They blew it up. The Broncos needed an extreme makeover on offense. It started with signing quarterback and cutting leading rusher . But that was only the beginning. The offense was so bad, in order to fix it, Denver had to change everything, from the personnel and the scheme to the terminology and the attitude.
“Itap pretty much all different,” offensive coordinator said last week.
The Broncos really had no choice except to blow it up.
Letap not mince words. In 2017, Denver had the worst NFL offense this side of Cleveland. Oh, there were five league teams, including the Browns, that averaged worse than the Broncos’ 18.1 points per game. No offense, however, looked more painfully uncoordinated than the Denver offense.
On the way to a last-place finish in the AFC West, nothing screamed dysfunction louder than the firing of offensive coordinator after only 10 games. It was a move required not only because the Broncos had trouble finding the end zone, but players and coaches had difficulty getting on the same page of the game plan.
In his first job after being dumped as head coach in San Diego, McCoy appeared to be more interested in operating the Denver offense his way, rather in a way that best suited his quarterback, , or in a way that made sense to his boss, .
The NFL is all about the quarterback, not some coach’s ego. So thatap why I needed to know this from Musgrave: Is offensive success more dependent on the system or the quarterback?
“The quarterback would come first,” Musgrave said. “Usually a sound system, or one thatap worth its salt, is built around the strength of its players. The quarterback is the focal guy, and he’s touching the ball every time. We want to do things that play to his strengths, and really all of his 10 teammates, as well. Whether it be the run scheme, the pass scheme, the protections, the deceptions and things like that.”
In order to build a more perfect offense (or at least an attack that could get Denver back in the playoff hunt), all the coaches sat down during the winter and rewrote the playbook, nearly from scratch. This is not Musgrave’s offense. Itap the Denver offense, with input from a number of assistants, designed with the skills of quarterbacks Keenum, and Chad Kelly foremost in mind.
“Itap really a system that we build as a staff this offseason,” Musgrave said. “We had wholesale changes on the offensive staff. We have our framework that I’m comfortable with and that I can teach and call in a timely manner. And then our staff has put together what we feel is a great system for our players, especially our QBs.”
It took the Broncos two years, but they’ve finally figured it out: doesn’t work here anymore. When Manning was in charge, the offense could be a complex mix of Mandarin and advanced calculus. Manning was smarter than anybody else on the field and could do the thinking for the other 10 teammates in the Denver huddle, if necessary.
When it became obvious the gears inside Lynch’s head were moving so slowly defenders could see what he was thinking about doing next with the football, criticism of a first-round draft pick for his failure to pick up the concepts and verbiage of Denver’s was inevitable and fair. But John Elway, as the architect of this roster, has also been frustrated with the Broncos’ failure to get meaningful production from young players, dating to when John Fox was in charge of the team on the field.
Isn’t it also the coaching staff’s responsibility to make football an opportunity to showcase an inexperienced player’s talent rather than expose how much he doesn’t know? Maybe itap too late to save Lynch. If the Broncos want to score more points, however, they need immediate contributions from rookies such as wide receiver Courtland Sutton and running back Royce Freeman.
“We’re trying to make it concise. We don’t want long-worded plays in the huddle,” Musgrave said. “We’ve got three or four ways to go no-huddle. And a lot of those are one-word calls. We’d love for guys to know it like the back of their hand, then they can just cut it loose and play. Thatap what we’re trying to get done.”
So there’s your new mantra for the Denver offense: Get R Done.
With a defense led by and , the Broncos don’t need the No. 1 offense in the league. They need to score six more points per game than in 2017. That translates to 96 more points in a season.
If Musgrave can get that done, Denver will be back in the playoffs. Guaranteed.
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