Courtland Sutton didn’t need a crystal ball to know what came next as he went in motion against Green Bay.
The veteran wide receiver crossed the offensive formation to the left and settled briefly in the slot, creating a bunch with tight end Adam Trautman and receiver Marvin Mims, Jr. to his outside.
On the snap, Sutton let both of them clear across his face, worked his way up the left sideline and, voila, found himself all alone thanks to the traffic they created.
Tried-and-true concept. Clean execution. Easy throw from Russell Wilson for an 18-yard touchdown.
Red zone clinic.
If only it was always — or even usually — that simple.
Instead, capitalizing in the red zone has been a chore for the Broncos even as they’ve turned their season around over the past month.
Paradoxically, itap been a chore, particularly during the team’s four-game winning streak.
They’re officially 7-of-18 over the past four games. They’ve been charged with multiple red zone failures each in wins against Green Bay, Kansas City, Buffalo and Minnesota.
A 21-20 grinder against the Vikings last week is booked as easily their worst red zone outing of the season so far: Four straight failures, masked at the end by Sutton’s leaping, game-winning touchdown in the final 63 seconds.
After the game, head coach Sean Payton allowed a moment of real excitement, detailing a “gritty” two-minute drive and marveling at Sutton’s exploits. Twelve hours later, the film review landed like a wet blanket.
“If you watch this tape I’m watching, there’ll be plenty of time to get focused because itap not really good,” he said.
Especially not in the red zone.
This is perhaps Denver’s foremost offensive concern going forward. They’ve gotten away with mediocre-at-best production the past four weeks, but a real run toward the playoffs likely depends on them more frequently turning opportunities into touchdowns.
The frustrating part for Payton and the Broncos’ offense is the very nature of being within a few yards of pay dirt: So close can still seem so far away.
Bucking a trend
NFL red zone data shows two notable developments so far this season.
First, itap as difficult as ever to score touchdowns. The 53.7% touchdown rate overall is in line with the lowest marks of the past decade (53.4% in 2017 and 53.5% in 2014). Since a high-water mark of 61.2% in crowd noise-free 2020, efficiency has steadily deteriorated.
“I would say the one thing thatap different for me from coming back after a year is there are a lot of teams playing this ‘Red 3 (defense)’ pretty well,” Payton said earlier this season as offenses got off to a sluggish start. “… I’d like to be not involved in that trend.”
So far, he has been.
The other trend, though, the Broncos have bucked.
NFL teams overall are running the ball in the red zone more than any recent year, continuing essentially a decade-long shift. In 2015, teams passed the ball 55.9% in the red zone. This year, teams are passing only 49.6% of the time. That’s in a league where the overall pass rate is 58%.
In the low-red zone (10-yard line and in), the league-wide pass rate dwindles further to 47.8%.
Payton spoke to this general sentiment in October, one day after two red zone trips in a 31-21 loss to the New York Jets stalled due to negative running plays.
“Obviously you have to run the ball well in the red zone,” he said then. “Any good red-zone offense at the end of the season is able to run the ball, as well as throw it.”
The Broncos, though, have thrown it far more than they’ve run it in the red zone this year — and they haven’t run the ball well at all.
Pass-heavy Payton?
Denver’s 56.8% red zone pass rate is among the highest in the NFL.
Not only that, but they had a late-game possession while leading by multiple scores Week 8 against Kansas City in which they weren’t really trying to score and ran the ball six times without throwing it. Take that set of plays out, and their pass rate jumps to 60.6%.
In a reversal from the league norm, then, the Broncos throw the ball more frequently in the red zone than they do overall (57.1%).
Even more dramatic is their departure from the league norm inside the 10-yard line. They’re throwing the ball on 62% of those snaps.
Perhaps the most eye-popping number of all: The Broncos have one rushing touchdown through 10 games. A single, measly, 5-yard Jaeel McLaughlin toss play against Washington in Week 2. The NFL average is 8.7 per team.
Asked if his team’s elevated red zone pass rates are by design, Payton didn’t provide a direct answer.
“First off, we’ve got to improve in that area,” he said Wednesday. “We feel like, typically, you want to have balance and you want to be able to run it, especially when you get into those tight quarters. But itap one of the areas we talked about offensively and I just finished with the team. There’s a number of things still that we’ve got to work on and improve and thatap one of them.”
The Broncos through all manner of coaching and coordinator turnover in recent years have consistently passed the ball more than league average in the red zone over the past decade, but a look at Payton’s history in New Orleans shows this year is still abnormal.
He didn’t engineer an offense that threw the ball this frequently in the red zone in any of his final five seasons with the Saints. Only once in all of those high-flying years with Drew Brees did his team throw it more than 60.6% (61.2% in 2013). In the years he coached, his team never approached the Broncos’ low-red zone pass rate this year, maxing out at 57.1% in 2011.
Red zone Russ
There are two logical reasons why the Broncos are pass-happy near the goal line.
The first is that Russell Wilson has been really good throwing the ball in that part of the field. He’s got 16 red zone touchdown passes and no interceptions. Perhaps even more impressive: His 70.2% completion percentage stacks up well on several fronts. It leads the NFL (minimum 25 attempts) and it far outstrips the 56.2% league mark. If he maintains it and holds off Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson (70%), it would go down as the third-best mark of the past decade, trailing only 2020 Aaron Rodgers and 2019 Drew Brees.
Wilson has never finished better than 63.4% completions in the red zone and he’s on pace for a career-high in red zone touchdown passes. Combine that with playing turnover-free in scoring territory, and you’ve found the engine driving his turnaround season.
“The best thing about it though is there’s room to improve,” Wilson said this week. “Thatap where our mindset has to be, is incremental gains every week. We want to get better, especially as the season goes on.”
The room for improvement gets to the second reason Denver’s throwing the ball so much in the red zone and the crux of the Broncos’ problems in that part of the field:
They’re going backward far too often and thus finding themselves too frequently in passing situations.
Breaking down breakdowns
Denver’s red-zone demons are easy to identify.
The Broncos have the seventh-most trips inside their opponents’ 20-yard line this season, driven early in the season by explosive plays and more recently by a barrage of defensive takeaways.
They’re only 19th, however, in touchdown efficiency.
Why?
“We’ve had too many plays in the red zone where itap us going backward,” right guard Quinn Meinerz told The Post.
The numbers are striking.
The Broncos have taken a sack or committed a penalty on 10 of their 16 failed red zone tries this year (excluding end-of-half and end-of-game situations where a field goal suffices). On four of the others, they logged a negative run.
Only twice have the Broncos played a clean red zone series and not finished it in the end zone.
Only twice have the Broncos taken a sack or penalty and overcome it to score a touchdown.
“Those are massive plays because thatap a very big point swing,” Meinerz said. “Thatap been part of the problem is the issues we’ve been having (in the red zone). Our defense is playing great, getting turnovers, giving us the ball in great position and then we’re coming away with a field goal.
“Thatap not acceptable. We have to get seven.”
All of those penalties and sacks are debilitating, but some are worse than others. The Broncos have had three touchdowns wiped off the board because of penalties this year — two against Miami, one against Green Bay.
Wilson took two sacks, including on first-and-goal from the 1-yard line against Washington in Week 2. Incidentally, the first sack is the only play Denver has run from the opposing 1-yard line all season.
Against Minnesota, a third-and-1 conversion to set up first-and-goal got nixed because of an illegal formation penalty. Then Wilson got sacked on third-and-6, leading to one of Wil Lutz’s four red zone field goals.
“Every play matters and you can’t slip on the job because you never know what the next play’s going to lead to,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey told The Post. “When you have an opportunity to strike and get points and go in for the kill, you’ve got to go do it. There’s no excuse to not get it done.
“We’re too talented, we’re too good of a group, and our offense needs to be better there.”
If they get better, Denver’s offensive numbers are likely to clean up nicely down the stretch.
If not, the Broncos’ playoff aspirations are going to end up in the same spot so many of their possessions have this season: On the doorstep, but left out in the cold.
NFL red zone efficiency
| Year | NFL Red zone TD% |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 53.7% |
| 2022 | 56.1% |
| 2021 | 58.5% |
| 2020 | 61.2% |
| 2019 | 56.6% |
| 2018 | 59.1% |
| 2017 | 53.4% |
| 2016 | 55.6% |
| 2015 | 56.2% |
| 2014 | 53.5% |
Rushing TDs by team
| Most | |
|---|---|
| Baltimore | 21 |
| San Francisco | 18 |
| Detroit | 17 |
| Miami | 17 |
| Philadelphia | 15 |
| Least | |
| Four Teams | 4 |
| New York Jets | 3 |
| Carolina | 2 |
| Denver | 1 |
Red zone QB leaders 2023
| Team | Comp % | TD | INT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Mahomes | K.C. | 59.3 | 17 | 2 |
| Russell Wilson | Denver | 70.2 | 16 | 0 |
| Dak Prescott | Dallas | 59.1 | 16 | 2 |
| Josh Allen | Buffalo | 62.5 | 15 | 0 |
| Justin Herbert | L.A. Chargers | 57.4 | 14 | 1 |
| Jordan Love | Green Bay | 51.7 | 14 | 3 |
| Brock Purdy | San Francisco | 68.2 | 12 | 1 |
| Tua Tagovailoa | Miami | 64.6 | 12 | 1 |
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