Mile High Report
The Denver Broncos finally faced a good NFL team and got obliterated in every phase of the game. Here are my thoughts, opinions, and analysis on what we learned about the Broncos after this loss.
Welcome back to earth, Broncos Country. We were riding in the stratosphere for a while there as the team was racking up wins and looking way more competent than we’ve seen them in ages.
The Baltimore Ravens were here to dispel any illusions of grandeur the Denver Broncos may harbor about being a significant team in the AFC this season.
That’s okay though. If you’ve been on the No Bull ride with me all season, this loss didn’t come as a big surprise. We still may make the playoffs as a wildcard team, but what you saw this game was who this team is: young, lacking talent in many areas, and just starting to seriously learn what it takes to be winners.
We’ll be sparse on detailed notes on this one, Broncos Country. I don’t find much value in games that go sideways so badly. We’ll hit the big notes and look forward to next week’s game much like the team will be honestly.
As the game got out of hand, the run game got abandoned. Our passing attack showed just how much it lacks skill players almost across the board. The team was matched up against zone which Nix is still working on beating consistently. As the score went up, the playbook got away from Payton and we were forced to air it out and hope for the best.
I will say I hated Sean Payton going for it on 4th and 4 early. I think that’s a field goal scenario 10 times out of 10 and I don’t care that you are facing a hot offense. To me, the morale cost is too high when you have a young team. In 3 years with a more veteran Bo Nix, I may like the move a lot more, but in this game, it was a mistake.
That being said, I don’t think there’s a ton that you can do on the offensive side of the ball to improve your odds of winning this game. I think these teams could play 100 times and the Broncos would lose 100 of them in all honesty regardless of what Payton does on offense.
The best thing that happened in this game was that Bo Nix got more real reps against cover-2. He honestly had some really good throws in this game, but most won’t notice because of the lop-sided score. For instance, Nix made an impressive throw across his body to hit Williams in the middle of the field on a 3rd and 6 that ended up going for 34 yards.
What I’m most excited about is Nix showing more great timing passes. Those routes are a big key to tearing apart zone defenses and the windows for them are only open for...
