Broncos Vs. Patriots: The ‘no Bull’ Playoff Review

Going into this game, I postulated keys to the game for both the offense and defense. The Broncos, by my count, hit one out of three on both sides of the ball. Their failure to execute at a high level, coupled with the loss of Bo Nix, meant their eventual downfall.

I was sniffing hopium along with the rest of Broncos Country in the week leading up to this game. We were hyped about Stidham. We believed in this team. We ate up the optimism being spouted by Sean Payton like it was sweet candy.

But a perfect storm was brewing that would end the Broncos’ season. Literally, there was a 2nd half full of snow. Sean Payton’s aggressive tendencies led to the worst and most impactful play of the game. Jarrett Stidham made a huge turnover that handed the Pats a touchdown (because they sure as hell couldn’t get one of their own accord against our defense). Wil Lutz missed probably the highest difficulty kick you could expect a kicker to attempt in the NFL. 

The clock hit zero, and the season is over. 

Offense

There were two different offensive games played on Sunday. The first half was a regular football game. The second half was a snowstorm that made throwing the ball successfully nigh impossible.

From what I saw, I loved the play calling and game plan Sean Payton had for the offense being run by Jarrett Stidham. I think if that snow doesn’t start falling, we win that game easily. 

The biggest problem on offense was Sean Payton going for it on 4th and 1. This is the playoffs. Take your 3 points. Momentum matters more in playoff games than it does in the regular season. Letting the opponents get a positive swing because you failed is bad. Your offense having a negative swing because they failed is also bad. Some players can handle this with no problem, but I guarantee you it impacted players on this roster who were on the field. It is just human nature, and I feel like a head coach with decades more experience with this game than I should understand this basic concept at a far deeper level.

The 2nd biggest problem was going for it and getting fancy with a pass play against a defense that loves to bring pressure. The Pats had that play buried from the second the ball was snapped. At least with a run play, there’s a fighting chance that your back can just muscle out the yardage, or your linemen can win the battles and create a big gap.

In the 2nd half, there’s not much to write other than that our offense has sorely lacked any capability to run the ball since JK Dobbins was injured. Even with him healthy, it wasn’t all roses. On Sunday, when the snow started falling, our offense screeched to an incompetent halt because they didn’t have any good options. We’ll discuss this more as the offseason wears on and I run through my No Bull roster review series.

Quarterbacks

First off, thank you so much for being our backup quarterback, Jarrett Stidham. We cheered hard for you and so appreciate you doing your best to help this team win. Being a backup who doesn’t get reps through the year seems amazingly difficult to me. I think you looked well prepared and ready to play. That’s all any of us in Broncos Country can ask for at the end of the day.

The lack of reps showed in this game as Stidham had some ball placement issues on several throws, including a bad throw early that missed Mims. He made up for it on the next throw with an absolute dime to Mims deep. Stidham finished the drive with a play-action bootleg, hitting Sutton on a corner route that was wide open. It was a masterful drive. I will say it again, if the weather didn’t come into play, we would have seen another great drive or two out of this quarterback.

I liked that they mixed in some designed QB runs in the gameplan. They called a QB draw that worked to perfection for 8 yards. He also ran a bootleg on 3rd down and almost got the conversion.

Sadly, one of the key plays of the game was him trying to throw the ball away under extreme pressure. It was oddly ruled a backward pass (my one look at it seemed to be parallel, but the angle wasn’t great). The learning opportunity here was that you just take that sack. While Stiddy may blame himself, I don’t weigh too much on this. I think 99 out of 100 backups do the same thing in that situation, or worse, probably more than half the time.

Line

The most disappointing thing to talk about with the offensive line in this game was their utter lack of ability to win on run downs. Our running backs aren’t superb talents and can’t create like Barry Sanders. They need holes to run through, and they mostly weren’t there, which became a huge problem as the game got snowy.

There were some pass defense issues as well, with the normally fantastic Quinn Meinerz whiffing big time on a pass rush up the middle. McGlinchey had some bad spots as well, from what I caught. I’d point to the fact that Bo Nix does a lot to escape pressure that helps this offense hum. 

Running Backs

RJ Harvey just isn’t a cowbell back. We still used him like one, with 13 rushes on the day for a whopping 2.8 yards per carry. He had two 9-yard runs that I noted as big pluses and a bunch of forgettable rushes otherwise. I like Harvey more as a pass-catching back or on runs designed to break outside with some space to maneuver. 

Jaleel McLaughlin did the same with his carries. He even dropped a pass on one of his receiving opportunities.

Receivers

Marvin Mims was my MVP of our postseason. He caught another beautiful deep route for 52 yards in the game, which helped us score our only touchdown of the game.  I honestly wished we could have gotten him some more targets in this game.

One big negative on offense was Courtland Sutton. I mentioned before that for us to win this game, we needed him to play his best game and not drop passes. He dropped two in this one. One of them was a 3rd down play that hit him in the hands.

Defense

The defense was astounding, as I thought it would be against the Patriots. This defense was dialed in and ready to go on Sunday. They played a fantastic game except for not generating turnovers. It wasn’t for lack of trying. They were grabbing and punching at the ball all game long. 

Another downside to the weather was simplifying the game for the New England offense. Without any threat of our team scoring, they didn’t have to pass, which took away our defense’s best opportunity to create the much-needed turnovers.

Front 7

Jonathan Cooper showed up big time in this game. He showed relentless pursuit to get the sack on the goal line stand. He also had a tackle for loss and a quarterback hit on the day.

Que Robinson flashed with a big sack for a loss of 9. He also had a tackle for loss and a quarterback hit. The future is bright for a rookie who flashed on the biggest stage during his rookie season.

DJ Jones was a game wrecker as well. He had 1.5 sacks, 2 tackles for loss, and 2 quarterback hits.

Secondary

Talanoa Hufanga had a really good game this week. He did drop a pick early. He had two pass defenses in the game, including a deep sideline throw. He absolutely blew up a play that had a direct snap to the running back at the goal line.

Patrick Surtain II gets tested early and easily bats the pass away.  He had a great tackle outside on 3rd and 5 to stop the drive, and chipped in another run stop in the 4th quarter.

Special Teams

Jeremy Crawshaw killed it in this game. He had a beautiful punt early to pin the Pats inside the 10. He hits another one at the 9-yard line in the 4th quarter to pin them deep. He beat the Patriots punter by almost 10 yards on net punting and had 3 punts downed inside the 20 in the game.

Will Lutz had a rare bad game at the worst time. He was 0-2 on field goals. The first miss was a 54-yarder, which is no gimme even at altitude. The other was sadly blocked, which he seemed to think was because they didn’t line up far enough back due to not being able to see the field markings.

Final Thoughts

I’m damn proud of this team and what they accomplished. I hope they and everyone out there in Broncos Country hold their chins high. This team was not supposed to be the #1 seed in the AFC. They weren’t supposed to beat the Bills. They weren’t supposed to be the AFC West Champions.

This was a successful season that had me loving being a Broncos fan and remembering 1997, 1998, and 2015. 

I hate that it ended with a loss like this, without their starting quarterback and with a freak weather situation handing the game to the opponents. But this is football. Any given Sunday, you can get beat. I’m thankful as a Broncos fan for every game this team played this season. They fought their asses off and left it all out there on the field. 

The good thing is we can move on to this offseason with our heads held high and big optimism for the future now that the team has salary cap room and looks like a free agent’s dream destination.