The Denver Broncos are 1-1. They face the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday Night Football when they hope to improve their record to 2-1. The Broncos’ honeymoon is now over with Head Coach Nathaniel Hackett.
Hackett was hired by the Broncos on January 22nd. He had served as the Offensive Coordinator for the Green Bay Packers for the past 3 years. Denver anticipated that his offensive calls plus new quarterback Russell Wilson would equal a high powered offense. This was going to help the Broncos improve on their 7-10 record from last year.
Denver sits at 1-1. Hackett looks like a first time Head Coach. In their first game, he was criticized for going for a 64-yard field goal in Seattle instead of trying to convert a 4th and 5 with 20 seconds left in the game. If Denver got the first down, it could have made the field goal closer for kicker Brandon McManus. McManus missed the field goal, costing the Broncos the game as they fell to the Seattle Seahawks 17-16. In last week’s game the Broncos’ offense managed just 16 points on the Texans defense. Denver is lucky the defense held the Texans to 9 points.
The Broncos could point to their red zone woes. They move the ball downfield on offense, but once they are in the red zone, they haven’t scored a touchdown. Denver is a disappointing 0-6 scoring touchdowns in the red zone. It comes down to coaching.
Hackett is late giving quarterback Russell Wilson the play call. For whatever reason, the Broncos go to the line with around 5 seconds left on the play clock. This doesn’t give Wilson a chance to look at the defense to change the call if he wants. The plays look hurried or the Broncos are taking timeouts since the play clock is running down to 0, even taking some delay of game penalties. Some of this is Hackett getting too much input from his assistant coaches rather than trusting his gut. All of these mistakes could have been prevented had the Broncos played their starters in preseason. Unfortunately, they didn’t and it shows.
Hackett needs to give Wilson the plays much sooner. Wilson then can go up to the line of scrimmage with 15 or so seconds left on the play clock helping him go through his progression and look at the defense. If the defense is in a set then he can either run the play that is called or check out of it. Giving the play call to Wilson with so little time on the play clock doesn’t give him that chance to look at the defense. If this keeps happening, Hackett must drop the play calling altogether and give those duties to offensive coordinator Justin Outten.
The Broncos don’t look like a disciplined team. Penalties are going to happen in every game. The problem is the Broncos have been called for 25 penalties for 206 yards. Not only does that lead the league, but it is the most penalties in consecutive games in their entire history. The Eagles are 2nd on the list and they have 7 fewer penalties. The Eagles have been penalized for 121 yards or a difference of 85 yards between them and the Broncos.
The Broncos are lucky it is only week 3. Plus they are 1-1 which is better than 0-2. At least there is plenty of time to improve in all of these areas.
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