Broncos Film Room: Examining Case Keenum's rollercoaster game against the Bears

After two consecutive three-and-outs in the Denver Broncos preseason opener, Case Keenum and the first-team offense looked a lot better against the Chicago Bears in their second preseason game.

It wasn’t always perfect, but Keenum looked a lot more like the veteran chain-mover that he’s been throughout training camp in Denver.

After analyzing Chad Kelly’s performance a week ago, it was time to feature Denver’s starter, so we went back to the tape to see what Keenum did that he can build on and what he still needs to work on, after leading the Broncos on two scoring drives.

Here’s what we saw

The Good

Keenum looked in control, playing quick and in rhythm avoiding pressure, for the most part, while making quick decisions. 

The thing that stood out most was how efficient No. 4 was on third down, converting four of six passes as Bill Musgrave put the ball in his hands on every third down opportunity the first-team offense had. Granted, part of this was because most of the down and distances were obvious passing downs—which to Keenum’s credit he was very efficient in, completing 66 percent of those attempts—though, not all, as he also converted a 3rd-and-1 to Andy Janovich on a nice play-action bootleg pass that was delivered to perfection. 

Part of his acumen as a veteran passer is how prolific Keenum was a year ago on third down, converting the fifth highest percentage in the NFL last season. We got to finally see that third-down efficiency, as the former Viking was poised in the pocket and flashed some good throws on the run.

Part of Keenum’s success on third down was his connection with Emmanuel Sanders, which has quickly blossomed this offseason and could be a lethal duo as they keep developing their relationship.

Sanders was targeted three times on third down with two completions on 3rd-and-4 and 3rd-and-8. 

The 3rd-and-8 conversion was most impressive, as Sanders was in the slot, with Keenum taking a five-step drop out of the gun. Sanders quickly freed himself of his defender on a comeback route, as Keenum delivered an accurate pass right as the receiver made his cut back to the ball.

It might not be quite that easy once the regular season begins, and the cornerbacks are better than Bears third-stringer Cre’von LeBlanc, but the timing on the route and throw is encouraging.

On 3rd-and-4, Keenum and Sanders made it look almost too easy, as they seemed to simply be playing pitch and catch.

You can see that Sanders is getting open underneath at will with a bit more pep in his step so far this season. Keenum’s timing with him here is superb as the ball is out right as Sanders’ cutting towards the sideline, the ball placement is also flawless.

College Football’s all-time passing leader wasn’t acquired to make big plays, he was brought on to convert third downs and string together drives. On Saturday, we got a taste of how good he can be, especially while partnering up with No. 10, who seems to be getting more looks in the slot already.

As mentioned above, Keenum also stood out for his ability to throw it on the run, picking up two first downs on play-action-bootleg throws where he got the ball out quickly and threw it well off balance while in full stride. Again, his ball placement was on point here, leading his targets and giving them the opportunity to pick up yards after the catch.

In general, the Broncos signal-caller was quick in his decisions and really sharp in getting the ball out on time. A great example of this was Denver’s two-point conversion, where he stood tough in the pocket and delivered a throw with nice timing to Jeff Heuerman.

Maybe his best pass of the day was his first first-down conversion where he hit rookie DaeSean Hamilton over the middle in traffic, leading him to perfection and showing nice accuracy in a tight window. Keenum showed a little zip on this pass as well, throwing a bullet to make sure the ball squeezed in there without any issues.

With a bit more time to develop a relationship with his receivers, Keenum’s starting to gel and look in control of the offense which should only grow further in the next month.

The bad

While he’s still getting in a rhythm and developing chemistry with his receivers, Keenum did have a few misses, which could’ve made his stat line (8-of-13 for 78 yards) even better.

A trend throughout the game with those misses was how he was overthrowing his receivers, missing twice in the end zone and another time to Sanders towards the sideline.

In these instances, Keenum seemed to be a bit reluctant to pull the trigger right away—which can easily be chalked up to him still developing a rapport with his targets, while maybe also being a bit too conservative.

The developing timing will get there. Being conservative might be a good sign, though, in the preseason, it would be nice to see Keenum let it fly and hit his targets as they’ve come open.

Another commonality with those misses was Keenum putting a bit too much air under his passes instead of taking the angle his receivers gave him to punch it in.

His two other misses came on his opening flea flicker attempt, where he stepped up into the pocket and got hit, though, still delivering a pass that might’ve been caught, and underthrowing Courtland Sutton on his deep route to the end zone in which the Bears were flagged for pass interference.

A bit surprisingly, a couple of those incompletions were to Sanders as there timing wasn’t always on point.

In conclusion

With a few avoidable misses, Keenum seemed to still be finding his timing in a live game with his new receivers, which could’ve made his performance even better.

Getting more reps, watching the tape and playing the all-important third game should help a lot in ironing out some of those issues, as he continues to work on getting on the same page with his receivers. 

Another potential issue for Keenum, his conservative approach, was actually nice to see, though he’ll have to be better in picking his spots. At times, he’s been guilty of being too much of a gunslinger, an aspect of his game that he’s done a good job of toning down. There will be times when he needs to pull the trigger in big games, especially in the red zone, where he had two misses.

Aside from that, it looked like Denver’s 36-million-dollar man is coming along nicely, as he’s clearly the veteran presence that Denver needs.

Having studied Keenum extensively, the pass over the middle in a tight-window to Hamilton, that we featured above, was especially comforting to see, as that’s an aspect of the QBs game that needs to be improved. If he can squeeze passes over the middle of the field with regularity, he could very well take his game to new heights.

It was also encouraging to see Keenum get a clean pocket for the most part, as the line seems to be gelling in front of him.

It’s all still a work in progress for Denver’s new quarterback, but we finally got to see what he’s all about, making him potentially the most reliable man behind center the Broncos have had since Peyton Manning.