The Denver Broncos offense looked completely out of whack against Kansas City, and Davis Webb got the blame.
The Denver Broncos offense looked massively dysfunctional against the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday night, and much of the resulting heat has been landing on offensive coordinator Davis Webb, who’s also the new play-caller.
The Broncos have been trying to sell the idea that this is a significant change involving small shifts that will pay big results, but that wasn’t what happened against Kansas City.
The numbers tell the story. Nick Kosmider of The Athletic did a piece about this, and he noted that the Broncos went a combined 2-for-13 on third and fourth downs. Most of the team’s seven penalties were on the offensive side of the ball, he added, including a few that wiped out or diminished scoring opportunities.
The Broncos also failed to produce a single play for over 20 yards, and they averaged just 4.7 yards per pass attempt. Receiver Jaylen Waddle was virtually invisible, as he had just one catch for two yards.
So how do the Broncos solve this? Quarterback Bo Nix blamed the infractions, saying it was “penalty after penalty after penalty.” Nix also noted the effect that had on the play calling given that the Broncos were constantly facing long yardage situations on second and third down. He added that the play call sheet becomes very small in that scenario, which is a valid point to some extent.
But it leaves out the fact that the Broncos didn’t do much even when there weren’t infractions. The offense sputtered all night, and a lot of it looked like last year, when running plays often went nowhere and there were swing passes that generated a small amount of yardage.
The fix that makes more sense, as Newell noted, is about the run-pass imbalance, which seemed out of whack from the start. Webb looked to establish the passing game early, which is fine, but he never went back to the run even though the outcome was still very much in doubt.
A more experienced play caller — i.e., coach Sean Payton — might have turned back to the run to try to get a first down or two and settle things down. Instead the Broncos kept throwing and failing to get yardage, and after that it didn’t take all that long before the outcome really wasn’t in doubt.
Changes will be implemented, and the Broncos aren’t panicking. But it’s not going to take long for Payton to grab his play sheet again, especially if Denver struggles early against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday.
