The Denver Broncos inactives for the game against the Los Angeles Chargers were: QB Sam Ehlinger, DL Jordan Jackson, CB Pat Surtain II, CB Riley Moss, TE Dallen Bentley, OL Kage Casey, and DL Tyler Onyedim.
With Surtain and Moss on the inactive list, we got a couple of new actives this week – Lil’Jordan Humphrey and Sean Fresch.
Offense
Like most of the games so far, the five starting offensive linemen and Bo Nix played all of the offensive snaps. In a departure from previous games, Alex Palczewski played eight
snaps as the sixth offensive lineman. That is almost as many as he had in the first four games. It didn’t seem to help the run game much.
JK Dobbins, RJ Harvey, and Tyler Badie played 32, 23, and 7 snaps. Adam Prentice played 6 at fullback. So the offense used a 6th offensive lineman more than they used the FB this game. Dobbins got 18 carries. Harvery got 3 and Badie got 1. The Bronco offense did pick up 106 yards on the ground, but that was on 29 carries (3.65 YPC). That average was looking really bad until the 4th quarter when the run game began to look competent. Dobbins picked up 68 yards on the ground, but 27 of that came on two carries near end of the game. His other 14 carries gained 41 yards (2.93 YPC).
Courtland Sutton, Jaylen Waddle, Troy Franklin, LJH, and Marvin Mims played 50, 40, 39, 14, and 12 snaps. They accounted for 9 catches, but almost all were short. The longest was Sutton’s 13 yard catch.
Evan Engram, Adam Trautman, and Nate Adkins played 30, 30, and 19 snaps. Only Engram was targetted catching all four of his targets for a team-high 55 yards. His 34 yard catch was Denver’s biggest play offensive play of the game.
Three offensive players did not play on offense, Matt Peart, Alex Forsyth, and Jarett Stidham. Peart and Forsyth played on FG/XP team.
Defense
Four players played every defensive snap: Jahdae Barron, Kris Abrams-Draine, Alex Singleton, and Brandon Jones. For Barron and KAD, it was the first time either played every snap on D. They both did well against a depleted receiver group from the Chargers.
Talanoa Hufanga only played 44 of the defensive snaps after leaving in the second half with an injury. Devon Key replaced him in the lineup and played decently. Tycen Anderson and JL Skinner got one defensive snap each.
Justin Strnad played 60 of the 67 defensive snaps. No other ILBs played defensive snaps.
Ja’Quan McMillian played 37 snaps on defense and made the most of them with 5 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 pressure, and 1 game-ending sack. No other CBs played defensive snaps.
At OLB Nik Bonitto, Jonah Elliss, Que Robinson and Dondrea Tillman played 38, 37, 32, and 27 snaps. They combined for 14 tackles, 5 TFL, 3 QBhits, and 2 sacks. This was Nik Bonitto’s best game of the season with 2 sacks, 2 QBhits, and 3 TFL.
On the DL Zach Allen, Malcolm Roach, Eyioma Uwazurike, and the Jones’s (DJ and Sai’vion) played 46, 41, 30, 29, and 20 snaps.
Special Teams
Five players played 2/3 of the special teams snaps or more: Tillman, Anderson, Keu, Devon Turner, and Adam Prentice. Two players who multiple tackles in coverage – Sean Fresch, and JL Skinner. Devon Key had two tackles but one was on defense in the final drive of the games. Skinner and Robinson were also involved heavily on special teams.
