Broncos Joint Practice Observations: Offense punched in the mouth

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — My mom always said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Mom, don’t read this one.

As the Denver Broncos clashed with the San Francisco 49ers for the first of two joint practices on Friday, I had my eye on the offense—while Zac Stevens kept tabs on the defense—and folks, let me tell you, it was not pretty.

Here’s what went down.

“CHOPPY” AND “BELOW AVERAGE”

Do you want the bad news or the bad news first?

From the second that the teams broke from their individual groups and made their way to their respective fields, it was clear the 49ers defense was bringing the energy, as they chanted and danced in unison.

And when things got live, the energy translated between the lines.

It started with a red-zone period in which the offense, led by Joe Flacco was sloppy at best, with the best passing play being a sure pick that was dropped and eventually fell into the hands of Courtland Sutton.

Later, in 7-on-7, Phillip Linsday had a pass go through his hands, ending up right in the hands of the defender trailing him.

In the next period of 11-on-11, Phillip Lindsay and Royce Freeman were able to put together a few nice runs in a row, including two for Lindsay, but shortly thereafter, the Niners front took over.

It started when DL Jay Bromley burst in the backfield untouched to blow up a run. Then on the next play, a throwback screen to Royce Freeman was perfectly diagnosed by DL Arik Armstead. On the next play, DeForest Buckner busted through the interior to notch a sack of Joe Flacco.

“I thought it was very choppy and it felt like they got after us up front a little bit,” offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello said after practice. “My message to the offense is we have to meet their intensity, obviously.”

In the next set of 11-on-11 plays, the first-team offense went: Phillip Lindsay short run, short dump off, sack.

After that, in what seemed to be a throw that had a bit of frustration on it—maybe because the offensive line was giving him next to no time at all—Flacco forced a ball downfield that was nowhere close to reaching its intended target. Instead, former CU star Ahkello Witherspoon snagged it out of the air and took it the other way for six.

It wasn’t until the next play, a 12-15-yard completion from Flacco to Tim Patrick that the offense had a passing play that would have resulted in a first down. But even then, the offense wasn’t able to capitalize on the “momentum” as in their next three plays, Phillip Lindsay fumbled a handoff, Connor McGovern had a bad snap, and on the final play of the series, Emmanuel Sanders didn’t know the call on what ended up being a short run.

“I don’t know if I can pick out grades very well, but we did below average for sure,” Flacco said when asked to assess the offense’s performance, before mentioning that how they respond is most important.

When the player, who is obviously going to take it easy, says it’s below average, you know it was bad.

If you want a bit of silver lining, it would be that the Niners defense essentially gets to look at the Broncos’ offense every day in practice, while the Niners’ defense was completely new to the Denver ‘O.’

Regardless, Flacco, Scangarello and the boys need a bounceback practice on Saturday.

SNAPPED

Well, it happened, a bad Connor McGovern snap popped up outside of a normal practice situation.

As mentioned above, in the final set of reps for the first team in 11-on-11, McGovern fired one back that never made it more than a few inches off the ground, bouncing off of Joe Flacco’s leg and underneath the left side of the offensive line before the play was blown dead.

That was on top of another snap that wasn’t turnover low but throw-off-the-timing-of-the-play low.

With Saturday being the last practice of training camp, this has simply gone on too long, and it’s very hard at this point to envision a world where this issue doesn’t rear its ugly head during the regular season.

With that being said, Joe Flacco is more optimistic than I.

“It is what it is,” he said. “Connor has been working really hard on getting those things under control. And I think he’s been doing a really good job for the last two weeks with it. I don’t expect those things to show up. I know he is going to work on it. So, we’ll see.”

The clock is ticking.

GETTING LEARY

Early on in practice, after a run play, Broncos starting right guard Ron Leary got caught up in a pile and stayed on the ground for a few seconds before getting up gingerly and limping off.

Shortly thereafter, Leary left the field entirely, sparking up injury concerns once again.

After practice, head coach Vic Fangio said Leary’s exit was planned, noting, “We were going to get Ron a prescribed amount of reps and then take him in and start his treatment,” but it brings up a point that has been on my mind as the Broncos cautiously use Leary up front.

Denver would be better off putting a lesser player in that position—such as Elijah Wilkinson—that they can count on to be healthy. Unfortunately, for a player who can be a very solid starter, Leary is up over the 30-year-old hump now and hasn’t played 16 games in a season since 2013, including just 17 total games played in his two years with the Broncos.

Players who cant stay healthy only hurt you when they become a big part of the plan, and right now, Leary is the only plan at right guard, especially as Wilkinson spends most of his time practicing at tackle.

As it stands now, Don Barclay is set to be Leary’s backup during the season, which isn’t exactly ideal. In my opinion, the Broncos should be setting the wheels in motion now for a potential life without Leary, giving Wilkinson a chunk of first-team reps at guard, a position that he played admirably towards the end of last season.

OTHER NOTES

• The highlight of the day for the Broncos offense was in 1-on-1 work for the tight ends, where Noah Fant showed that he is certainly a mismatch for anyone forced to cover him in such a setting.
  • Over the course of five reps, Fant got himself open with space four times, including one in which he juked a safety out of his shoes.
    • The one rep in which Fant didn’t create separation, he hauled in a sick one-handed catch on the sideline.
• Drew Lock threw multiple dimes during the 1-on-1 portion of practice, including a 50-yard TD to Brendan Langley.
• While we focused on the first team above, none of the quarterbacks had any semblance of success against the Niners D.