SEATTLE – The chasm looks better, like the Denver Broncos have indeed drawn closer to bridging the distance to the Seattle Seahawks. Surely, Sunday's 26-20 overtime road loss will sting for Denver. But it wasn't anything near the 43-8 championship debacle in February. It wasn't humiliation.

But there's a familiar trapdoor for these Broncos, creaking beneath the feet of quarterback Peyton Manning. It's a franchise frailty that wasn't resolved with the signing of linebacker DeMarcus Ware or the swapping of Emmanuel Sanders for Eric Decker. It's the weakness of time and pressure: a creeping age in Manning's game and his inability to consistently perform when everything falls on his shoulders.

Stop the running game, push Manning's offensive play-calling into one mode. Then hit him. Hurry him. Push him around. That dynamic chopped the Broncos down in the Super Bowl. It rolled them over, and it ultimately tipped Denver again Sunday.

View photos Peyton Manning got hot late against Seattle before falling in overtime. (USA TODAY Sports) More

While many will laud the game's final 59 seconds, during which Manning carved an improbable game-tying, 80-yard drive, opponents will create schemes based on the previous 59 minutes. That's when Manning was scrounging for a running game that would never come, then pushing all his chips onto an off-kilter passing game that had him fluttering passes into the ground.

It sounds harsh for a guy who throws for 300 yards and two touchdowns. But without a running game, this version of Peyton Manning can be beaten consistently with numbers like that.

No doubt, Denver is going to win a lot relying on Manning. It's going to secure a high seed in the playoffs. But if this is the Broncos team we can expect, eventually it's going to run into someone in the AFC or maybe the Super Bowl who can fight like Seattle. Someone who can blitz, stunt or outmuscle. Someone who can touch Manning, or at least make him feel like he might be touched. Someone who can brawl just long enough to turn a 400-yard, five-touchdown quarterback into what we saw on Sunday.

That is the trapdoor. Making the Broncos rely on a Manning who will make mistakes, throw errant passes and end up calling a one-dimensional game that was just good enough to lose in overtime. A Manning whose missed opportunities in the first half are just too much to overcome.

An offense that, as head coach John Fox put it bluntly Sunday: "[S]tumbled around in the first half."

Yes, Manning almost won it anyway, seizing on a late coverage error and pushing Denver to this regulation-closing score:

Ultimately, they lost the coin toss and never touched the ball in overtime after Seattle drove for a touchdown.

It was inspiring. The kind of stuff we have come to expect. But this is also chillingly familiar. The defense wore down the Seahawks at the end, scoring a safety and a late turnover to pull Denver back into the game, then bled out in overtime. All while the running game – the one Manning was so excited about in the preseason – was nonexistent.

This sounds familiar to Indianapolis Colts fans. Watching Manning carry a team only so far, then undone by defensive pressure, mistakes and a failing cast. Broncos fans should pay attention. We're three games into the season and the Broncos are still awaiting even a modest breakout from running back Montee Ball, who hasn't broken the 100-yard plateau in a game and is averaging a shade under 3.4 yards per carry. Touted as coming into his own, he has one touchdown this season, and isn't close to what former Bronco Knowshon Moreno was at his best in 2013.

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