Familiar problems were still lurking for Broncos in Seattle
Sep 9, 2024, 7:16 AM
The Denver Broncos did not begin their season the right way. On the road against the Seattle Seahawks, the Broncos fell short by a score of 26-20.
The Broncos are now 0-1 and come home to see if they can get things right in Week 2 against the Pittsburgh Steelers. There was a lot to learn from this game, both positive and negative, and I’m sure the Broncos are going to learn a lot from the film.
After the game, Payton was perhaps a bit more optimistic than you would think.
“You know, it was a game where you felt the momentum shift, first half, second half, and I just finished telling the team there are not many games where that momentum doesn’t swing towards each team. It’s pretty common and then getting it back as quickly as possible is important. We saw a little bit more tempo from them offensively to get their offense going and in the end, we were short. We didn’t score enough. We had some opportunities early, we had the early turnover, we end up settling for a field goal. So I’m sure there will be a lot we have to coach up after looking at the tape,” Payton said.
Here are three observations from the Broncos loss to the Seahawks in Week 1.
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Still Can’t Stop the Run
It was a tale of two halves. In the first half, the Broncos defense was stuffing the run. In the second half, they couldn’t stop Kenneth Walker.
Last year, the Broncos struggled to stop the run and they spent quite a bit to improve that part of their defense this offseason. Additions like John Franklin-Meyers and Malcolm Roach were supposed to shore up the ground defense. Instead, Walker was able to go for 103 yards with one rushing touchdown. Walker’s healthy 5.2 yards per carry average shows how he was able to gash the Broncos on the ground.
Things aren’t going to get any easier in that department going forward. The Broncos need to react to what Seattle did on the ground, and they must show strides of improvement or teams will take advantage of them with their running backs.
After the game, Payton revealed why he thought Seattle was able to run the ball more effectively in the third and fourth quarters.
“A lot of tempo. A lot of, at the line, maybe shift so they kind of changed from huddle to more tempo and hit us with some gun runs. Looked like some check with me plays at the line,” Payton said.
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Too Many Three-and-Outs
The offense had plenty of opportunities, but they could not keep the chains moving. They were not able to get into a rhythm offensively, and part of that is because they did not keep drives alive.
The Broncos lacked balance on offense because they fell behind. That led them to pass more than they wanted to, and it did not help them stay ahead of the chains. Instead, they seemed to be fighting themselves by poor play-calling (or execution) on offense.
For the Payton system to run effectively, this team needs to stay on schedule. If they do that, the Broncos offense can begin setting up other concepts for later in the game. If not, they’ll be scrambling to put anything together consistently as they did on Sunday in Seattle.
Payton knew his team messed up in that department.
“Yeah, I think it’s very difficult. And generally if you’re playing good offense, a lot times you’re making first downs on first or second down, so there’s like a CFL number we look at. How are you doing on first and second down converting first downs and obviously, that would have been minute today my guess,” Payton said.
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Nix Was Upset
There is no doubt that rookie quarterback Bo Nix did not play his best game. Too many passes were off the mark, too many passes hit the ground, and he didn’t stretch the field as much as he could have.
Nix is a player who shows little emotion, but you know how much winning means to him. When the camera caught him on the sideline late in the game, you could see almost a look of disgust on his face.
The rookie has the professionalism of a veteran, so he didn’t throw anyone under the bus after the game. However, he’s a harsh critic on himself and his desire to win is off the charts.
After the game, Nix talked about the emotions he was feeling on Sunday.
“It was a challenge. It was a tough day. They didn’t make it easy on us, that’s for sure. Like I said, we competed. We went down there and scored at the end and gave ourselves a chance to win. We were an inch away on an almost batted ball that Riley Moss made an incredible play on that they just made a better play. You’ve got to give them credit, but we battled, and we continued to fight. Those are the emotions of today, that we got a competitive team. We’ve got a team that’s not going to quit. And we’re going to put everything on the line. No matter if it’s an ugly start, we’re going to continue to find ways to finish,” Nix said.
