Mile High Report
That was honestly a surprising game to see the Denver Broncos play. The Jacksonville Jaguars beat our team soundly in every facet of the game by and large. Their coaches out-coached ours. Their players wanted the win way worse and played fast and hungry. Credit to the Jaguars for coming into Denver and laying a whooping on this team the likes of which we haven’t seen this season.
For Broncos Country, let’s not overreact to this. I honestly think a loss late in the season for a high-win team is good. Good teams use a loss like this to temper themselves into a stronger version.
The Jaguar defense played this team very well and caused multiple problems for Sean Payton’s offense. They had pressure on Nix better than most teams. They covered well enough especially in critical downs. They made some plays knowing what was coming.
This is all the script we typically see the Broncos offense having the advantage. The crazy thing was that we still had some play designs that took the Jags by surprise, but wasn’t able to capitalize on them (deep throw inaccuracy and drops were the main problems). The offense didn’t execute the play calls well enough.
The offensive skill players have got to learn how to catch footballs that hit them in the hands. So many inept drives had catchable balls dropped. The drop consistency from all over the roster is baffling and could be the cause of an early end to a spectacular season.
Finally, the offense has got to keep finding ways to run the ball. I know the game started getting away from us, but that doesn’t mean abandoning the run, especially when both your main backs were averaging over 7 yards per carry. The team had 17 runs to 47 passes which seems way too lopsided even for a game where we ended up being down 2 scores late and needed to go all out on passing.
This was a pretty up and down game for Bo Nix. He threw a perfect fade to Sutton in the end zone for an easy 6. Then he has a baffling read option fumble trying to pull the ball when McLaughlin was a step past him. His interception throw was a terrible choice. Bryant was completely dominated on the play and Bo just locked on and let it rip. The only good thing about it was that it pushed the Jags back down the field.
The biggest nit I have to pick with Nix over this season is his long ball placement. He’s consistently underthrowing wide open scoring plays all season long. He’s got to stop moon balling every deep throw and figure out how to lengthen the angle to hit his deep threats in stride. It was evident on two deep throws in this game where his guys had to try to make contested catches that got broken up because of it.
The line had a...
