The Denver Broncos can’t run the football.
Two weeks into the the NFL season, the Broncos are 27th in rushing yards. They’re 27th in yards per attempt. And they were built to run the football.
By average salary, the Broncos have the fourth-most expensive offensive line in the NFL… but they haven’t lived up to the investment.
ESPN tracks win rates for offensive and defensive lines. The Broncos rank 12th in run-block win rate and 14th in pass-block win rate.
Pro Football Focus paints an even less rosy picture. They’ve graded the Broncos 22nd in pass blocking and dead last in run blocking,
So what’s going wrong? Where do we start…
Broncos linemen missed some one-on-one blocks.
Right guard Quinn Meinerz signed a massive extension with the Broncos this offseason, the seventh-largest of any guard in the NFL. But he hasn’t played up to his standards in the first couple of weeks of the season.
Last week, offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi said Meinerz’s aggression got the best of him in Week 1.
“He’s such a mauler, sometimes he can be a little over aggressive and get in front of his skis a little bit,” Lombardi said. “He’ll learn from that. He’s a great player.”
Here’s an example leaning out a little too far in front of his skis on Sunday.
This time, Meinerz can’t overtake the defensive tackle and kick him out to setp up a running lane.
Meinerz isn’t the reason the Broncos can’t get the running game going. I singled him out because he’s their best lineman, and even he is hiccuping a couple of times per game. He certainly isn’t alone.
On this play, center Luke Wattenberg‘s job is to extend to the second level and block linebacker Patrick Queen (No. 6). Taking on Queen in space isn’t easy. He’s one of the fastest middle linebackers in the NFL. The assignment becomes tougher when the Steelers respond to pre-snap motion by shifting their linebackers left. All of a sudden, Wattenberg’s head start in the race to the point of attack is gone.
Other mistakes were made on the play. Even if Queen didn’t get through, the run wouldn’t have gone far. And, to Wattenberg’s defense, his assigment was very difficult.
Here’s tight end Greg Dulcich with a difficult assignment of his own: TJ Watt (No. 90).
Dulcich isn’t a great blocker. Even with a running start, he isn’t going to neutralized one of the top edge defenders in the NFL.
“We have to start really looking at who we are asking to do what,” head coach Sean Payton said in his opening statement at his postgame press conference.
We’ve seen three types of missed blocks in the running game so far:
- Straight-up misses.
- Difficult assignments that aren’t executed.
- Assignments so difficult that they shouldn’t have been assigned in the first place.
But the lack of execution is only part of the problem. The Broncos’ play-calling has painted the offense into a corner.
On Sunday, the Broncos called 39 passes. Bo Nix lined up in shotgun for 37 of them. He lined up at receiver for one of the others. He only passed once from under center.
Imagine you’re a safety for the Steelers. You see the Broncos line up under center with two tight ends. What are you expecting?
Maybe the Steelers called a blitz for Damontae Kazee. Maybe he’s just shooting his gap. Either way, the result is the same. (The Broncos’ pre-snap plan was off. It should have changed when Kazee approached the line of scrimmage. Either Garett Bolles should have taken him, or the double-team should have been called off and Ben Powers should have taken him.)
Pittsburgh didn’t fear the pass from under center. The Broncos ran 10 plays from under center and only one was a pass. Denver never ran play-action from under center. The Steelers were free to attack upfield without fearing repercussions.
To be fair, they didn’t seem to be scared of the Broncos’ passing attack when Denver was in shotgun, either. Why would they be scared of crowding the line of scrimmage, if the Broncos can’t take advantage of open receivers downfield, like Marvin Mims Jr. crossing the field here:
If the Broncos’ passing game was better, running the ball would be easier.
If the Broncos’ running game was better, passing the ball would be easier.
The running backs deserve their share of the blame, too. They missed a couple of running lanes, like this one.
Javonte Williams had a chance to cut back to the left, but decided to run right. It was the wrong call.
The last ugly play is a perfect storm.
If Javonte Williams was a step quicker, would he have gotten through the hole?
Could the threat of a pass have slowed down Elandon Roberts (No. 50) just enough for him to not trip Williams up?
If Mike McGlinchey had sustained his block, would Williams have regained his balance and kept moving forward?
As Sean Payton would say, there’s dirt on everybody’s hands.
Let’s take a look at a couple of the runs that worked.
Tyler Badie‘s 16-yarder was the best run of the day. The design cleared room to work. The blocks were executed. Badie took advantage.
On this one, the Broncos schemed up a numbers advantage. They ran a zone-read option, which takes the edge defender out of the play. If he commits to the running back, the quarterback keeps it. If not, the quarterback hands the ball off.
Nix has led the Broncos in rushing in each of the first two games, but the Broncos haven’t given him too many carries. It’s time for that to change.
The Broncos need a spark, and using Nix to provide a numbers advantage in the running game could be exactly that. If Nix can open up the running game, that might jumpstart the passing game too. The Broncos are still testing what works and what doesn’t with this year’s team—with an inexperienced Nix in particular—and more runs from the rookie should be next on the list.
I’d love to see seven or eight read options. I’d love a couple of designed runs. At the very least, the Broncos must run more play-action bootlegs, which could create more scrambling opportunities.
Running the ball in the NFL is hard. It’s especially hard if you don’t have a scary passing attack.
But the Broncos are taking advantage of that on the defensive side of the ball.
Zach Allen looks like a monster.
DJ Jones looks like an acrobat.
John Franklin-Myers looks like a perfect addition.
And bringing Malcolm Roach in off the bench is a luxury.
The Broncos’ run defense isn’t perfect, but the proof of concept is there. The defensive line defeats blocks at the sixth-best clip in the NFL, per ESPN.
