DENVER – If you tuned into local sports talk radio just a month ago, you would have heard hosts expressing dissent with the Denver Broncos for beating the Green Back Packers. They wanted to “Collapse for Caleb” and rebuild the whole thing. Take the pull of Bronco Country now and you see people who believe their club is going to not just fight for a playoff spot but claim it in Year One of the Sean Payton Era.
The thing is, that belief is not completely unreasonable. Look at this team, they handed Patrick Mahomes his first lost in AFC West play in his career… after they cleared that hump – which was not Sean Payton’s hump – the Broncos took care of Josh Allen and the Bills on the road on Monday night… yet another hump that wasn’t Payton’s: primetime collapses.
Sunday’s thrilling 21-20 victory over Minnesota featured a different wrinkle that is a transfusion of hope: Russell Wilson was slinging the rock and looked good doing so.
That is not to say that Wilson was excellent passing the ball and Denver’s offense is chugging, quite the contrary. This team needs to learn how to score on drives before the last. Just look at the average starting field position, Denver got the ball on its own 43. Its own 43! This is not numbers-based, but I would wager the average team with that average field position would score at least 38 points per game.
The Broncos went 3-and-out on 3-of-5 possessions in the second half and had its only touchdown of the game in a two-minute drill situation.
What if that is the key to Russ? I argue that is the best way to use him. It’s not very NFL-like, running up-tempo offenses, but it works quite often in the college game. Why is it advantageous? Well, running tempo takes a lot of the decision-making out of the hands of the quarterback. You get a guy like Russell who is obviously regressing in his skillset and had been lacking confidence, make it so that he does not have to think on the field. He has a hot and a check-down. If those aren’t there, take off. He still has a lot left in the tank, but maybe, just maybe, he can bring this team to a championship if he doesn’t have to think.
Case and point, the game-winning drive was almost exclusively because of the terrific play of third-string running back Semaje Perine and what was he in there to do: pass block and be an outlet for Russell, and he netted 40 yards on four receptions in that drive.
Denver has the ability to push its way into the playoff, and if Vance Joseph keeps this defense buzzing the way they are it is not going to be out of the question that they can make some noise. At the end of the day, the NFL is a quarterback-driven league and you need your signal-caller to make the plays to win you games, and that has never been more apparent for Bronco Country than it has during the last five weeks.
