Broncos at Chargers: The No Bull Review

Once again, the Denver Broncos lost in the last second after a hard-fought game against a very good team. I’m always proud to see our team going toe-to-toe and being in the game until the last second. It is far better than losing by 20.

That being said, I don’t like a close game like this where our team lost because they shot themselves in the foot far too many times.

Last year, we had the excuse of the Broncos being a young team. They just needed to get more comfortable in order to really win some more of the close games.

At this point, I’m starting to honestly question the coaching. These players just don’t look prepared to win NFL football games. They lack discipline. They also lack focus. Both of those things are very coachable.

Offense

This is such an inconsistent offense. The only thing I think they excel at is having low-yield plays on first down. In the first half of the game, our running backs had negative yards on 5 rushing attempts. In the first quarter, they were consistent in going 3-and-out on each and every drive.

I do want to give big credit to Payton for his gutsy call on 4th and 2 at the end of the half. The play design was the perfect call at the perfect time.

Where I think Payton needs some blame is for the players lining up poorly. That’s on his coaching staff to have the players drilled on who covers the tackle on each and every play.

Quarterbacks

Bo Nix really needs to improve his accuracy. Several plays early don’t work because he’s either too far to the outside on his placement or behind his target. He was just a bit too far on the flea flicker. At the end of the 4th quarter, he overthrew Sutton. He had 3 deep passes that were misses long. He had many throws that just missed, and several of them would have extended drives.

I think it is so frustrating to watch because we have seen so much potential in Nix. He’s got superb scrambling ability. The throws he’s missing are, by and large, the right spots to be going with the ball. And to be fair to him, he’s just missing these throws. If the guy would just take setting his feet more seriously, he’d be killing it.

Line

Luke Wattenburg is not holding his ground up front. A lot of the problems establishing the run are coming right up the A gaps. We need a center that can hold his own, and so far this season, I don’t see it.

Adam Trautman had terrible blocking on the edge against a safety blitz on the edge. Later on, on a 3rd down, he gets help and lets a smaller player get by him to stop a 3rd down conversion by R.J. Harvey. It is bad enough that our tight ends have problems being impactful receiving targets, but...