The Denver Broncos got shut out in the first half against the Rams, and their play-caller is taking heat.
The Denver Broncos have a new play-caller, and he’s getting some serious on-the-job training. Davis Webb has had a rough go so far, and if not for some late heroics from quarterback Bo Nix, he’d either be 1-2 or 0-3.
So what just happened offensively on Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams? The Broncos offense was shut out in the first half, and Webb has been taking all kind of heat as he tries to fix an inconsistent offense that often played similarly with coach Sean Payton calling the plays last year.
The criticism is unfair from that perspective, but the struggles are real. The Broncos have evolved, if that’s the right word for it, into a second-half team, as they scored 17 points in the second half to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 2, then 23 against the Rams, although the defense did contribute a touchdown on the pick six from Talanoa Hufanga vs. LA.
The answer, according to Ted Nguyen of The Athletic, is that Webb has become “more Payton-like,” using a variety of personnel groupings, motion and different play-calling tendencies.
Shocking, no?
We won’t know if this is actually Payton pulling strings from behind the curtain until he does his inevitable tell-all book with Seth Wickersham, but the problem against the Rams was trying to get the ball to receiver Jaylen Waddle, who was being shadowed by All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie.
Nix was almost picked when this was happening as he tried to force a deep throw through multiple defenders, per Nguyen in his tape breakdown, but after that they shifted over more to running the ball from under center. They didn’t do much on the ground, but they did enough to be able to use Waddle as a decoy and make throws to other pass catchers.
Using Waddle as a decoy probably wasn’t what either he or the team had in mind when the Broncos made the big trade to acquire him, but the point for the moment is that it worked. The Broncos were absolutely reeling at times in this game, and necessity became the mother of some play-calling changes that allowed Denver to pull off an unlikely win.
What happens from here is anyone’s guess. J.K. Dobbins had 49 yards on 17 carries against LA, and a per-carry yardage of 2.9 isn’t going to scare anyone going forward. Answers are hard to come by right now, with no shortage of tough opponents on the upcoming schedule.
