Using the power of hindsight to attempt to fix the Denver ground game.
While the Denver Broncos may have ended one bad streak this year by finally making it back to the playoffs, their streak of going without a 100-yard rusher lives on. And that streak still being alive is a huge reason why they came up woefully short in Buffalo.
The last time the Broncos had a 100-yard rusher was back on January 8th of 2023 when Latavius Murray put up 103 yards in the regular season finale against the Chargers. And the last Broncos rusher besides Murray to put up 100 yards was Denver legend (sarcasm) Melvin Gordon when he put up 110 against the Chiefs Jan. 8, 2022.
The last time that anyone on the current roster put up 100 yards in a game was Javonte Williams back in December 2021. I really miss that Javonte.
But I have good news. By using the power of incredible hindsight we can right the wrongs that the Broncos made. Of course, that will have no effect on the game, but maybe we can feel a bit better about ourselves heading into the offseason.
We’ll take a look at how the run game played out against the Buffalo Bills and fix the plays that could’ve gone for so much more.
Stat crunch
The Broncos ran 12 designed run plays against the Bills. Eight of them came in the first half and the other four came in the second half. Their total number of offensive snaps was 43. Run plays accounted for 28% of all offensive snaps and 17% of total yards. Their total offensive yards was 224 and only managed 39 rushing yards.
In the first half they had eight run plays for 30 yards (3.8 YPC) and seven yards before contact (0.9 yards per carry before contact). In the second half they had four run plays for nine yards (2.3 YPC) and just one yard before contact (0.3 YPCBC).
The feature back on Sunday was Javonte Williams as he had seven of the twelve carries. Denver’s most common formations were Singleback and Gun with four rushes apiece. They also ran out of I (2), Strong (1), and Full House (1).
Zone was the name of their game(plan) against the Bills with six rushes being a variation of Inside Zone and two plays of Outside Zone. They also ran Iso (1), H Wham (1), Counter (1), and Jet Sweep (1).
Only one of their rushes went for negative yards and twice was the back hit behind the line of scrimmage. Six rushes went for gains of four or more yards with the longest one going for seven.
In general
The run game obviously was not good enough to win a playoff game. It wasn’t good in general. And with them getting behind quick in the 3rd quarter it made it impossible for them to even hope to establish the run game. And this is due to a handful of issues, including the Bills just being better than the Broncos on a few plays. It also, unfortunately, includes a handful of times where the backs made the wrong read or the offensive line biffed their blocks.
For a team that usually gets good movement up front, the offensive line wasn’t able to generate the yards before contact that they usually do. Their 0.7 YBC per carry was 0.4 below the league average on the year. Usually the Broncos are closer to the 1.3-1.5 mark.
And, just like the majority of bad run plays, it usually just took one player to make a mistake to mess everything up. The one play that went for a loss happened solely because of a mistake made by Mike McGlinchey. There was a play that was blocked up perfectly, only for Tyler Badie to make the wrong read and not follow his blocks. And these mistakes just compounded.
There is a way to salvage this, though.
The specifics
The Broncos are running Outside Zone, which means that Mike McGlinchey has to get the reach block and secure the DE. The problem here is that he gets too far outside while the DE is slanting inside, allowing him to end up right in the rushing lane of McLaughlin.
Now, I kind of feel for McGlinchey here because this is a really hard block to make. The DE is in a wide alignment, so usually that means that as the RT you have to get out to him in a hurry, which is what McGlinchey does. The only issue is that the DE slants inside. This is the perfect call for this situation and McGlinchey gets caught leaning and is unable to get back to the DE.
Now what McGlinchey could’ve done is play this a little slower as there is something OTs can fall back on. The rule of thumb on a block like this is that if you can’t get the reach, then you have to wash. That means that if you are unable to secure the edge then you have to get a hand on the inside hip and drive the defender to the sideline. Knowing this means that McGlinchey wouldn’t have to have been as aggressive with his first step as he was.
Knowing that would’ve eliminated the only negative rushing play all day.
The Broncos may have left a touchdown off of the board on this play, which is such a shame.
Denver runs Inside Zone Weak out of the I and they get some fantastic blocking at the point of attack. McGlinchey gets a solid out block, Meinerz does a great job of picking up the crashing ILB, Wattenberg secures the playside DT, Burton creates a huge rushing lane with his lead block, and Adkins is blocking 15 yards down the field. All of this is money.
The issue is that Bade doesn’t trust his lead blocker, gets impatient, and makes a cutback that gets him into traffic. I see the hole that he saw too. I get it and this is still a solid gain, but there was so much more out there. Moral of the story is to follow your blockers. You’ll never get in trouble if you follow them, even if it’s just for a minimal gain.
In the last play we looked at Badie didn’t follow his blockers. Now here is Williams doing the right thing and following his blockers, but those blockers fail him.
On this version of an Inside Zone Split with a lead block from Burton, it’s Adam Trautman who muddies things up and ruins the play. He’s supposed to block out the DE, Von Miller, but as he gets close to the point of attack, he slows up his feet too much and has no momentum when he hits Miller. And while a puller is supposed to slow down, chop their feet, and get their base underneath themselves before they make contact, Trautman completely stops, making it easy for Miller to push him into the play. And it’s this that slows Burton down, which slows Williams down.
I think Trautman got worried about whiffing on Miller, which is absolutely justified, but doing this only makes things worse. At least if he whiffs, then Burton may have a chance to pick up the block for him and give Williams some sort of rushing lane. You cannot get compressed here as the kick-out man.
The more I watch this clip, I’m finding myself getting less and less annoyed with the blocking up front and more impressed by the defense that the Bills showed here. The backers did such a great job of crashing the backside gaps and turning and running right behind the offensive line’s heels. And even if McLaughlin was able to hit that playside B gap then it looks like Damar Hamlin would be right there to make the tackle.
Normally with these double teams on Inside Zone, it’s the play-side OG that is coming off to pick up the second-level defender, but with both of the ILBs crashing the backside it would force the backside blocker to come off the block, which is hard to do because they have to be focused on taking over the first level defender and kicking the other off of the block.
Using the power of hindsight I think I would just call a different play. The Bills were all over this one.
This is a rough play for both Wattenberg and Meinerz.
With Denver running H Wham that means the offensive line is essentially all down blocking to the right. This puts Meinerz on the 3-tech DT and Wattenberg on the playside ILB. Meinerz actually gets out-physicalled at the point of attack, which is really weird to write. The DT does a great job hand fighting and Meinerz goes too far out and lets his feet die before contact, which only results in him losing the inside leverage.
Wattenberg goes to make the right move but stumbles and misses the backer. It looks like there was a chance that Powers might have bumped into his leg or something like that happened, so I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and not assume that he just tripped.
But Meinerz getting beat to the inside is what dooms this play, and it’s just that ILB that puts the cherry on top of the tackle right near the line of scrimmage.
Final thoughts
I don’t think the Broncos’ run game was horrendous, but it just wasn’t good enough to beat a team like the Bills. Too many times the offensive line, at least one of the five, got beat at the line of scrimmage. Most of the game the offensive line was able to vertically displace defenses and give their backs a chance.
And then there were just some bad reads by the backs in this one too. It’s also clear that no back on the roster has that “home run” threat that the best teams have. The most they have is McLaughlin being able to rip off 10- to 20-yard gains, but that’s about it.
Time to get one of those fancy running backs in the draft. There should be a few available. Keep an eye out for Ohio State RB TreVeyon Henderson. There’s a good chance that the Broncos will be able to get both him and Tyler Warren.