Broncos at the Bye: Who has been the biggest disappointment?

It’s easy to point fingers and blame when a team starts 0-4. It gets a little harder when they bounce back to 3-2. Even still, with the Broncos sitting at 3-6 on the bye week and two months to go, it’s a good time to ask the writers of Mile High Report:

Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

Who has been the biggest disappointment in 2019?

Taylor Kothe: Garett Bolles

Bolles was starting to show some decent work at the end of last season, and I had high hopes that he would continue that trend under Munchak’s excellent mentoring. Instead, he’s regressed into his worst habits and has fallen rapidly into Bust territory.Flacco would be the other easy answer, but my hopes weren’t that high for him in the first place.

Scotty Payne: Bryce Callahan and Ja’Wuan James because of injuries. Both were big free agency additions who have barely played if at all for the Broncos. Adam Gotsis — I thought being in a contract year and in Fangio’s scheme would give the Aussie a bit of a breakout year. However, he has been benched and inactive recently and only active this past Sunday because of injury.

Joe Mahoney: Ja’Wuan James — I had really hoped he could stay healthy for at least a game’s with of snaps, but so far no. I know he can’t control his injury luck, but I was really hoping we would only have to worry about the play of one of our OT’s this season instead of both.

Taylor Kothe: Isaac Yiadom has also disappointed. As glaring as Bolles’ issues have been, he’s at least high profile. How much worse is it when a player has fallen so far that you didn’t even remember him for this question?After much anticipation of Yiadom coming into his own as the Broncos’ 2nd corner in 2019, Yiadom utterly failed to live up to the hype and got benched in favor of guys Elway found on the final cuts waiver wire. That’s pretty sad.

Jeff Essary: Shelby Harris for me. Not necessarily because he’s played poorly, he’s played solid and has shown a knack for batting balls which has had a big impact. Maybe our expectations were just too high, but I really envisioned him breaking out in Fangio’s defense and adding to the pass rush more than he has. Instead it’s been Derek Wolfe who has really stepped up and shined on the Dline. I don’t think starting the season at NT did him any favors, but I still expected more from him this year.

Adam Malnati: All the usual suspects have already been listed here, so I’m going to go a little outside the box. Not a player, but Tom McMahon as the special teams coordinator has been pretty disappointing. I’m not a fan of pinning too much on the coaches, but this is an area that should have improved from 2018. Add in the poor kicking of Colby Wadman if you want to talk about a player who disappoints on a regular basis.

Ian St. Clair: Even if you didn’t hold out hope he would figure it out, it’s Bolles. The conventional thought was Munchak would come in and help the first-round left tackle at least show some modicum of improvement. To show indications he can become the franchise left tackle Denver needs him to be. To hold him accountable. “If Munchak can’t do it, no one can.” It’s clear by now that no one can. As Taylor said, he’s regressed, and the days are now ticking on the roster spot Bolles currently holds.