ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Twenty-two Janos.
“Jano. Love Jano. Love Jano,” Brock Olivo said back in 2017 with passion bleeding out of his voice and his expression. “Jano to me, (sigh) my, if we had 22 Jano’s, we’d be alright.”
Those words have become Olivo’s everlasting stamp on the Broncos’ organization in his one short year in Denver. That, and the forgettable special teams unit he led.
Of course, the Special Team’s Coordinator was referring to how valuable Andy Janovich was to his unit. But while it’s often used as a joke, Phillip Lindsay doesn’t think there’s anything funny about it.
“I want to give a shoutout to Jano,” the second-year back stated on Wednesday out of the blue. “Having him back is like night and day.”
If love is a step before marriage, then Lindsay went one step further than Brock ever went with the 6-foot-1, 238-pound bruiser.
“Me and him are like married together,” Lindsay said, continuing the praise for his lead blocker. “He does a lot for us. He makes a lot of things go in this offense. He’s a fixer. When he sealed that man, the linebacker, and there was a hole there, it just made it a lot easier.”
Sure, Janovich is just a fullback—the position that sees the smallest action on the offense. But in the right offense—cough, the one that’s run in Denver, cough—the pounding unglamorous position can be crucial in the run game.
“We knew we were going to have to run the ball, just like this week, we’re going to have to run the ball to win games,” Lindsay said, pointing to the identity of the offense.
In fact, Rich Scangarello perfectly diagnosed how Sunday’s win over the Chargers was going to unfold. The first-year offensive coordinator told his team leading up to the week that the game was going to come down to the final seven minutes of the game, and it was going to boil down to the running game.
Scangarello showed the team film of the Chargers’ fellow team in Los Angeles, the Rams, literally running out the final five minutes of the clock to beat the Chargers in 2018.
“He showed that clip and said this is what we’re going to have to do if we’re going to win the game. It came down to that opportunity,” Lindsay explained. “As you get going, as it gets colder, we have to run the ball. In the playoffs, you got to be able to run the ball. Everybody knows that. There’s no secret.”
Another poorly-kept secret is Denver’s running game is better with Jano than without him. In the first three games of the season, when Janovich was sidelined with a pec injury, the Broncos’ offense averaged 3.9 yards per carry.
In the two games he’s been back, including their only win of the season, Denver ran for 5.4 yards per carry. By that statistic, Jano’s worth boils down to 1.5 yards per run.
To put that into perspective, 5.4 yards per carry over the entire season up to this point would be the third-best mark in the entire league. However, 3.9 yards per carry would rank in the bottom-third of the league.
Pretty significant difference ol’ Jano brings to the table.
Of course, it is important to point out Janovich wasn’t on the field for every run Denver’s had the past two weeks.
But to a running back, an additional 1.5 yards is night and day, and potentially even worth a marriage.
