The Bron­cos defense bot­tled up run­ning back Austin Ekel­er for 10 yards on sev­en car­ries Sun­day before the Charg­ers’ final offen­sive series. That’s when the Col­orado native helped put the game away for Los Angeles.

Ekel­er, a 5‑foot-10, 200-pound West­ern Col­orado (Gun­ni­son) prod­uct, car­ried sev­er­al Bron­cos tack­lers down­field dur­ing the game-win­ning dri­ve. The Charg­ers received the foot­ball with 2:42 left — fol­low­ing a Bran­don McManus game-tying field goal — when L.A. quar­ter­back Justin Her­bert hand­ed Ekel­er the foot­ball on first-and-10 at the 25.  He burst for a gain of 11.

Two plays lat­er, with L.A. in Den­ver ter­ri­to­ry after a Her­bert-to-Jalen Guy­ton com­ple­tion, Ekel­er sprint­ed through a mas­sive hole cre­at­ed by the right side of the Charg­ers’ line. He gained 10 yards before juk­ing safe­ty Justin Sim­mons with an inside cut, then kept on shed­ding tack­lers for a 23-yard gain. A video replay con­firmed that sev­en dif­fer­ent Bron­cos defend­ers — DE Shel­by Har­ris, S Kareem Jack­son, LB Josey Jew­ell, LB Alexan­der John­son, DT Dre’Mont Jones, CB Par­nell Mot­ley and LB Malik Reed — played a role in drag­ging Ekel­er down.

That first-down run allowed the Charg­ers to drain the clock, set­ting up Michael Bad­g­ley the oppor­tu­ni­ty to kick the even­tu­al game-win­ning 37-yard field goal with 41 sec­onds left.

“The first call, we were in a cov­er­age to help cor­ners. They ran it and (Ekel­er) squirt­ed it out of there for 11 yards,” Bron­cos coach Vic Fan­gio said. “Then I believe, on the sec­ond one, we made an adjust­ment and lined up incor­rect­ly. The ball cut back there and he car­ried us for a few extra yards there at the end.”

It would be short-sight­ed to blame the Bron­cos’ loss on two indi­vid­ual plays with so many mis­takes by Den­ver, includ­ing Drew Lock’s ear­ly red-zone inter­cep­tion and five drops by rook­ie wide receiv­er Jer­ry Jeudy.

Yet Bron­cos defend­ers most­ly lament­ed Ekeler’s late-game hero­ics after hold­ing him in check all game.

“We were hold­ing the run pret­ty good all game until those last two,” line­backer Alexan­der John­son said. “(Ekel­er) squeezed through a gap where a guy could have been, but it was a com­mu­ni­ca­tion issue. We didn’t get lined up right and they were able to cap­i­tal­ize on that.”

In March, Ekel­er signed a 4‑year, $24.5‑million con­tract with the Charg­ers as their new fea­ture back after send­ing Melvin Gor­don to Den­ver. Ekel­er has strug­gled to break out in his new role, ham­pered by injuries, and enters the final game against the Chiefs with 109 car­ries for 512 yards and only two rush­ing touchdowns.

That like­ly does not spoil Sun­day for Ekel­er, a for­mer Eaton foot­ball stand­out. At age 25, he became the youngest undraft­ed run­ning back in NFL his­to­ry to reach 15 career receiv­ing touch­downs (since 1967), per the Charg­ers, with his 9‑yard catch-and-run in the first half.

L.A. did not make Ekel­er avail­able for a postgame inter­view Sun­day. No mat­ter. The Bron­cos defense heard Ekel­er loud and clear.

“We all have to be on the same page to be able to stop a back like Austin,” line­backer Malik Reed said. “He was able to break free on a few runs.”