Denver Broncos QB Bo Nix and the offense rolled against the Los Angeles Chargers on Thursday night.

And then they weren’t.

Nix and the Broncos scored three touchdowns on their first three drives to take a 21-10 lead while recording just six abysmal points the rest of the way. Denver lost to LA 27-34 and failed to secure a playoff spot for the first time since 2015.

After the devastating defeat, Nix was asked how he thought the offense performed overall. He repeated what we all saw: the fast start was great, but the rest was nowhere near enough.

“Good and bad, we left some chances open. The first three drives, 21 points, and then it kind of stalled. There were only three for the rest of the game. We need to look at why that was the case,” Nix said.

The Broncos actually scored six times, but a Wil Lutz field goal that increased the score from 34-24 to 34-27 with 57 seconds left barely mattered. Denver failed to recover an onside kick and is now 9-6 on the season, tied with the Chargers. However, since Los Angeles beat the Broncos twice, they are in the AFC standings tiebreaker.

“Just frustrated. The difference in our two games with them was seven points and we just had to find a way to get the ball into the end zone again. That’s the frustrating part, the margin of error is a touchdown,” Nix said.

Nix and the Broncos will have to wait to secure a postseason spot. The newbie still has the right perspective, but knows it hurts.

“Luckily we still have part of the season ahead of us. You have to go out there and do it again. “We found a way to almost beat ourselves tonight, we just had so many chances and didn’t take advantage of them,” Nix said.

Head coach Sean Payton expressed similar sentiments after the game as Denver failed to seal the deal with a golden chance. Now they’ll wait until next Saturday against the Bengals to give themselves a chance to win unless they get an insane amount of help this weekend.

Bo Nix had a decent night, throwing for 263 yards and two touchdowns. But that wasn’t enough as the offense wasn’t able to keep its foot on the accelerator – and missed a great opportunity.