Benjamin Allbright joined the 1st & 10 at 10 crew on Orange and Blue 760 and laid down some truth about this team and their offensive issues.
I feel like he summed up what a lot of Broncos Country has been talking about and feeling for the last few weeks (starting at the 3:00 mark).
Going back three weeks: 125 passes to 54 runs. They are passing the ball 70% of the time with a quarterback that currently ranks 27th in the NFL in passer rating. https://t.co/ybm4dN3Y2X
— MileHighReport (@MileHighReport) October 15, 2018
The first aspect he discusses is one we have been screaming about here at Mile High Report for awhile, now.
The Broncos not only refuse to give their best pure running back, Royce Freeman, more than 10 carries in a game (seriously, he has only cracked double digit carries twice all year), but their overall run/pass ratio has been absolutely skewed the last several games.
Just the last two weeks, as Allbright points out, Denver has had a 92/32 run/pass-ratio. That is insane for a team who is averaging the highest YPC in the league on the ground.
Even when accounting for things like two-minute offense, like I wrote about after the Kansas City game, the offense has been extremely lopsided, especially in last week’s game when Denver was within two scores the whole game.
Denver played a team in the Rams who was 29th in the league in YPC on defense (also a great stat for those that attribute our bad run defense to Wade Phillips leaving, but that’s another story for another day). Seems like a great game to lean on the running game, right? That’s what all of Broncos Country said in their keys to the game and preached all week.
Let’s check in on how many carries the best two backs on the team had - (squints) Royce Freeman with 9 carries, and Phillip Lindsay with 4 (!!) carries. They handed the ball off 15 times, and dropped back to pass 43 times on Sunday.
He went on to highlight something he has talked a lot about over the last few weeks, that Denver has the the #2 quarterback over the last two years on boot/play-action, yet run boot action the least in the NFL.
“What are you doing? Coaching is designed to put your best players and your best aspects in the best position to win, and the Broncos are deliberately doing things they’re not good at.”
Unfortunately for Broncos Country, there isn’t a lot of confidence that the coaching staff will turn this around, as the answer has been literally right in front of them, but they have yet to actually implement any meaningful changes.
Happy Tuesday, everyone.