Afternoon Drive: Biggest disappointment with O-line is the coaching

Chad Brown spoke with The Afternoon Drive on Tuesday and made one very excellent point about the Broncos’ offense moving forward.

The offensive line is obviously the weakest position group - and while Brown believes John Elway has to take some of the blame for that because of his misses in free agency and the draft - the biggest problem is the coaching of the offensive line players. Namely, Clancy Barone.

“If you want to go the way John Elway seems to want to go with a cheaper group - not paying them the big money - then you have to have a dynamic coach,” Brown said, noting coaches like Tom Cable in Seattle and Dante Scarnecchia in New England - two guys getting high production from basically low caliber players.

“If that’s the philosophy you want to take - not a high-paid group - then you’ve got to bring in a coach whose one of the best in the league,” Brown added, “and Clancy Barone did not get that kind of effort.”

Brown, a former NFL linebacker out of CU, doesn’t want to let Elway off the hook too much, but he believes it should be no surprise that one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game is much better evaluating top defensive talent than offensive because he spent a lifetime studying defense on film.

And sure, some better talent on the offensive line could have certainly helped the Broncos offense this year. But Brown believes the coaching for that group left a lot to be desired.

“Other coaches would have gotten more out that group this year,” Brown added.

It’s already becoming tiresome debating which reason among the multitude is most responsible for the first non-playoff season from the Broncos in five years, but “coaching” keeps rising to the top.

I am not in favor of firing Kubiak, and I’m hopeful that (assuming he doesn’t retire) he and Elway will be able to work out a mutually agreeable solution for the offensive coaching staff, but it’s just too obvious that if nothing on the offensive coaching staff changes, then the Broncos will be much more of the same next season.

In the wake of a Super Bowl win and coming back with most of the record-setting defense intact, not making the playoffs is really tough to accept but not altogether surprising considering the few key players lost.

But with massive talent on both sides of the ball still, another season like this one will be completely unacceptable.