Mile High Report
Following a game with some of the worst football and some of the best football we have seen from the Broncos, head coach Sean Payton made it clear that changes could be coming.
“I think you start with who,” said the head coach, noting its important to look at the “Who is it we’re asking to do certain things? There may be some guys [whose] playing time goes up and some might begin to diminish.”
The No. 1 goal this week as the Broncos get ready to host a hot Cowboys team is to figure out why the Broncos have had such slow starts on offense and seem to only play well when their backs are against the wall.
“It’s been encouraging that we’ve been able to finish some games,” Payton said, “and … we’re going to play in bigger games, and we’re going to have to be a lot more efficient in the first half of games.”
That is an understatement to end all understatements.
Down 19-0 at the start of the fourth quarter on Sunday, the Broncos’ offense had managed only seven first downs in its eight possessions and had made it past midfield only once. And the defense gave up just about every third-and-long or fourth-and-long conversion by the Giants.
“That’s nuts,” Payton said. “Offensively, we really didn’t amount to anything until we got into the end of the game, fourth quarter. Mental errors, mistakes, snaps, wrong reads, you name it.”
But against all odds (like literally 1,602 of them), the defense got its first takeaway, and the offense heated up, finding 33 points in 14 minutes to beat the Giants.
So now the challenge is figuring out how to avoid that mental collapse for three-quarters of the game before just leaning on the comeback mojo.
It certainly won’t be finding a new play caller, Payton assured the media, because he has no intention of giving that up.
“No. I think we’re comfortable as an offensive staff of how we’re operating,” he said.
