we lost the foot­ball game,” Har­ris said. “We’ve got to find a way to come out with a ‘W.’”