It’s amazing to think how close Denver coach Mike Shanahan has come to football immortality without managing to become a household name. After winning back-to-back Super Bowls in the 1997 and 1998 seasons, he’s had eight chances to reach the top rung for a magic third time without success. Perhaps it’s not fair to say without success, as Shanahan has had only one losing season over that span. Over the last five years, his Broncos have gone 51–29 and from 2003–2005 they were in the playoffs each season, going 13–3 in 2005 and losing to the Steelers 34–17 in the AFC Championship game. Still, their victory over New England in the 2005 Divisional Playoff is the only postseason win for the Broncos since beating Atlanta in the 1999 Super Bowl. And that is not the definition of success for any coach that can trace his lineage to Bill Walsh.

In several of those seasons, the Broncos looked like a potential Super Bowl team but always seemed to be a player short. Unfortunately for Shanahan, since John Elway retired, the player he is short of has always been a quarterback. Last year, with five games left in the season and Denver still very much in contention for a playoff spot, Shanahan made major headlines by benching the eternally disappointing Jake “the Snake” Plummer in favor of rookie Jay Cutler. Cutler was a big improvement: 7.3 yards per throw with nine TDs to five interceptions over Plummer’s 6.3 and 11–13 ratio. Considering that Cutler is only in his second season and that he averaged 8.4 yards a throw in the Broncos’ first three games, it looked like they were no longer a player short.

Cutler gave the Broncos a 10–0 first quarter lead in yesterday’s game against the Colts before Peyton Manning got his bearings, leading Indianapolis to two second quarter touchdowns and a 14–13 lead at the half. About midway through the second quarter it must have dawned on Shanahan that the one player he was short this year is not a passer but a pass rusher. His cornerbacks, Champ Bailey and Dré Bly, perhaps the best in the league at their position, stayed with the Colts’ wideouts as long as could be expected — longer on some plays than was reasonable. But the Broncos never put a hoof on Manning’s royal blue jersey, and Peyton picked them apart for three TDs in a 38–20 victory.

This was Denver’s second loss, and combined with Pittsburgh’s flop against Arizona, the Colts are now left with the New England Patriots as the AFC’s elite Ben Roethlisberger will most likely bounce back for the Steelers, and Denver may yet make a legitimate playoff run, but no team with a pass rush as weak as the Broncos has any chance of going all the way.

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In an earlier game between the Texans and Falcons in Atlanta, I kept wondering the whole time if Michael Vick was watching. The contest was essentially between Vick’s former backup, Matt Schaub, now the starter for Houston, and Vick’s replacement, Joey Harrington. In terms of effectiveness, the pair was practically identical. Schaub threw for 317 yards in 40 attempts with a touchdown and no interceptions and certainly would have done better had his blockers not been caught holding on three occasions, not only nullifying 45 yards in gains but putting Schaub in third-and-long holes that he couldn’t dig his team out of. Harrington, throwing fewer times because he was ahead for most of the game and ended up winning 28–16, totaled 223 yards on 29 throws with two TDs and no interceptions. Schaub wound up with a terrific 7.9 yards per pass average, and Harrington was just slightly lower at 7.7. If both were to maintain something close to that average for the rest of the year, their teams would be very fortunate indeed.

But then, both quarterbacks were throwing against mediocre defenses. Although Houston’s defense looks better this year than last, giving up just 54 points after four games compared to 123 at this point last year. The Texans havebeenstockingdefensiveplayers, and at least one of them, defensive end Mario Williams, who had three solo tackles against the Falcons, is starting to pay off. Houston fans, blinded by the hype, roundly booed their team’s front office for selecting Williams ahead of Reggie Bush in the 2006 draft, but Williams has come along well and Bush, though the football press hasn’t caught up to the fact yet, is turning out to be one of the most dismal collegiate-to-NFL flops of this young century.

I don’t know that Harrington’s numbers will top those of Michael Vickin2006, though that wouldn’t be too difficult. I do know that the Falcons’ offensive linemen certainly looked relieved by having to make just one good block instead of hitting someone then running around in all directions trying to hit someone else while Vick improvised.

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Lovie Smith finally lost patience with Rex Grossman’s imitation of an arthritic shot-putter and installed Brian Griese at quarterback. Unfortunately, he did it in a week when the Bears’ defense broke down and gave up 37 points to the Detroit Lions, 10 more than the Bears managed. It’s hard to feel that it wouldn’t have made much of a difference, though, if the Bears’ D had shut down the Lions’ offense, as Griese, in his 10th year in the NFL, has always discovered uncanny ways of performing at just a slightly lower level than his opponents. Against the Lions on Sunday, Griese passed for 286 yards, but it took him 53 throws to get them, and he had three interceptions.

I’ve always thought that Griese’s potential was overrated by football writers because his father’s success was misunderstood. Bob Griese would probably not be in the NFL Hall of Fame if not for the 1972 season in which the Dolphins went unbeaten, but the elder Griese’s contribution to that team was negligible. He started just six games and threw only four TDs all year. For his career, by the way, Bob Griese had just 20 more TD passes than pickoffs; after losing to the Lions on Sunday, Brian Griese now has exactly 23 more TD passes than interceptions.

Mr. Barra is the author of “The Last Coach: A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant.”