Broncos Week 7 snap counts and analysis

With three players returning from injury the inactives list for this game was a little different from the last for the Denver Broncos.

• QB 9 Jeff Driskel
• WR 11 Diontae Spencer
• TE 80 Jake Butt
• G 52 Netane Muti
• FB/TE 83 Andrew Beck
• DL 95 McTelvin Agim
• OLB 97 Jeremiah Attaochu

Hamler’s return meant that Spencer was inactive for this game. Gordon and Fant’s return meant that Butt and Beck (who is sick) were inactive for this game.

Offense

Our entire starting offensive line played the full game on offense and did a fairly good job of protecting Drew Lock. He was sacked three times and hit another six times. That is an improvement from the last time he played in the snow against KC when he was sacked twice but hit ten additional times. In that first snow game, he was also seemingly under pressure every time he dropped back. That was not the case on Sunday. In fact, Garret Bolles had the best grade on any offensive tackle in week 7 from PFF and is now the #1 graded LT in the game (91.2 overall). Dalton Risner played hurt, but he played all 77 of our offensive snaps.

Drew Lock had to leave the field for one play after he busted his knee brace on a slide. With Driskell inactive, Brett Rypien came in take that snap. With his play on Sunday, Lock has now surpassed 50 percent of the QB snaps for us this season. Driskell has 28 percent and Rypien 20 percent as of right now.

Our running backs saw Jeremy Cox getting his first offensive snaps in the NFL with the Beck being out. Cox played eight snaps (10 percent) as the fullback. He did not touch the ball on offense, but he was involved on not-so-special teams making a tackle on our first punt of the game. Phillip Lindsay was very effective on his 14 offensive snaps before he got concussed. He carried the ball nine times for 79 yards (8.77 ypc) and was only the field for five plays where he did not run the ball. Melvin Gordon played 46 offensive snaps (60 percent) and touched the ball on 21 of those 46 (17 carries and four targets).

Our three active tight ends, Noah Fant, Nick Vannett and Albert Okwuegbunam, played 54, 35 and 31 snaps. That means that we had two TEs on the field on about half of our 77 offensive plays. Albert O’s 40 percent was a career high for him. He also led the team with seven targets on his 31 snaps - catching all seven passes thrown his way. Four of his seven catches gained first downs.

Our wide receiver group had Jerry Jeudy seeing the highest level of usage for the first time in his career (75 percent). Tim Patrick got 51 snaps (66 percent) follow by KJ Hamler, DaeSean Hamilton and Tyrie Cleveland who got 30, 27 and 13 snaps on offense respectively.

Offensive players who were active but did not play any offensive snaps were Austin Schlottmann, Jake Rodgers, and Calvin Anderson.

Defense

Our entire starting secondary (Justin Simmons, Kareem Jackson, Bryce Callahan and A.J. Bouye) along with Alexander Johnson all played 100% of the defensive snaps. Coming back from injury Bouye played every defensive snap. That is impressive.

In the ILB group Josey Jewell played 92 percent of the snaps meaning that on all but four snaps we had both ILBs on the field.

In the OLB group we had Bradley Chubb (I saw him standing up more this game so I’ll put him as an OLB and not a DE) play 71 percent of the snaps with Malik Reed playing 84 percent. Reed has shown that he can be an above average starter at OLB and his now joined the ranks of former defensive UDCFAs in Denver to do so with Shaq Barrett and Chris Harris Jr. Reed had two sacks and five QB hits in 2019. He has 4.0 sacks and five QBhits in the last two games. The only other OLB to get defensive snaps this games was Anthony Chickillo who played 20 snaps (39 percent).

The defensive line had Mike Purcell playing only ten percent of the snaps prior to his season ending injury. Shelby Harris played 71 percent with DeShawn Williams playing 57 percent. Back from injury Dre’Mont Jones and Demarcus Walker played 57 and 43 percent each.

The players in the secondary who did not play 100 percent of the defensive snaps were Michael Ojemudia who played 73 percent and Duke Dawson who played eight percent (4 snaps).

Based upon snaps, it would appear that we played most of the game in a either 2-4-5 or a 3-3-5 defense. This was quite effective at stopping KC on 3rd down as we held them to 0-8. I wonder if this is going to be used a template for how to slow that offense. Our defense also held KC to 286 total yards which a season low for them and their lowest since the Raiders “held” them to 259 yards in week 13 of last season. KC won that game 40-9.

Defensive players who did not get any defensive snaps were Trey Marshall, P.J. Locke, Joseph Jones, Nigel Bradham, Essang Bassey, Derrek Tuszka and Davontae Harris. Bassey has now gone two games in a row without getting in on defense after playing 72 percent of the defensive snaps against the Steelers. Harris, who was retained in favor of De’Vante Bausby, has yet to play a defensive snap for us this season. Bausby played 74 percent of the snaps against the Patriots. He is now on the Cardinals 55-man roster after we released him.