Broncos Notebook: News and views from Vance Joseph's day-after press conference

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — After having an evening and a morning to digest the film, Denver Broncos head coach Vance Joseph met with the media on Monday afternoon to revisit the team’s big win on Sunday afternoon.

Joseph spoke candidly about a number of topics, but it was something he didn’t say that spoke the loudest to me.

Behind his every word, as he answered a series of questions, was a not-so-subtle smirk. No matter what the question was, Joseph had a happiness about him that he simply couldn’t hold back.

To me, it was the sign of a guy who just watched the tape of his team’s win and feels very confident about that future. The sign of a guy who is confident that his quarterback won’t continue to make big mistakes, and is excited about what this team can be when it happens. The sign of a guy who thinks he has a winner on his hands.

Here’s some other takeaways from the day after presser.

News

Vance Joseph tells his team “Hey, I’m excited about the win, but we can play better.”

“It’s good to win, but we do have standards, and our standards can’t be measured by who we play. It’s got to be by how we play.”

Views

Joseph is right. Take away the three turnovers, and the Broncos should have won in a landslide.

With that being said, when the moments got big, the Broncos were at their best, and that might be the most encouraging sign of all. When the Seahawks took the lead, Case Keenum drove his team right back down the field for the game-winning score on his best throw of the day. When the defense needed stops to preserve that lead, they got them time and time again. When the offense needed to salt the clock away, they ran the ball better than they had all day.

Of course, you’d love to win in a blowout every week but you won’t, and the Broncos got a valuable measurement of how this team responds when push comes to shove on Sunday.

News

Vance Joseph says “we’ll see” when asked if Adam Jones is the team’s third corner.

Views

You’re going to see a lot of Adam Jones on the field this year for the Denver Broncos. Upon my second viewing of the game, it was abundantly obvious that Jones can still play at a high level. He was bucking down and making tackles, locking his guy up in coverage and looked great as the team’s punt returner, as well.

Brock only played four defensive snaps in the game, which will likely increase when the team starts playing more dime—a look they have historically loved to use—but when push comes to shove, it’ll be Jones on the field over Brock.

“I thought he performed well,” Joseph added of Jones. “Obviously, he wasn’t in training camp with us. He was only here for about a week and a half with us and played against Arizona a little bit. I was very pleased on his assignment check, his eye placement, and his technique. He challenged those guys. A couple times where Russell wanted to go back to [Seahawks WR Brandon] Marshall and he couldn’t because Adam was all over him.”

News

Vance Joseph says the team will keep playing Phillip Lindsay on coverage units.

“I think he about in the mid-20s as far as the offense. You add six more plays on special teams, that’s only 35 plays—33 plays. No, his role won’t change, he’s going to be a gunner, he’s going to be an L-5 on kickoffs. With three backs, it’s going to be tough to get him a lot of work. His role shouldn’t change on special teams. It’s so important for us to play good teams and he’s so good at it right now. It won’t change.”

Views

For now, this is totally the right call. The reality is, if you want to be good on special teams, you have to play good players on special teams. Not only is Lindsay fast and strong, he’s the most determined player on the field on any given play.

Don’t believe me? Go back an watch the tackle he made in punt coverage. He was double teamed and blocked damn near into the first row of the stadium before working his way out of it to spot Tyler Lockett for a no-gain return.

News

Vance Joseph explains the team’s struggles against tight end Will Dissly.

“He’s a good player, but we can’t do that. The first catch he made, we missed four tackles. The coverage wasn’t great, but we missed four tackles. The second play he made down the seam, again, our eyes are bad, and we’re out of position. That’s been a problem for us, and we’ve got to fix it. We’ve got to coach better, and we’ve got to play better, and that’s the facts.”

Views

First of all, I love the no-nonsense response from Joseph. He didn’t beat around the bush.

Second of all, they better figure it out quickly.

Only two tight ends had better games than Dissly did on Sunday, one of them goes by “Gronk,” and the other will face the Broncos this weekend, Jared Cook.

Cook hauled in nine balls for an astounding 180 receiving yards against the vaunted Los Angeles Rams defense on Monday night football. He was all over the place and simply could not be tackled.

If they don’t want to be the next defense to get sliced up in Cook’s kitchen, the Broncos have better come up with a new plan to stop the tight end this week. Denver really hasn’t been able to contain the big guys since the Super Bowl season of 2015. You can’t just hope your guys execute better this week; you have to plan to take Cook right out of the game.