Kiszla: After committing worst sin in Broncos Country with home loss to Raiders, can Vic Fangio survive as coach?

The fuse has been lit. The clock’s ticking to doomsday. The Broncos are a time bomb.

“Ninety-six hours, that’s all we’ve got,” Denver quarterback Teddy Bridgewater said shortly before 6 p.m. Sunday, counting every desperate second of every urgent hour that stood between this loss to the hated Raiders and the distinct possibility of a four-game losing streak that coach Vic Fangio cannot possibly survive.

At this point, defusing the time bomb feels like Mission Impossible. And guess what? Tom Cruise, much less John Elway or Mike Shanahan, isn’t walking through the door at Broncos headquarters.

The Broncos have no choice but to end a three-game losing streak before it wrecks careers, not to mention the team’s fading playoff dreams. “Choice is an illusion,” Von Miller said, sounding more like Yoda than the Pro Bowl linebacker this team could really use right now.

Do or do not. There is no try.

This reeling Denver team either wins its next game, or the whole thing blows up. Nobody survives in Broncos Country except cockroaches. Everybody gets a pink slip. Every. Single. Body.

Offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur? Gone. Miller? One step closer to free-agency. Bridgewater? Keeping the seat warm until Aaron Rodgers and the Packers accept a call from general manager George Paton. Fangio? In deep spaghetti sauce.

Immediately after their defense was exposed as a front-running fraud and Bridgewater was whacked like a pinata during a 34-24 loss to Las Vegas, the Broncos took turns standing behind the podium at a post-game news conference. Each of them looked as pitiful as a little kid who forgot to practice for a piano recital, dutifully declaring they had 96 hours to avert disaster at Cleveland in the NFL’s cruel practical joke on the health of a hurting team: Thursday Night Football.

While getting trounced in those Super Bowls a generation ago left scars on the fan base, there is absolutely no worse sin in Broncos Country than getting embarrassed at home by the Raiders. And make no mistake, Denver was embarrassed by a Las Vegas team that had been shook to its core by the resignation of coach Jon Gruden.

How gosh-awful was it? If championship football teams are built from the ground up, Denver has foundational cracks in both its offensive and defensive lines. Bridgewater was pummeled 17 times while trying to throw. The Vonster and his mates, allegedly elite, gave up a whopping 8.2 yards per snap to Las Vegas.

“Simply put: We got our butts whooped,” safety Justin Simmons said.

The Broncos feted Shanahan at halftime, honoring him with his rightful place in the Ring of Fame. Nobody, as the Mastermind gleefully acknowledged more than once in recent days, hates the Raiders with greater passion than the greatest coach in franchise history.

Although the Broncos trailed 17-7 after two quarters, Shanahan guaranteed: “Oh they’re going to win. They’re going to win.”

Know what’s truly sad? Shanny might have been the only person in the whole stadium who actually believed his prediction.

I’ve seen a whole lot of stuff since 1983, when Elway and I both moseyed into this dusty old cow town for the first time. But until Josh Jacobs ran three yards for a touchdown to put Las Vegas ahead 31-10 late in the third quarter, I had never seen Denver turned into a Raiders town.

How could that even be possible? The overwhelming majority of the crowd at Empower Field was so defeated and apathetic that orange-clad fans couldn’t even muster the energy to boo the home team, allowing members of the Colorado chapter of the Dirty Al Davis Society in attendance to loudly express their glee at the revolting developments on the field.

Since the outset of last season, Fangio has lost eight of 11 home games. Broncos Country doesn’t put up with that kind of stench. Losing at home, especially to the Raiders, will get a coach fired. With franchise ownership in flux, the house will have to be cleaned out before it’s put up for sale.

This debacle took me down memory lane. On Sept. 28, 1994, the Broncos were trounced by the Raiders 48-16 in old Mile High. Wade Phillips, a good dude who was a far better defensive coordinator than head coach, was booed as he jogged to the locker room in defeat. The Wadester was good as gone that sad day, paving the way for Shanahan to take over the fortunes of a floundering franchise. And the rest? Happy history that glittered like diamonds in Super Bowl rings won by a coach who was not only innovative, but relentlessly tough-minded.

“You’ve got to fight through it,” said Shanahan, who never blinked in the face of adversity. Not even when things got tough enough (recall the home playoff loss to Jacksonville?) for a Mastermind to be driven to exasperation and exclaim: “Oh. My. God.”

A time bomb is ticking, and Denver is living on a prayer.

But, hey, look on the bright side: Maybe blowing the whole thing up and starting over might not be such a bad idea.

If Broncos history has taught us anything, it’s darkest before a new dawn.