NEW ORLEANS — The Broncos’ opening offensive sequence Thursday night at the Superdome provided a glimpse of where the unit is through seven games this season.
Rookie quarterback Bo Nix and company can make easy things look difficult. They can also make difficult things look easy.
They struggle in the passing game but hit big plays here and there. They’re hitting their stride in the running game. They’re bad on third down and not great in the red zone but fly home from the Bayou at 4-3 and feeling good. Offensively, they’ve shown enough glimpses where it’s easy to squint and see the possibility for upward mobility but also wonder if that progress will actually materialize against quality competition.
“We’re building. We’re figuring it out,” head coach Sean Payton said after his team rolled to a 33-10 win against the Saints. “… We’re working on how to win that game. You don’t say, ‘This is how we are going to play regardless.’ Based on who we were playing tonight, what do we feel we had to do to win that game? It might change a week from now.
“Certainly the reps our young quarterback is receiving and our receivers are receiving — we’re young as a team, so that is invaluable.”
On this night, Payton dialed up plays that fit rookie quarterback Bo Nix’s eye from the start.
Nix took off and ran for 15 yards when he identified man coverage on the first snap out of the shotgun. The next three plays went play-action from under center, zone read out of pistol, and then a rarely seen orbit motion to play-action.
That play, Nix made his most viral throw of the night: a completely airmailed ball for tight end Lucas Krull, who was wide open. Nix missed tight end Adam Trautman for a likely first down on third-and-10, too, on the opening march.
Over the rest of the night, Nix hit some plays down the field. He missed others. He extended plays and he put major stress on the New Orleans defense because of the constant threat that he could take off, either by design as part of the run game or by extending passing plays.
Payton’s adamant that the NFL is a week-to-week league. But this looked like a team that was starting to lean into its strengths and away from its weaknesses.
Through seven games, here’s what we’ve learned about the Denver offense and what the next steps need to look like for the Broncos to continue to build on a mostly promising overall start to their 2024 campaign.
The Bo Show looks different than expected
The night Denver drafted Nix in April, Payton outlined several in-house stats and analytics that he led the country in 2023 at Oregon: sack differential, turnover differential, accuracy, third-down passing, end-of-half and end-of-game.
“Second in red zone,” Payton continued that night. “Then let’s do another passing statistic and remove a lot of the short, underneath throws. Obviously, that’s part of what (Oregon does) offensively, so you remove that and you come back with the analytics and it’s still first.”
Through camp and preseason work, Nix looked more and more like he’d play from the pocket, get the ball out of his hands quickly and rely on moving the chains that way.
In the regular season, the picture’s been different.
The Broncos are near the bottom of the NFL across a variety of metrics. Not that many rookies hit the ground running. Bumps in the road are expected.
What’s been interesting is that Nix has looked more comfortable out of system than in. He’s been more dangerous as a runner than as a passer.
“At times, things break down and those hidden (scramble) yards, I think, are really important,” Nix said. “They get extra first downs and they are ways of sneaking yards in.”
He has moments like Thursday night when he delivers strikes on run-pass option concepts or hits his back foot at the top of a drop and rips a seam ball up the field. But he has not been consistently accurate, whether he’s throwing down the field or not.
His feet get happy, especially if he doesn’t pull the trigger at the top of his drop.
That’s added up to an up-and-down offense and more free-wheeling than straight lace from Nix.
In a couple of ways, though, Nix has been just as Payton expected: He doesn’t turn the ball over often and he doesn’t take many sacks.
In fact, in Nix’s first two starts, he threw four interceptions and was sacked four times.
In five games since, he’s thrown one pick — Nix hasn’t lost a fumble at all this year — and been sacked five times.
Those are great ways to mitigate the overall lack of efficiency. And it creates a sense that, if Nix can just make a few more plays throwing the football and keep the catastrophe rate as low as it’s been, there’s upward mobility to be found.
The other area where he’s been as advertised is in the locker room. Veteran players rave about his competitiveness, and they are adamant that they trust him in big spots.
“He’s competing so hard and I’m really, really happy to have him here,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey said Thursday.
What’s next?: In the best-case scenario, Nix improves gradually over the rest of his rookie year and takes big steps in mastering the footwork and timing of this system into Year 2 and beyond. Payton and the organization clearly believe he’s capable of that.
In the short term, though, Denver is best suited to continue to refine toward what Nix does best right now. The trick to that is maximizing the strengths without compromising the development arc on the weaknesses. Such is life when you’ve got a team that thinks it’s capable of winning with a rookie quarterback.
Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton speaks to line judge Perry Paganelli (46) during the second half of the Broncos’ 33-10 win at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
The offensive line has settled in
Through two games, the Broncos’ veteran, expensive offensive line played really poorly.
Since then, it’s been pretty darn good.
Nix has been pressured only 23% or more in one of the past five games. The run game has kicked into gear. The group got McGlinchey back Thursday and has mostly withstood a run of injuries at right tackle and center. Denver is leading the NFL in ESPN’s pass-block win rate metric and is No. 14 in run blocking. Left tackle Garett Bolles has led that surge the past five games. The NFL’s Next Gen Stats has him allowing two or fewer pressures and no sacks in that span.
On Thursday night in particular, the Broncos had a good matchup against a beat-up New Orleans front and they flat-out dominated on the ground.
What’s next?: Keep on this path. There have been times in the past when this group looks like it’s about to take off, and then something happens. There are stiffer tests on the horizon, to be sure. How the offensive line fares when they arrive will go a long way toward determining the offense’s fate.
The kids are ready at wide receiver
Rookie receiver Troy Franklin’s first four catches over the Broncos’ opening four games went for a total of 9 yards. In the past three games, four of his eight catches have gone for either 20-plus or a touchdown.
Devaughn Vele spent four weeks inactive, and in the two games since he’s returned to the mix, four of his five catches are for 17-plus yards.
Franklin’s growth from clearly not ready to play when training camp finished to now being a key part of the passing game has been impressive. Vele’s natural catch-and-run ability is much needed in this offense. He turned a slant into 17 yards Thursday night and an ad-libbed catch-and-run into 37 against the Chargers.
The Broncos consider Courtland Sutton their No. 1 target still, and for good reason. On Thursday night, though, he was not targeted for the first time in his career. That despite playing 86% of the offense’s snaps and running 22 routes, according to Next Gen Stats. That’s an anomaly more than anything, but he’s currently on a 672-yard pace, which would easily be the lowest production of his career.
To Sutton’s credit, he’s been a good leader and he was happy as can be after the win Thursday night.
What’s next?: This would not have been even remotely in the conversation two months ago, but it looks possible from here that by the end of the season, Franklin will be generally accepted to be the Broncos’ most dangerous receiver. He’s got speed and explosion the group lacks overall.
Denver should get Josh Reynolds back from a fractured finger at some point — he has to miss at least two more games on injured reserve — but Vele could make himself difficult to take off the field if he keeps progressing.
Troy Franklin of the Denver Broncos secures the ball as Kool-Aid McKinstry of the New Orleans Saints forces him out of bounds during the second quarter at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Thursday. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Javonte Williams is thinking he’s back
It’s hard to know just how close Williams was to running out of time in his comeback quest for the Broncos, but he certainly appeared to be near a role reduction after the first three games of the season. Audric Estime was on injured reserve, though, and when Tyler Badie was injured Week 4 against New York, Williams was right back to having a firm grasp on a big role.
Since then, he’s tightened his grip with his play.
Consider where Williams was after three games. He had gone 13 straight without cracking 4 yards per carry and averaged 3.11 over that span. He went the first three games this fall — and six out of seven dating back to 2023 — without cracking 3 per carry.
Since then: 5.1 per carry over Denver’s past four games.
“I told you. I said it a long time ago. That dude’s different,” fellow running back Jaleel McLaughlin said Thursday. “We’re going to continue to keep seeing it and I see it every day. It’s been great.”
Williams provides high-quality work in pass protection and has been a steady-if-unspectacular pass-catcher.
What’s next?: Payton has said he’s not used to three running backs playing in rotation. Denver might be smart to use three to keep the workload down on everybody if rookie Audric Estime (two fumbles in nine carries) can protect the ball. In the meantime, though, Williams’ resurgence over the past four weeks has been a welcome development and one the Broncos would be thrilled to see continue.
Javonte Williams of the Denver Broncos runs around the outside against the New Orleans Saints during the second half of the Broncos’ 33-10 win at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Thursday. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
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Denver’s struggles on third down are real
The Broncos converted a relatively modest 4 of 11 third-down tries against New Orleans on Thursday night. That rate, though, was their best for a single game so far this year.
Payton’s offense is converting just 26.4% of third downs on the year, No. 31 in the NFL behind only the preposterously bad Cleveland Browns (19.1%).
What’s next?: Pretty straightforward: Denver’s got to find some way, any way, to improve from that mark. That’s going to take better timing and rhythm from Nix in the passing game. It’ll take continuing to use him in the run game like the Broncos did Thursday. It’ll take receivers making contested catches and helping Nix more. It’ll take the offensive line getting pushed even when the other team knows Denver wants to run the ball.
Actually, that’s a recipe for improving on third down and for improving across the board as the Broncos steam toward midseason.
Broncos passing game
(Click here to view in mobile.)
Metric
Rate
Rank
Completion %
61.2%
28
Completion % over expected
-6.4%
30
Yards per attempt
5.6
T-28
Passer rating
74.4
29
EPA/dropback
-0.19
28
Dropbacks/game
37.1
13
Source: Pro Football Reference and Next Gen Stats
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