SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The Broncos’ habit of arriving to game day with anemic offense continued Sunday against San Francisco.
Denver didn’t score a touchdown until the final 4 minutes, 5 seconds of a 24-14 loss to the 49ers, mustered just three points total in the first three quarters and overall did nothing to quell concerns about a unit thatap been more down than up over the season’s first month.
Here are seven thoughts on a game that was a rugged fight for most of the afternoon and then all Niners down the stretch.
1. Sean Payton’s next move will say a lot about where he thinks Davis Webb is as a play caller
The Broncos head coach late Sunday afternoon did not sound like a man inclined toward patience.
He has stood up after each of Denver’s four games so far and handled at least a handful of questions about Denver’s offense.
After a 24-14 loss to San Francisco, he got a lot.
Broad and specific. About scheme and about players. About attitudes and adjustments and rushing and passing.
And also about play calling.
Will Payton consider taking the play sheet from his 31-year-old protege and offensive coordinator Davis Webb after four games and, 13 first-half points? The Broncos will wake up Monday morning averaging 18.5 points per game over the first almost quarter of the season and will find themselves ranked in the 20s or worse across a broad spectrum of offensive statistical measurements.
Has he seen enough to consider reconsidering?
“Yeah, like I said, itap too early,” Payton said. “It’s a fair question. I appreciate it. It’s tough to discuss any of that right now.
The coach veered into broader themes before returning to the more specific query.
“To your original question, we always look at everything in each game and that’s how we’ll approach this one.”
That answer, quite notably, did not constitute a hard no.
Payton said, pointedly, that he’s concerned with where the offense finds itself overall through the first essentially quarter of the season.
“We’ve had some opportunities, but there are a handful of things that aren’t clicking,” he said. “We’ve got to figure it out fast because we’re going into week five.”
What the veteran head coach does next will tell a lot about where he believes the root causes of the unitap struggles are located.
Payton’s options aren’t limited to simply taking the play-sheet out of his coordinator’s hands.
He can shake up his depth chart. He can say in no uncertain terms that the Broncos must play more like they did on a fourth-quarter touchdown drive in which Nix at one point handed the ball off five out of six snaps and the offense.
This passing chart from QB Bo Nix shows why it's been so hard for Denver's offense to generate explosives.
One completion past 10-yards down the field.
— Sam Jane (@sam_jane230)
They need something, though, and whether Payton decides they need a few small somethings or a big change will be fascinating.
So far, they are too often being dictated to by defenses. In the best-case scenario, Webb, Nix and Denver’s offense would run teams or attack them aggressively enough as to force a reaction. They would be pushing and pulling on defenses until they became structurally unsound and cracked wide open.
Instead, defenses look comfortable against Nix. Content to play back, allow him to check it down and and bet that the Broncos won’t run the ball enough to get burned by playing light personnel and light numbers in the box.
Nix himself expressed the need to force teams out of that posture last week. Then San Francisco mostly just did the same thing.
“If you’re going to see a defense stay high and stay deep, then there needs to be this efficiency we’re talking about right now,” Payton said. “In other words, that game was playing out as our defense was playing. At halftime, you’re watching the way that game is unfolding, I would say you’re encouraged with the offensive (drive) starts that we’’ve had. We just didn’t have enough answers to get past that to get a lead.
Does Payton think the ultimate reason those answers are not being found is a little bit of play-caller and a lot of other things mixed in? Or will Payton decide the Broncos players aren’t being put in the right spots frequently enough to have a realistic chance at success?
Perhaps the biggest overall indictment so far this season is that the Broncos have what looks like a dangerous set of offensive skill talent (plus an expensive, veteran offensive line) and yet they are not at all explosive. The Broncos right now are a small-ball offense. They have to work really hard to make most good things happen and they have to string several hits together.
Against the run of good defenses the Broncos have faced so far this season, that hasn’t consistently been good enough.
Payton has always considered the first quarter of the season to be a key benchmark in figuring out who a particular team is. Nobody needs to be a finished product at this point, but Denver’s offensive problems have been sticky and solutions have proved elusive.
Nix, meanwhile, reiterated his confidence in Webb when asked.
I’m real confident in him,” the third-year quarterback said. “I think when you look at the overall landscape, we’ve played four of the top teams in the league, and not easy for a first-time OC as young as he is to go against some of the, quite frankly, the best teams in the league. So, he definitely is going to continue to work to put us in the right spots.”
Denver’s 62-year-old head coach has seen enough ebbs and flows in his career to not rush to major changes right out of the starting gate. But his task now is to find answers before one month of offensive malaise becomes two or threatens to kneecap a deep and talented team’s prospects.
Which buttons will he push?
2. The Broncos might have a running back problem. Again.
Over the course of Denver’s second offensive possession of the game, the offense actually made some headway down the field. It overcame an early penalty when Nix hit Tyler Badie for 25 yards on third-and-3. Then Badie churned for four more on third-and-2. Nix hit Marvin Mims Jr. for 10 on third-and-8.
On the Broncos’ sideline, running back J.K. Dobbins was not happy.
He stalked around. Tried to get into the game a couple of times. Exchanged heated words with running backs coach Lou Ayeni.
Finally on the 11th play of the drive he got a carry. It was negated by a Mike McGlinchey holding penalty.
Dobbins’ first official carry didn’t come until Denver’s fourth possession when he opened a drive by rushing for no gain.
Dobbins avoided reporters in the postgame locker room, so itap not entirely clear what he was thinking early in the game. He did end up with a team-high 11 carries, though Harvey had 17 touches (seven carries and 10 catches) and likely at least as much overall playing time.
What is clear regardless is that Dobbins has not been his normal, productive self over Denver’s first four games.
Through Dobbins’ first four games last season, he carried the ball 57 times for 323 yards (5.7 per carry) and three touchdowns.
Through Dobbins’ first four games this sason, he’s carried the ball 46 times for 161 yards (3.6 per) and has not yet found the end zone. Nearly exactly half the rushing yards on a handful fewer carries.
Not only that, but the explosion is missing, too.
Over Dobbins’ 10 games last year, he had six outings that included multiple runs of 10-plus yards. That includes the first 11 in the first four games of the season.
No Broncos rusher had a carry longer than 9 yards on Sunday against the Niners and Dobbins now has just two carries of 10-plus through four games this year. He has not had a 10-plus yard carry since the 10:10 mark of the first quarter Week 2 against Jacksonville.
Payton said during the week that Dobbins, a full practice participant Wednesday through Friday, is healthy. Overall, the offensive line metrics look good and coaches have said they like that group’s performance so far.
Certainly, a lack of overall commitment to and conviction in the run game has hurt the unit as a whole. And yet, Dobbins’ touches aren’t radically different than they were at this stage last year.
His production is.
Thatap a concern for Denver, especially considering rookie Jonah Coleman must miss two more games before he’s eligible to return from injured reserve.
3. Denver has to find a way to get Jaylen Waddle going.
Wide receiver Jaylen Waddle, thee Broncos’ prize offseason acquisition is supposed to be a ceiling lifter. An offense changer. A security blanket and a dynamic threat.
Through four games, however, he has not had that kind of impact.
Some of that is on him and he acknowledged as much Sunday after he dropped another pass.
“I think itap just execution,” he said. “Thatap ultimately what the game comes down to, especially with the offense that we want to have. Execution is the formula.”
Some of it, though, is a combination of Nix not getting him the ball in situations where he’s available and perhaps also not enough of an emphasis in manufacturing touches for him.
The results are stark.
Against Jacksonville, the former first-round draft pick had eight catches on 10 targets for 138 yards.
In Denver’s other three games combined, Waddle has eight catches on 16 targets for 47 yards. Sunday, he caught five passes on six but for just 35 yards, though Waddle did log his first touchdown.
Waddle’s played in 82 games as a pro, all in Miami before the four now with the Broncos. His 138 yards in Week 2 was the fifth-most of his career for a game. His other three are all in the bottom 18, or 22%, of his single-game totals.
Thatap not going to work for the Broncos’ offense given the extent to which they are trying to design their approach around him. It is especially not going to work if that production isn’t being gobbled up by another receiver and the rushing game is often stuck in neutral.
4. Once again, penalties took a toll on Denver’s early offensive work
At the risk of piling on, penalties continue to hamper an already struggling offense’s ability to find success.
Denver’s final count of seven penalties for 44 yards isn’t a glaring number — it still stands in stark contrast to San Francisco’s one for 5 — but a modest yardage total undercounts the impact penalties had on Denver’s offense early in the game.
The Broncos overcame the first, an illegal motion on receiver Marvin Mims, Jr., to build a promising second drive. McGlinchey’s holding penalty later in the possession, though, pushed Denver back to first-and-20 from the San Francisco 43 and ultimately stalled a drive that ended with a 52-yard Wil Lutz field goal on fourth-and-11.
On each of the offense’s next two drives, fales start penalties called on left tackle Garett Bolles turned third-and-shorts into third-and-long. When 2 yards turned to 7 on the first penalty, a Nix incompletion followed and the Broncos punted. Then Nix scrambled for 7 after a third-and-1 became third-and-6. But the drive stalled out just on the other side of midfield anyway.
5. Dre Greenlaw was a thorn in Denver’s side. How can anybody be surprised? .
Former Broncos linebacker Dre Greenlaw had a terrific game, racking up 12 tackles and in the process consistently jawing at Broncos players and, particularly, head coach Sean Payton.
Denver inside linebacker Alex Singleton, who paired with Justin Strnad to turn in a really good outing against the Niners, laughed off any notion that such a performance — and such emotion — would catch anybody off guard.
“It was so surprising,” Singleton said with a big dollop of sarcasm. “I’m happy for him. I love the way he plays, I think I said that all of last year.”
Greenlaw was complimentary of Broncos players but had harsher words for Payton himself. The veteran linebacker last year because of his injuries — that timeline would include a late-season run of four games before Greenlaw injured his hamstring.
At one point during the game, Greenlaw made a tackle along Denver’s sideline and pointed right at Payton and yelled. Payton nodded in return. Then Greenlaw had to be corralled by fellow linebacker Fred Warner after the game ended because he was jawing at Payton again while the teams were shaking hands.
Dre Greenlaw had even more words for Sean Payton after the game. You can see/hear Fred Warner clearly pulling him away.
— Romi Bean (@Romi_Bean)
Greenlaw didn’t hold back to The Chronicle, calling it “disrespect for disrespect” and adding that Payton didn’t call him to tell him that the Broncos were cutting him in March and instead he found out from his agent.
Greenlaw said he told Payton to “get the (expletive) off the field.”
Payton spoke before those comments were published and, as he consistently has since Greenlaw was cut in March, praised the linebacker.
“I said this to Kyle (Shanahan) afterwards, I think the world of (Greenlaw),” Payton said. “I really love everything about him and he plays with that emotion. So, itap all good.”
6. Monday night will be a special one for Payton
The game Sunday did not go the way Payton or the Broncos wanted it to. On Monday night, though, the Denver head coach will take a trip down memory lane.
The Monday Night Football game is Atlanta at New Orleans and there’s a 20th anniversary celebration of the Saints’ return to the Superdome for their first home game after Hurricane Katrina, which was Sept. 26, 2006.
That, of course, was Payton’s first year as a head coach.
Payton on Monday is joining ESPN2’s ManningCast during the game, which means he’ll have a chance to talk with Peyton and Eli Manning — New Orleans natives themselves – about the game and about his ties to the city.
Among others joining the broadcast is Steve Gleason, the former Saints safety who blocked a Falcons punt in the opening minutes of that game in 2006 in what became one of the most enduring NFL moments of the past two decades.
The Saints held their entire training camp and played their entire preseason slate that summer away from New Orleans while repairs continued. Then they won their first two regular season games on the road ahead of an anticipated home debut.
Payton took the team to practice at the Superdome a couple of nights before the game and after practice ended he gathered up the team and had all the lights in the building shut off.
“Up on the big screens they played the video — a lot of people have probably seen that video,” linebacker Scott Shanle said this week. “It starts off hovering over the dome. So we watched that and his whole thing was, ‘itap going to be a special night, but itap going to be more special if we win.’ For guys like myself, Drew (Brees), all these guys that were new to the team — we had very few holdovers from the Haslett era. If you looked around, (holdovers) Deuce McAllister, Mike Karney, Will Smith, Charles Grant, these guys had tears running down their faces.
“You knew everything they had gone through. For us, we watched it on TV, you know? But to know they were displaced for a year, they were in San Antonio, what the city went through, you knew it was more than a normal football game.”
Shanle said he saw the night as the Superdome and the city being healed. It also was the loudest environment he’d ever heard, especially when Gleason blocked the punt in the opening minutes and it was recovered for a touchdown.
“There are certain moments that you replay in your head and you can hear, feel and touch from your playing days,” Shanle said. “As soon as you asked, ‘what was that like?’ I can hear the noise of the block. Like a shotgun blast. Boom. You see the ball bounce, Curtis DeLoatch scooping it up, dunks it over the goal post. …
“I’ll say unequivocally, people ask me what the loudest game I played in was and itap not even close. The first series of the game on the field standing there against Atlanta, seeing (Falcons QB Mike) Vick’s mouth move and him trying to audible. I felt like I was vibrating on the field.”
7a. Webb wanted more CFL football. Instead the Broncos did almost nothing but plod
How can a 47% outing on third down be a bad thing for Denver’s offense?
Well, because they faced 17 third downs on the day.
“I think it shows us converting, but it just shows that we’re in way too many third downs,” Nix said.
This is a recurring theme for the quarterback. Nix on Wednesday in the lead-up to the game said he felt like the Broncos had to convert on third down over and over to move the ball.
“Are we getting first downs early in drives, or are we having to go first down, second down, third down?” he asked rhetorically then. “Thatap just exhausting as an offense in general. So the best teams that start fast, they typically just stay out of third down.”
Webb and Payton call that “CFL football” after the Canadian league, where teams have just two downs to generate a first down.
The Broncos, though, haven’t done much of that and didn’t, strangely enough, except for one fourth-quarter drive in which they ran the ball five times in six plays.
The first time in the game that Denver generated a first down from anywhere besides third down didn’t come until late in the third quarter when RJ Harvey got 2 yards on a second-and-1 snap.
7b. It has been tough sledding so far this season for Broncos wide receiver Courtland Sutton.
The ninth-year pro posted back-to-back 1,000-yard receiving seasons in quarterback Bo Nix’s first two years as the starting quarterback in Denver, but his production has lagged early this year. Sutton, now through four games this season, has nine catches on 20 targets for 86 yards after just one catch (four targets) for 4 yards against the San Francisco 49ers. Sutton has topped 86 yards in 20 different single games in his career, including five last year alone. He hasn’t had a dry spell like this one over a four-game stretch since November of 2021.
“I’ll have to go back and watch,” Nix said of Sutton’s lack of production against Sutton. “I have the same angle the whole game. Interested to see what actually goes on and how they’re doing a good job of covering him. I don’t know, that’s a week-to-week thing. I know we targeted him today. We just need to connect it a little bit more.”
Sutton has come out of lulls in production before and gone on runs of big numbers in the passing game. The Broncos don’t absolutely have to have that, but they do need to get more out of their most veteran offensive skill player and more out of their passing game overall.
7c. Mims’ fumble on a third-quarter punt return loomed large in the game and it was very close to not being a fumble at all.
The Broncos’ ace return man was tackled in the open field by 49ers defensive back Siran Neal and started to go to the ground. He had a hand flat on the ground as well as the back of the hand and the wrist of the arm he was carrying the ball in. The ball popped free and Neal recovered it. The officiating crew ruled the play a turnover right away and that decision stood upon review. Payton said he didn’t have a good look at it live and his staff was looking at the play for a potential challenge after it happened, but the league also automatically reviews all turnover plays.
Some of the Broncos coaching staff didn’t see a close replay of the ruling until after the game and at least one couldn’t believe it was ruled a turnover. The broadcast had doubts, too, including the CBS broadcasters.
“His forearm is down,” color commentator Trent Green said, and play-by-play man Kevin Harlan agreed. “It’s Denver’s ball.”
Rules analyst Gene Steratore said on the broadcast that the wrist is akin to a hand rather than the forearm and that was likely the justification for the call being confirmed, but, “personally, it feels like he is down by contact.”
Except he wasn’t. And it turned into a 60-yard field position swing. At the time, the Broncos defense had started the second half with a pair of three-and-outs and pinned the Niners deep. Once San Francisco was set up at the Denver 28-yard line, though, the Niners offense punched in the first touchdown of the day to take a 10-3 lead.
