Kiz: Coach Vic Fan­gio wants us to believe the Bron­cos are improv­ing. I’m not so cer­tain. While there’s no doubt key injuries in the sec­ondary allowed Atlanta quar­ter­back Matt Ryan to carve up the defense, Den­ver often looked unpre­pared and dis­joint­ed in a 34–27 loss to the Fal­cons. With a 3–5 record at the mid­point of this sea­son, the Bron­cos aren’t ter­ri­ble. But they aren’t good. Should we expect them to be bet­ter than 3–5 down the stretch, giv­ing Fan­gio tan­gi­ble proof this team is actu­al­ly on the rise?

O’Halloran: Win­ning three of the final eight games should be con­sid­ered a mod­er­ate achieve­ment because the sched­ule is dif­fi­cult … and that should also sig­nal that this program’s progress has stalled. We can point to injuries because it’s a real­i­ty, but to use Fangio’s postgame phrase, why the Bron­cos looked “out of sorts,” is unac­cept­able. Beat Atlanta and every­thing was in front of the Bron­cos. Instead, they laid anoth­er first-half egg.

Kiz: While tak­ing a sip of Orange Kool-Aid, I read­i­ly acknowl­edge the Bron­cos have lost to top-lev­el com­pe­ti­tion. The cumu­la­tive record of the five teams that have beat­en Den­ver is a gaudy 31–12. But when I put my half-full glass down on the table, there’s the sober­ing real­iza­tion Drew Lock and the gang have beat­en three teams with a pathet­ic 4–19 record. What’s more, the sched­ule between now and the hol­i­days is no cake­walk. There are six teams with win­ning records. The Bron­cos might not be favored to win again this sea­son, with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of when the Dol­phins vis­it town.

O’Halloran: And after watch­ing some of Mia­mi quar­ter­back Tua Tagovailoa’s high­lights from Sunday’s win at Ari­zona, I’ll make the Dol­phins (5–3) a favorite lat­er this month at Mile High. Check out the oth­er oppo­nents — Las Vegas twice (5–3), New Orleans (6–2), Kansas City (8–1), Car­oli­na (3–6), Buf­fa­lo (7–2) and the Charg­ers (2–6). Depend­ing on the Bron­cos’ record, they may be favored against the Pan­thers in Decem­ber, but that’s it. Derek Carr. Drew Brees. Patrick Mahomes. Josh Allen. Justin Her­bert. Fan­gio The Defen­sive Play-Caller will have to cre­ate some mag­ic for Fan­gio The Head Coach.

Kiz: I think the Bron­cos can find three more vic­to­ries in the sec­ond half. But going 2–6 isn’t out of the ques­tion, espe­cial­ly if the injury bug bites again. I’m not cer­tain spe­cial teams coor­di­na­tor Tom McMa­hon sur­vives the sea­son. But the big­ger ques­tion: How many games must Fan­gio win this year so Bron­cos Coun­try doesn’t grouse about regres­sion, putting pres­sure on John Elway to con­tem­plate an even big­ger over­haul of the coach­ing staff? If Den­ver fin­ish­es 5–11, I sus­pect more than a few sea­son tick­ethold­ers that sat out 2020 dur­ing the COVID storm might not return next year.

O’Halloran: If the Bron­cos can find a way to go 3–5/4–4 in the sec­ond half to fin­ish 6–10/7–9, fans will still grouse, but a 10,000-foot view will be required by Elway to assess the sea­son — was the under .500 record a prod­uct of a) injuries, b) youth or c) coach­ing? If it’s ‘C,’ Elway has some deci­sions to make. If it’s ‘A’ or ‘B,’ — which is how I think Elway will look at it, he should say, “OK, this year wasn’t good enough, but the cir­cum­stances were extra­or­di­nary so let’s bring back the staff for con­ti­nu­ity and add more good players.”