Mile High Report
Good morning, Broncos Country!
Saturday’s preseason win over the Saints produced a few highlight-reel moments as Bo Nix and Courtland Sutton seemed to catch their stride by the third series.
But it was a minute before that starting offense looked like anything even close to the hype this team has gotten all offseason. And that felt like a very long minute.
It’s not that the offense looked terrible, but it was very underwhelming and pedestrian — partially by design, no doubt. But even with a ho-hum play sheet in place, the execution looked more like a high school team than an NFL franchise presumably poised for a big year. Short passes, dropped passes, runs into traffic, three-and-out on the first drive and just a field goal on the second … not a very inspiring showing.
Sean Payton must have thought so too when he trotted the first-team offense on the field for a third series despite guys already getting the prescribed “8-10 plays” for the game. Having gained just 39 yards in 11 plays, the coach knew more was needed to tune up the first-team before Week 1 arrives.
“I said eight to 10, and it’s not etched in concrete,” Payton said, defending the third series. “You want to score and get out there, but I thought we did some good things.”
The third series was one of those “good things” and proved to be a significant improvement as the offense finally got into the end zone — their first touchdown of the preseason.
Spurred by an unnecessary roughness penalty on the Saints, the Broncos still almost squandered the opportunity until Nix hit Sutton for a 43-yard gain off the boot and then found him two plays later in the end zone with a 19-yard back-shoulder fade.
“Courtland] is a really great veteran,” Nix said. “To see him go out there and play that hard in a preseason game is really unique; I am happy for him.”
As nice as it was to watch the Nix-Sutton connection, the slow start overall was a little disconcerting. Nothing too worrisome.
And if Nix isn’t worried about it, then neither am I.
“Courtland did a great job of getting open, and it was man-to-man so I saw him open and he had good enough space for me to throw it over there to him,” Nix said before being asked if he’s ready to get started. “Very ready, very excited.”
