The inactives for the Denver Broncos game against the San Francisco 49ers were: QB Sam Ehlinger, OLB Dondrea Tillman, TE Dallen Bentley, OL Kage Casey, and DT Tyler Onyedim. Tillman is dealing with an injury that sidelined him for this game.
Offense
Once again the five starters on the offensive line played every snap as did Bo Nix. Alex Palczewski played one snap on offense as the sixth offensive lineman. This marks only the eighth running play that the Broncos have used six offensive linemen on this season.
The other two active offensive linemen, Matt Peart and Alex Forsyth did not play on offense.
Jarrett Stidham was the only active player who did not appear in the game.
At RB, RJ Harvey, JK Dobbins and Tyler Badie played 29, 21, and 12 snaps. Adam Prentice played 7 snaps at fullback. Dobbins got 13 touches on his 21 snaps. That was the highest percentage for any offensive player in this game. Christian McCaffrey for the 49ers had 18 touches, but on 49 snaps. Dobbins got the ball 62% of the time that was in the game. That seems like a tell for our offense there, but what do I know.
Adam Trautman, Evan Engram, and Nate Adkins played 30, 44, and 14 snaps. The three combined for one catch and six yards on six targets.
Courtland Sutton, Jaylen Waddle, Troy Franklin, Pat Bryant, and Marvin Mims played 48, 45, 30, 24, and 18 snaps. I forgot that Troy Franklin was out there. He was not targetted once during the game.
The offense seemed to be completely based on checkdowns against the 49ers. Nix averaged 5.1 YPA for the game. That being said, Brock Purdy was worse until the game-clinching great TE screen pass call to George Kittle in the 4th quarter. That throw accounted for roughly 30 percent of his passing yards.
Defense
Three defensive players played every snap in the heat in Santa Clara, Talanoa Hufanga, Alex Singleton and Brandon Jones.
At the other ILB, Justin Strnad played 56 snaps.
Devon Key played two defensive snaps as a third safety.
With the injuries at CB, Jahdae Barron, Riley Moss, Kris Abrams-Draine, Pat Surtain and Ja’Quan McMillian played 40, 34, 34, 29 and 21 snaps. Barron had the only pass defense credited to our DBs during the game. This was the first time in Barron’s young career that he has played the highest number of CB snaps on the team in game.
Our hand-in-the-dirt defenders, Zach Allen, Malcolm Roach, DJ Jones, Eyioma Uwazurike, Sai’vion Jones and Jordan Jackson played 42, 43, 43, 35, 14 and 13 snaps. It was good that Zach Allen was given some rest, but he was the only front-7 defender who was creating any pressure. He had three of our four QBhits. The other belonged to DJ Jones. It is rare for out OLBs to get shut out from any pressure stats.
At OLB, our three active OLBs, Nik Bonitto, Jonah Elliss, and Que Robinson played 39, 40 and 43 snaps. For Que to the most snaps is telling. The defensive coaches were sold out to stop the run, but that didn’t work very well. The 49ers were able to get 142 yards on 33 actual runs. That’s 4.3 YPC which is little better than league average right now.
Alex Singleton had the lone TFL. The 49ers have only had five plays that lost yards in 4 games this season. That is crazy efficient. They have not allowed a sack and only have 4 runs that have lost yardage. The TFL of Christian McCaffrey by Singleton was only the second time this season he has been stopped for negative yards. The and the first time on a run (the other was on pass play). The TFL of CMac was rare because he doesn’t get TFL’ed often and because Singleton rarely gets TFLs. He had 3 TFL on 1029 defensive snaps last season.
Special Teams
Will Lutz was able to hit from 40 and 52, but he missed from 58. Field goals from 58 or longer are much more common than they used to be, they are still difficult. Over the last two season 41 of 70 attempts from 58 or longer have been good – 58.6 percent. Will Reichard is 4 for 4 on those attempts in 2025 and 2026. Will Lutz is now 0/2. His other miss was from 59 against the Raiders in the 10-7 win last season. He is now 2 of 7 for his career on kicks of 58 or longer. His last make was in 2022 when he played for the Saints.
Jordan Turner made two special teams tackles and forced a fumble on the KOR to start the second half.
Jeremy Crawshaw continues to be a weapon for the Broncos. The 49ers started two drives inside their 10 (and should have started a third) and another two drives inside their 20 – at the 6, 8, 12, and 18. I’ll dive into his punts in my stat post this week.
I also noticed something this game that I didn’t realize. Under the new rules if a kickoff bounces into the endzone and is caught there by the returner and downed for a touchback, that touchback only comes out to the 20 instead of the 35 like kickoffs that land in the endzone. After the 49ers got their tying FG, the kickoff landed at the two and bounced into the endzone where it was downed by RJ Harvey (I think) for a touchback. The Broncos started that second quarter drive at the 20 (1:36 left in the quarter). That drive was also when the lone penalty on the 49ers was called. They committed plenty (including a fairly obvious block in the back on the Kittle TD), but that was the only one that was called.
The Landing Zone Roll-In (20-yard line): If a kickoff hits the landing zone (between the 20-yard line and the goal line) on the fly and then naturally rolls, bounces, or is batted into the end zone where it is downed, the touchback is placed at the 20-yard line rather than the 35.
