In a sea­son where sil­ver lin­ings are what keep Bron­cos fans hang­ing on to their san­i­ty, some could be found in the defense’s per­for­mance Sunday.

Yes, the D gave up a game-win­ning dri­ve that result­ed in a 19–16 loss and the Bron­cos’ fall to last place in the AFC West. But, that same deplet­ed unit — with­out six of its starters at SoFi Sta­di­um, includ­ing hob­bled 2020 Pro Bowl selec­tion Bradley Chubb — stood tall for much of the game. They kept promis­ing rook­ie quar­ter­back Justin Her­bert in check while the Den­ver offense kept shoot­ing itself in the foot.

“It shows a lot of matu­ri­ty in our defense to be able to go out there and keep get­ting stops, and get three-and-outs,” said sec­ond-year out­side line­backer Malik Reed, whose strip-sack of Her­bert late in the sec­ond quar­ter kept the Bron­cos with­in strik­ing dis­tance at the break.

“We have young guys (like myself) on this defense as well, so it’s been a mat­u­ra­tion process that’s been had over the course of this sea­son. Through the wins and the loss­es, we’ve been able to grow… But we didn’t come away with the win, so we def­i­nite­ly need­ed to get a few more (stops).”

Name­ly, the Bron­cos would like to have back the Charg­ers’ game-win­ning pos­ses­sion in which Eaton prod­uct Austin Ekel­er broke loose for runs of 11 and 23 yards to put Los Ange­les into field goal posi­tion late.

That dri­ve, and anoth­er sub­par per­for­mance from replace­ment start­ing cor­ner­back De’Vante Baus­by, were the mold on an oth­er­wise strong per­for­mance by the Bron­cos against a quar­ter­back who set an NFL rook­ie touch­down pass­ing record at 28 with his sec­ond-quar­ter scor­ing toss to Ekeler.

“I didn’t like the way Baus­by was tack­ling, or not tack­ling,” Fan­gio said. “I took him out ear­li­er in the game and he begged for anoth­er chance. I gave it to him and then he total­ly (missed) on anoth­er tack­le in the sec­ond half. So the chance went out, and I thought (rook­ie Par­nell) Mot­ley went out and com­pet­ed. He played too soft there on the last dri­ve, but for the amount of prep he had and for where he’s at in his career, and for just being here a cou­ple days, he went out there and com­pet­ed and tried his best.”

Mot­ley was signed from San Francisco’s prac­tice squad Dec. 16 and fin­ished with two tack­les as well as tight cov­er­age on a third-and-goal sit­u­a­tion ear­ly in the fourth quar­ter that forced an incom­ple­tion to Mike Williams.

Anoth­er sil­ver lin­ing to the Bron­cos’ sol­id defen­sive per­for­mance was (once again) Shel­by Har­ris, who hasn’t missed a beat this month after being side­lined for four games due to COVID issues.

Har­ris had four tack­les with one quar­ter­back hit as well as two deflect­ed pass­es. He also had some oth­er, more impor­tant fac­tors at play Sun­day — a few hours before the game, the defen­sive end tweet­ed, “Let’s hur­ry this game up got­ta make it home for the birth of my son!”

Coach Vic Fan­gio said it “was close” to whether Har­ris was going to miss the game or not. The team pre­pared a flight for him to fly home before the game, but Har­ris chose to stay, elect­ing instead to take a pri­vate flight home from Los Ange­les that will get him back to Den­ver a few hours ahead of his teammates.

“I know he’s excit­ed and ready to get back to his new son,” said inside line­backer Alexan­der John­son, who had sev­en tack­les. “Just think­ing about hav­ing a baby, and hav­ing to go out to play a game… that’s some­thing you can’t real­ly speak for until you go through it your­self. I feel like he did his job and it’s a bless­ing he’s able to (jet off) to see his family.”