The regular season is already flying by it seems. We’re already heading into Week 3 and the Denver Broncos will be in prime time again — this time on Sunday Night Football to host the Los Angeles Rams.
For both teams, the start to the season began with disaster and segued into a strong performance. In Denver, that first week was met with some serious meltdowns from fans over new offensive coordinator Davis Webb and him seemingly getting outplayed at every turn by Kansas City Chief defensive coordinator Steve
Spagnuolo. In hindsight, going up against a multi-decade experienced defensive coordinator like Spags was probably not a great way to start ones career as a new offensive coordinator.
Head Coach Sean Payton was asked this week when calling plays began to feel natural to him and he sure wasn’t sure how to answer that one which makes me think maybe a coach can never get too comfortable when they are the play caller.
“There’s a learning curve, always, and then I think the most important thing is it’s not plays within the scheme, it’s players,” Payton said. “So you’re constantly moving relative to what you have. I can look at ‘06 New Orleans, I can look at ‘09, 2013, 2017 and you would be like, ‘Man, there’s some…’ But there were a lot of changes too relative to who and I think the same here or there’s some fundamental things that we want to do and yet you also move in the direction of what the skill set allows.”
It seems like he just likes to remember the good seasons when he had the most fun calling plays. I suppose that would make it feel more natural when everything is going the right way.
That answer did lead to another question about Davis Webb directly and whether or not he was evaluated unfairly after that first week.
“Yes, I think every scenario is different,” Payton said. “I think just being yourself in the process during the week and getting to the things that we think are going to fit. I think all those things go into it, but I think in each case they’re all somewhat a little different.”
And his response leads back to the whole going up against a guy like Spags in your first game as play caller. Not the ideal situation, but how Webb handled the black eye and followed it up with a stellar performance calling plays in the team’s win over the Jacksonville Jaguars is a huge check in the box for him.
Of course, at the end of the day the players executed last week and did not the previous week. As fans we can point to that, but again it would be on the coaches to have the players prepared in the first place. I personally think Webb is going to be just fine and so will the Broncos.
