Broncos win at New England snap count review

The Denver Broncos were able to win in Foxborough for the first time since Jake Plummer led the Broncos to a victory in 2006. This was done mostly on the backs of defense and special teams. So let’s see who played and who didn’t in this one.

Gameday inactives

• QB 9 Jeff Driskel
• WR 13 K.J. Hamler
• RB 25 Melvin Gordon
• G 52 Netane Muti
• TE 87 Noah Fant
• DL 95 McTelvin Agim
• OLB 97 Jeremiah Attaochu

Driskell, Hamler, Gordon and Fant were all new to the inactive list this game relative to last game.

Offense

For the first time since game one, Drew Lock took every snap at QB for us. The only other game-day active QB, Brett Rypien, did not play. Driskell was inactive for the game and Blake Bortles was cut before the game.

Austin Schlottmann saw his first offensive snaps of the season when Dalton Risner got hurt and missed half of the snaps. The other four offensive lineman who played 100% of the snaps in game four also played 100% of the snaps in game five. From what I was able to see, Lloyd Cushenberry had a much better game against the Patriots than he had against the Jets. According to Pro-football-reference.com the Pats only got four QBhits on Drew Lock, so it would appear that our OL played well against the New England pass rush.

PFR shows that NE is currently fifth in the league at pressure rate on opposing QBs at 27.7% The Broncos are currently seventh at 24.9%. The Steelers lead the league at 38.9% while the Bungals are worst at 16.9%.

Phillip Lindsay returned in a big way getting 62 percent of the running back snaps (40 snaps) and making the most of them. Royce Freeman contributed heavily on his 25 offensive snaps, touching the ball nine times (8 runs for 26 yards and 1 catch for 4) while being an effective pass blocker on third downs in many of his other 16 snaps when he didn’t touch the ball. Jeremy Cox had zero offensive snaps but did play nine special teams snaps. Andrew Beck played eleven offensive snaps, 17 percent (and 16 special teams snaps).

The tight end group saw Albert Okwuegbunam making his offensive debut with Noah Fant injured. Albert O. played 24 snaps (38 percent) but and was targetted six times (only Tim Patrick was targetted more frequently this game). He only caught two of those targets though (for 45 yards) - letting two touchdowns slip through his fingers. Jake Butt actually had the most offensive snaps of the tight end group with 39 this game (61 percent). Butt was the only TE who did not get targetted. Nick Vannett played 29 snaps on offense (45 percent) and was targetted once, catching that for a seven yard gain. Drew Lock obviously feels very comfortable throwing the ball to his old college roommate. It will be interesting to see how (not if) Fant and Okwuegbunam are used in two TE sets as both appear to have the physical abilities to stress defenses.

The wide receiver group saw Patrick again hardly leaving the field on offense (there were only five offenses snaps where he was not in the game). Jerry Jeudy played 47 offensive snaps (73 percent) and DaeSean Hamilton played 38 (59 percent). Hamilton was targetted twice and did not catch either - one hit him in the chest and would have led to a FG at least. It was a very costly drop. Tyrie Cleveland and Diontae Spencer got four offensive snaps each (six percent). Spencer was targetted once in the passing game and was used as a runner once (gaining 9 on a jet sweep). Cleveland was highly visible on special teams where he played 12 snaps but made two tackles (both on kickoff coverage).

Other offensive players who did not play on offense and have not been mentioned up to this point were Jake “no, I’m not related to Aaron” Rodgers and Calvin Anderson.

Defense

There were five defenders this game who played every defensive snap: Justin Simmons, Alexander Johnson, Kareem Jackson, Bryce Callahan and Michael Ojemudia.

The Patriots had 57 official offensive plays and ran the ball 25 times. For the most part our run defense was stout in this game. The running back that was taking snaps for the Patriots ran the ball quite well, but he runs well against everyone and half of his rushing yardage (one third of the team total) came on one 38 yard run. Removing QB runs, our run defense held the Pats to 41 yards on 15 carries (2.73 yards per carry). Overall the Pats gained 117 yards on the ground on 25 carries (4.68 ypc).

The defensive line saw Bradley Chubb playing 84 percent (I’m calling him a DE not an OLB), Shelby Harris playing 67 percent, DeShawn Williams and Mike Purcell playing 63 percent, Timmy Jernigan playing 18 percent and former Bronco first round pick, Sylvester Williams, playing 12 percent of the snaps. Jernigan was just released by the Broncos.

The linebacker group not mentioned yet saw Malik Reed and Josey Jewell play 86 percent, Anthony Chickillo play 23 percent and Derrek Tuszka play seven percent of the snaps.

Our defense sacked Cam Newton four times and hit him another eight times this game. He had only been sacked five times in total in his previous three games for the Pats this season.

Our cornerback group not mentioned previously had De’Vante Bausby play 74 percent of the snaps as the third CB with Callahan and Ojemudia both playing every defensive snap. Bausby did not play a single defensive snaps in the first three games this season. Duke Dawson in the CB/S role played 18 percent of the snaps while both Essang Bassey and Davontae Harris played zero defensive snaps (both played on special teams). Bassey is currently in the doghouse after playing heavily in the first four games with a high of 72% of the defensive snaps. We saw similar things happen with the CB group last season tough.

The safety group did not have any player take defensive snaps outside of Simmons and Jackson (unless you count Dawson as a safety). P.J. Locke and Trey Marshall both played heavily on special teams. Locke got a penalty for kick catch interference. Bassey had an assisted tackle on kickoff coverage.

Other defensive players not mentioned yet who played special teams but got zero defensive snaps this game were Joseph Jones and Josh Watson.