Denver Bronco game four snap counts and analysis

The Denver Broncos’ defense allowed 132 rushing yards on 19 first down carries to the Las Vegas Raiders. That is almost seven yards per carry. That basically tells the story of the game, but I will give you the snap counts anyway.

Offense

The offensive line played the whole game, but they were not winning the LOS. While the Raiders were gashing our defense on first down with runs, the Bronco offense was struggling to gain anything on first down. The Broncos ran the ball thirteen times on first down on Sunday and gained 26 total yards (one conversion - that was the TD run by Russell Wilson). If you count a run for two or less on first down as a win for the defense, the Raider defense won one eight of thirteen first down runs. If you leave out the scrambles from Russ, Bronco running backs had eleven carries for 18 yards on first down runs. That is pretty much the definition of losing the line of scrimmage and that is the fault of the offensive line and the play caller.

Oddly enough, when the Broncos ran on second down they were fairly successful with four carries for 36 yards.

Javonte Williams get 24 snaps but he is gone for the year and probably won’t be back until the middle of the 2023 season given the severity of his knee damage. Mike Boone got 19 snaps and Melvin Gordon got 10. With five fumbles in his last five games, I wish the Broncos weren’t in a situation where they have to play Gordon, but they do. Boone is not the answer and neither is Devine Ozigbo. What makes matters worse is that two of Gordon’s five fumbles in the last five games were returned for game-changing defensive touchdowns.

While Melvin Gordon is going to escape the coaching dog house because of injury, Albert Okweugbunam was living in it last game. He played exactly one offensive snap. The Erics got 41 (Saubert) and 24 (Tomlinson). Andrew Beck played 12 snaps.

Among the WRs Courtland Sutton got 50 snaps hardly leaving the field on offense while Jerry Jeudy was close with 47. Kendall Hinton got 30 while KJ Hamler and Montrell Washington got 4 and 3 respectively.

Defense

The defensive line had Dre’Mont Jones playing the most with 63 of 75 snaps. DJ Jones played 48 while Mike Purcell played 35 and DeShawn Williams played 30. Matt Henningsen played 17 snaps.

The OLB group had Bradley Chubb playing playing 53 and Randy Gregory 46 snaps. Baron Browning (43), Nik Bonitto (7) and Aaron Patrick (1) also played. With Gregory out for a few games with his knee injury and Patrick potentially out from concussion protocols the Broncos are going to need to rely on Browning and Bonitto to pick up the slack. We also may need to call up Jonathan Kongbo from the practice squad.

The ILB group had Josey Jewell playing every defensive snap and Jonas Griffith playing 47. Neither of the other ILBs, Justin Strnad or Alex Singleton played a defnesive snap.

The CB group had Patrick Surtain and Ronald Darby playing every snap. K’Waun Williams played 47, Essang Bassey played nine and Damarri Mathis played three.

Kareem Jackson and Caden Sterns both played every defesnive snap. With the injury to PJ Locke on special teams, no other safety got defensive snaps.

The only two position players who didn’t get offensive snaps, but haven’t been mentioned yet are Brett Rypien, Calvin Anderson and Delarrin Turner-Yell.