Offensive Plays and the Story They Tell

As I sat at my computer screen reading comments to the great posts here at MHR, one theme really got to me: the disconnect of Orton's stats and the appearance of his play. I have to say, I was pretty disappointed with Orton in the first half when I was watching the game live. I felt like his miss to Jabbar Gaffney was huge.

After the game I was a little less distressed with Orton, but I couldn't get over the feeling that we should have run the ball more. It felt like we were getting over 5 yards per carry and shoving the ball down their throat. I hadn't looked at the stats, but I wasn't too far off since we averaged 4.6 yards per carry.

Something continued to nag me as I was working today that I just couldn't shake. I decided that I would re-watch all of Denver's offensive plays and chart them.

The categories I decided to chart were:

• down/distance
• whether the play was a pass or a run
• the result of the play (for pass only recorded as complete or incomplete)
• length of play (the yardage of the play)
• length of throw (how far Orton threw the ball from the line of scrimmage, if he missed I also recorded in what manner he missed:
  • over (overthrow)
  • on (on target)
  • wide (wide of receiver)
  • cover (ball knocked away by defender)
  • ta (throw away)
• first down (did the play result in a first down?)
• penalty/yardage (I ended up using this more as a notes section)

I am sure I missed some important categories, but I felt this was sufficient, even though I didn't know what I was looking for. Half of me wanted to be justified in feeling that the broncos should have run the ball more frequently. The other half wanted to verify how Orton really played.

What follows is the chart of every offensive snap the Broncos had:

Initial Impressions:

• The penalties on the offense really hurt, especially the last drive of the first half. The offense was driving the ball but an offensive pass interference penalty put the offense into a 1st and 20 situation which we converted. However we couldn't overcome a holding and a tripping penalties that got us into a 2nd and 29 situation that any offense just isn't suited to convert at a high percentage.
• Despite the influx of penalties against the offense in the first half, they did not have a penalty against them in the second half. 
• I still think we should have run the ball more frequently. Of the 23 runs, 13 of them went for more than 5 yards (Moreno also had a 13-yard run negated by a holding penalty). Of the remaining 10 runs, two were Moreno getting stuffed on the 3rd & 1 and 4th & 1 series at the end of the 3rd quarter. One was the botched snap by Orton. One was the kneel down at the end of the game. That means only six runs that were designed for more than a single yard yielded less than 5 yards. That is dominating the opposing defensive line, which we should have exploited more.
• Orton's deep balls were not accurate as a whole. 
  •  He had the 50-yard bomb to Marshall that was defended perfectly by the Dallas DB. Marshall should have realized he needed to make a play for the ball instead of letting it float into his arms since there was tight coverage on the play (more on this later).
  • He overthrew Gaffney pretty bad on a 45-yard throw into the end zone. This throw, however, was put in a place that only Gaffney had a chance since there were two Dallas defenders closely trailing Gaffney the whole time. You could consider this a throw away.
  • On Orton's 30-yard throw to Scheffler (there was offensive pass interference called on the play) it looked like Orton expected Scheffler to cut to the sideline when Scheffler just ran a comeback. The throw still wasn't likely to be caught because it was high.
  • The throw to Marshall for the touchdown was a great throw. With Marshall's height advantage that should be the only place the ball should be thrown. Yes, the ball was under thrown, but it allowed Marshall the opportunity to make a play. We saw earlier that if Marshall feels the ball is thrown to him in-stride he will not go up to snatch the ball (this led to the defended pass on the 50-yard pass earlier in the game).
• The ratio of runs to passes flipped from the first half to the second half. In the first half it was 5:18 (run to pass). In the second half it was 19:16 (run to pass). This makes me happy because it seems as if the game plan coming into the game was to attack the Cowboys' secondary. At half, the coaches must have realized the run game was effective and changed their game plan. That is just fantastic.

Final Thoughts

I hope you find the chart to be helpful and that you share the information you glean from the chart in the comment section. I feel a lot better about our performance, but still feel like our running game is being underutilized (and I believe this has to do with game plan).