What's wrong with the Denver Broncos' running game?

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.

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