The Denver Broncos this week went into hostile territory and came away with a victory. Let’s start by giving some credit. That Houston Texans defense is legitimate and deserves a ton of respect. My focus
is normally on our team, but I couldn’t help but be impressed with how good they played all four quarters.
This game was pretty telling for our team from a big picture sense. The offense is young and developing with a top-10 talent at quarterback. The defense is the rock this house is built on. Special teams is a clown fiesta.
I’m grateful for everyone on the team fighting for this win until the end. They pulled it off again when they probably shouldn’t (which is what good football teams do).
Offense
This was likely one of the jankiest games we’ve seen from the Broncos offense over the past couple of years. Missed throws, a bad interception, poor 3rd down performance, and way too many 3-and-outs.
The biggest positive I noted in this game was that the run game pretty consistently worked. The team averaged 4.3 yards per carry, but didn’t seem to be willing to stick with it consistently. Some of that is clearly play calling, but sometimes they were forced to because of poor production (run game included) on 1st down. It can be really difficult to effectively run the ball when you are behind schedule. It gets to be darn near impossible against such a talented front as what the Broncos played against on Sunday.
Quarterbacks
This was very clearly one of Bo Nix’s off days. I give him big credit for the fight. He definitely was one of the biggest reasons the Broncos won the game. That being said, his throwing in this game was pretty darn poor (his QBR of 68.9 and my eyes tell the same story).
The Texans kept a safety deep as they know Nix likes to take shots downfield. It finally worked in the 2nd quarter when Nix threw deep for Sutton, and the safety picked him off from the side. Nix’s deep throws are consistently lobs, which take time to get home. Nix needs to be aware of what the safety is doing before he takes his shots like that, and either look them off to make them go the wrong direction or pick a different option in his progression.
I do think he didn’t get a fair shake when he was flagged for intentional grounding. I’ve seen throws with receivers further away at the same angle that didn’t get flagged for that.
One of the big things that Nix did such a good job in this game was recognizing the blitz (which the Texans really dialed up after Stroud went out). He was constantly rolling, stepping up in the pocket, or getting the ball out early to avoid pressure by and large.
This week, it was the Texans’ turn to learn about who Bo Nix is in the 4th quarter. He dropped a dime for a TD to Harvey and followed it up with another dime to the corner for Franklin to get the 2-point conversion.
His runs on the last drive were exquisite. A week or two ago, I saw an interview with Aqib Talib, who was talking about how the Broncos need to get him to run the ball more. I could not disagree more. The runs Bo makes in this game are because they don’t abuse that tool too often. It is already risky enough having your quarterback being a runner (right, C.J. Stround?). It is such a strong weapon for Nix because he only uses it as a last resort when absolutely needed. If he were running every quarter, teams would be more ready for it and defend it better.
Line
The line gave up 1 sack this week. The run game was chugging all game long. I honestly think this team has the best offensive line in football right now, in general, in the NFL. When you notice how beastly that Texan front is and see how well the team handled them, I don’t think there’s much to critique.
My one nit to pick was with tight end Adam Trautman just didn’t block on an end-around by Franklin, costing the team a 4-yard loss. If the play was drawn up for him that way, it is a flawed play and needs tweaking by the coaching staff.
Running Backs
R.J. Harvey may have work to do as a runner (which I’m very sure will improve), but he’s really getting into a groove as a pass catcher out of the backfield. He caught 5 targets for 551 yards and 1 TD in the game. Having a back who is quick, fast, and has soft hands is such a weapon for the Sean Payton offense.
J.K. Dobbins is such a workhorse for this offense. He rolled up 61 yards on 15 carries this week, which is very effective. I just wish he had gotten a handful more attempts on the game, honestly. Where he’s such a leap over last year’s backs is that he has such good running vision. He can see where the blocks are and predict where the holes are going to open up by the time he gets there. It is so refreshing to see backs who don’t constantly run into their blockers’ backsides every other play.
Conversely, we got to see a pretty poor drop by Tylar Badie on a short pass that hit him in the numbers. It was the kind of drop that makes you cringe inside when you see it on replay. On a day when the offense is struggling, these easy plays going wrong really do sting.
Receivers
The hero of the receiving group was Pat Bryant, who caught only 2 of his 3 targets on the day. He made such an amazing reach for a first down on a 3rd down play. He then made a clutch catch on 3rd and 12. Both plays were in the 4th quarter. The first one was on the Broncos’ touchdown drive. The second was on a key drive that ran over 3 minutes off the clock and pinned the Texans deep. It is cool to see a rookie being trusted in big situations like these.
The other receivers made a few plays, but largely missed opportunities. Troy Franklin caught 4 of 10 targets (best WR production outside of Bryant), Cortland Sutton was 1 of 6 targets (big props for the 1 catch of 30 yards, though), and Evan Engram was 0 for 3. It was a rough day at the office for the Broncos’ pass catchers.
Defense
Big credit in this game needs to go to the defense for their performance. Missing their best player in Patrick Surtain, they played inspired football from start to finish.
They tried their best to run their standard man concepts across the board early, and it wasn’t really doing the trick. Even after Stroud got himself knocked out of the game, Mills had great success with some one-on-one matchups in the secondary.
But Vance Joseph isn’t one to just find the closest wall and bang his head against it incessantly. He quickly adjusted coverage to help against Nico Collins and get the Texans’ offense slowed down.
Many might call a defensive struggle like this game boring. For me, I love good defense, and this game had it in spades. The goal-line stand. Multiple trips inside Bronco territory with only field goals to show for it. It was a hell of a gutsy effort from our defense against a talented Texans team to hold them to only 3 out of 17 on 3rd down (which is freakishly good).
Front 7
Zach Allen was out there destroying souls this week. He ends the first Texans drive with a monstrous, beastly pass rush straight up the field to get the sack. He swats down a 3rd down play in the 4th quarter. On 3rd down late in the 4th quarter, Allen stops the drive with a big pressure, forcing a bad throw as he tackles Mills. He ended the game with 1 sack, 1 tackle for loss, 3 quarterback hits, and 2 passes defended.
Dre Greenlaw is an absolute monster of a linebacker. I honestly can’t wait to see him round into form and get more snaps (he ended the game with 27 total out of 73). The Broncos made a hell of a goal-line stand, and it was largely due to Greenlaw holding it down up front. He ended the game with a sack and a quarterback pressure, but it was his tackling up front to stop a touchdown that made the biggest impact in this game from our inside linebacker position.
Secondary
Talanoa Hufunga came into this game absolutely geeked. He always flies around, but in this game, it really looked like he was recognizing plays early and often. He was left in the flat one-on-one and owned his guy to stop a 3rd down play. There wasn’t a quarter that happened where he wasn’t in on a big stop of some form or fashion. He had 9 tackles on the day and 2 pass defenses for the Broncos, but his impact from the safety position was palpable beyond the stat sheet.
Riley Moss made such a beautiful coverage play on 3rd and 2, swatting the ball away on a short pass that gets converted at a very high rate in the NFL. For as much notoriety as he’s gotten this season, he had a pretty quiet day handling #1 cornerback duties with Patrick Surtain II out.
Kris Abrams-Draine was challenged early, and his soft off coverage gave up two easy first downs. As the game wore on, he tightened up and got some more help in spots, but the game looked a little big for him early.
Special Teams
Let’s start with the good:
Wil Lutz kicking a walk-off field goal is one of my favorite things to see these days. I love having a kicker that I know can handle the pressure late to just go knock it through the goalposts when his coach calls on him to in order to win a battle like this game. Lutz made it look easy and helped Broncos Country all breathe a big sigh of relief.
One of the highlights of the game was Jeremy Crawshaw booting a 67-yard punt to flip the field and pin the Texans inside the 20 (pinning them deep was a rare occurrence in this game). That wasn’t even his longest punt, which went for 76 yards (and sadly went into the end zone). Crawshaw is an absolute stud.
On to the not-so-good:
Darren Rizzi is plainly doing a terrible job of coaching this Special Teams unit. Sean Payton keeps defending him (which sure…maybe you should) press conference after press conference, but the time has come for someone to let him know that denial ain’t a river in Egypt. The players all over on special teams play show that they are not dialed in and ready to win. That’s on the coaching.
Mitchell Fraboni should get dropped from the roster for his late hit out of bounds. It was such a dumb move where the returner was clearly out of bounds, and our long snapper just really wanted to do something besides snap. Poor discipline on special teams is quite obvious up and down the unit, and his penalty was completely unnecessary or even close to a “ticky-tack” call.
Michael Bandy should have lost his job muffing a punt and giving the Texans a score at the end of the half. I was absolutely amazed to see him get another chance to return a punt later in the game multiple times. With Mims out, wouldn’t a good coach have multiple guys who can return kicks ready to go?
Final Thoughts
Most of the season, we’ve seen way too many flags on the Broncos, and now it has reached a new level. They are literally making things up as they go at this point.
After the Texans scored a field goal around the 2:00 mark of the game, they kicked off to the Broncos. The ball was downed in the end zone and was not in any way in the landing zone. The refs moved the Broncos’ drive back to the 20-yard line instead of the 35-yard line. The rule they must be referring to states this: “Any kick that hits in the landing zone and then goes into the end zone – must be returned or downed by the receiving team – if downed then touchback to B20 yard line.” I watched a replay to take a 2nd clean look, and the ball was in the air all the way to our returner, who downed it in the end zone. It did not land past the goal line first. I honestly think the Broncos’ record should be more like 10-1 because we’ve clearly beat two opponents at once on more than one occasion this season, and we all know that leverage call vs the Colts was nonsense (anyone else notice on the block in this game, the Texans did the same thing?)
This football team is playing the best football I’ve seen from the Broncos since 2015. There is no loss of hope, no signs of fear, and no quit from any Broncos player or coach. That makes a team dangerous. I love the swagger these guys are playing and coaching with. The future is bright for Broncos Country. Bring on the Raiders.
