Denver Broncos In SEARCH For Offensive Identity | Evan Engram The Key?

Denver Broncos In SEARCH For Offensive Identity | Evan Engram The Key?

The Denver Broncos have an offensive identity problem and Shawn Peyton is hoping that a team can find it on Monday night against the Cincinnati Bengals. We’ll talk about what that looks like and more here on today’s episode of Locked on Broncos. You are Locked on Broncos, your daily Denver Broncos podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. Happy Friday, Broncos country. Welcome in to another episode of Locked On Broncos, your daily Denver Broncos podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. We know it’s your team every day. Thank you so much to all the everyday out there in Broncos country. Thanks for tuning in and making us your first listen however you choose to do so. I’m Cody Ro, Broncos reporter for Mile High Sports, joined as always by Sarah Bettinger, site expert over there, predominantly orange.com. We got a lot to break down here on this Friday episode of the show here as we’re going to go through the Broncos searching for their offensive identity. something Shawn Peyton said that they do not have so far three weeks into the season. How can they get there? We’ll go through that. Plus, Evan Ingram returned to practice after missing all of last week with a back injury. How can he help the Broncos offense potentially find that identity? We’ll go through that. And Bo Nicks, despite missing a couple of shots against the Chargers last week, he plans on slinging the football a little bit more here as the season goes about. You get all that here on today’s episode of the show. Sarah, my friend, look, no game for us on Sunday. we get the Monday preview that’s coming up Monday Night Football. So, uh, we’re still in practice mode. The Broncos had their first practice of the week on Thursday and we got to hear from head coach Shawn Payeyton. One of the things he talked about was acknowledging that the Broncos don’t have an offensive identity. I felt that was very interesting for him to come out there and acknowledge at least publicly. But, I mean, once again, it’s not a surprise. We all saw it. Yeah. Right now, it’s early in the season. You’re trying to find what’s your bread and butter. You and I have talked about that. How how many times have we mentioned that that the Broncos offense right now just doesn’t have a bread and butter to really lean on something that they can say, “Hey, any given drive, we can do this.” And we know that we’re going to be able to get something going at any time. Every offense in the NFL struggles, but not every offense in the NFL, even this early in the season, not every offense is struggling to find something that they can, you know, have be a consistent, you know, sort of baseline for them in everything that they do. And that’s where the Broncos offense is struggling. new pieces. Obviously, you got a new running back duo and JK Dobbins and RJ Harvey. You’ve obviously got Evan Ingram, who we we’ll talk about more as the show goes along. Got some new players at receiver also stepping up and maybe renewed confidence in people like Marvin Mims on the offensive side. So, yeah, you’re trying to figure out a way to make all of this work all at once. And you and I have talked about that. It’s like, okay, we we may just need to find the most consistent guys in this offense and let them be the ones that everything flows through instead of trying to get everybody involved right away. What’s been crazy about this too is really the core the nucleus of this offense has returned from last year, right? You’re talking QB, your offensive line, some role players at tight end like Adam Troutman being one of those examples there, your wide receivers, the new additions. you talk about, you know, a rookie here and and obviously Pat Bryant and a veteran in Trent Sherfield, but largely this team is returning a lot of key pieces, but you mentioned those new faces, right? And I think if we look at it on paper, they’re all presumable upgrades over what the Broncos had last year. So, I think that’s why fans are frustrated and I think they’re confused as to why this offense hasn’t looked better. You know, it hasn’t even looked like the offense we saw last year that was steadily improving, sir. Like we thought like all this experience and and what the Broncos built off of last year, it would carry over into, you know, immediate success to start the season. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been that. That’s because of the identity here. But here’s what Shawn Payeyton had to say about the team not having their identity. Yeah. Bread and butter. Yeah. Yeah. And I and I think we’ve evaluated that’s a a great question relative to where we are and and so it’s important and I think this sums it up is to say hey this is an identity relative to running and throwing the ball. This is our identity and I would say we’ve yet to establish that clear clearly for anyone watching or ourselves. And so that’s us as coaches. Yeah. And I wonder what his plan is to change that perception. Right. Because obviously right now we don’t know what the Broncos want to be in terms of you you called this out early in the week Cody. I thought it was a great call out. Just run some gap schemes for your running game and get these guys into the A, the B or whatever. You know, just just make it simple. Simplify things so that you can do the small things right without trying to put all this window dressing on things. We know the Broncos, they don’t really use a lot of pre-nap motion even. So they don’t have a bread and butter even without all the dressing before plays. like they don’t there’s there’s just that’s the the source of everyone’s frustration right now is that like it’s not even the fact that pre- snap is overly complicated. It’s everything post snap. There’s so many different moving parts, so many personnel changes and no game flow because of penalties. Penalties have killed this team’s ability to have any sort of bread and butter. So, it’s not just scheme or play calling. I think a lot of it has to do with just untimely mistakes really having missed opportunities in there and then maybe a little bit too much of personnel shifting. I want to ask you your thoughts on this too. You know before Sean answered that one thing he was asked about is you know when things aren’t going well do you have things that you feel like you can fall back on? And he said yeah you know we do. I’m curious to what that may be. But also at the same time here, my question to you is so far through three games, I felt like the Indie game I felt like was actually pretty good for the offensive line. But I feel like the offensive line as a whole, that unit has kind of taken a step back this year. And part of me thinks it’s because they introduced the outside zone scheme, the wide zone scheme, which look, it’s like, all right, you’re adding that wrinkle into a mix of what you’re already doing. But the thing with that, anyone who who’s coached offensive line or has coached running backs or, you know, knows the ex’s knows the game a little bit, they’re going to under they’re going to tell you as well. The outside zone scheme is very, very hard to coach because you really have to have, I think, the right guys for it because it’s all about getting to a landmark. It’s about getting to a specific angle to block and to seal defenders off. And if you’re stretching it wide, right, your running back is looking for that cut back lane. Well, if your interior guys aren’t getting to their landmark, you’re getting backside penetration there. there is no cut back and that’s why you see one yard gains or minus two yard plays. I I definitely think the offensive line is thinking a lot more and and they’ve kind of taken a step back and even Quinn Miners a little bit has struggled a little bit I’d say so far early on in the season that what are your thoughts on this? Do you think that that’s kind of attributed to maybe the struggles that this offense has had so far through three weeks? Yeah, I think the offensive line has, you know, I don’t want to say they were overrated going into the year because I think they played well last year and even the year before that, but I do think that you see these metrics that are coming out saying the Broncos have the number one pass blocking O line in the league and they’ve got this and that run blocking offensive line. And I just don’t I don’t know that I agree with any I don’t know where these grades are coming from, Cody, because we saw this offensive line get blown up by Jeffrey Simmons and Tavandre Sweat in week one. Even the Tit or the Yeah, the Titans rookie edge guy number seven. I can’t remember who he was, but he made a bunch of plays in that game. We saw the Colts obviously winning the line of scrimmage plenty against this offense. And then in week three, of course, the Chargers, I mean, they really dictated that entire game. Nine first downs from the Broncos offense. You want to tell me even in a small sample that a team that had nine first downs in a game has the best anything offensive line in the NFL? I just I don’t agree with that. I don’t think that that anything that we’ve seen our eye test would say the offensive line has been lights out this year. And we want them to be like I I get it. Like you you measure some of that stuff by how many pressures certain guys are credited with allowing or this that and the other. I understand how they arrive at some of these things, but I just don’t think that what we’ve seen in games is indicative of the Broncos for for instance, they have a top 10 rushing attack this year, right? H have they had a top 10 run blocking? I mean, what what were we talking about in the third game of the season? The Chargers just last weekend, we’re talking about Shawn Payeyton going into halftime ticked off. He’s talking about negative plays. He’s like, way too many negative plays. Way too many negative plays. That’s the offensive line. you’re getting bullied up front. Bon Knicks can’t convert a fourth and one quarterback sneak against the Titans because the O Lions getting bullied. This kind of stuff is what leads me to believe that maybe there’s a a total disconnect with these advanced metrics and what’s actually happening on the field. No, I think it’s it’s a valid claim there. And look, you know, you talk about top 10 and rushing. I mean, that’s really only just because RJ Harvey sprung off a 50-yard run against the Titans. JK had a 19 yard touchdown run and then JK had that big 40 plus yard run last week. Aside from that, you look at the overall statistical ranks, you take those away, the Broncos are bottom five when you talk about rushing efficiency. Like that right there is scary to me is like a couple of big runs can skew the data a little bit. So the Broncos got to get that going. Here’s what Shawn Peyton had to say though about getting the offensive identity together and hopefully soon. I think I think soon. Would you would you like to be further along? Yeah, sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You can just tell he’s not worried about it at all. And I know he made a joke too in that press conference, Cody, about how, you know, he was asked about his September record versus his October record. And he’s like, we can call this like an honorary October game, right? I love I love that, you know, the confidence right there because they’re not worried about anything. They know they’ve got the personnel and they know they’ve got the scheme. It’s now just about making things consistent. Well, speaking of scheme and personnel, the Broncos hopefully can get a boost from the tight end position with the return of Evan Ingram. He was back at practice. We’ll talk about how he can help this Broncos offense find their identity here on today’s episode of the show. 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Cody, let’s talk about Evan Ingram returning to practice. I think for those like me that care about this stuff, I loved seeing the video footage of Evan out there rocking the blue helmet, knowing that the team’s going to be wearing blue jerseys this week. I know you and I haven’t got a chance to talk about that, but that will be a first for this Mile High collection is the the blue jerseys, the blue helmet. Evan Ingram rocking it all. I don’t know for sure what color pants they’re going to be wearing. It seems like it could be white, though. So, we might get a brand new overall look for this team as far as these. I I love the uniforms, Cody. I know we don’t talk a lot about that stuff on this show. You know how much I love the uniforms, though. But at any rate, it was great to see Evan out there running around at practice, not even limited in any shape or form. Out there with a full designation on Thursday’s practice. And he apparently, from what I understand, he looked good out there. Yeah, he looks like he’s ready to rock and roll should be able to go on Monday Night Football here. And look, I think this is going to be part of the larger conversation. We just talked about Shawn Peyton saying that the Broncos need to figure out what their offensive identity is. So much of it, Sarah, and I truly feel this, and no disrespect to guys like Lucas Croll or Adam Troutman, but the Broncos have no element of the passing attack with those guys in there right now. You know, Croll, I think, caught that terrific bounce pass that got tipped up in the air. Great heads up play by him. But we’ve seen some issues where Croll is seemingly getting confused by what the defense is throwing out there. So if it’s zone, there’s times where you got week one where Bo’s like, “Stop, stop, stop.” Like you got to stop and sit there before you run into the coverage there. And then there was that miscommunication on the Broncos first drive against the Chargers last week where it didn’t seem like he and Bo were on the same page on where they needed to connect there. So I I think having Evan Ingram back in the mix is going to be very crucial here. But Sarah, I also think we can’t ignore the fact that so far, even when the games when Evan played, the Broncos and Shawn Peyton have not utilized him in the way that I think we have envisioned. We’ve talked about that. We’ve called on that. But Shawn Peyton did say initially that it’s just it takes time to get where Evan needs to be essentially in this Joker role that he’s talking about here. But I also think at the same time like you can’t wait for the perfect opportunity to present itself. You need to at least go to him. Evan is a guy, Sarah, and I see it every day in practice when I watch the guy. He’s fast. He’s athletic. He can win those one-on-one matchups against inside linebackers. So, why don’t we start trying to get the ball to Evan Ingram more? I think he can be one of those facilitators that certainly can open things up here for the offense. If the tight end is not present here in Shawn Peyton’s offense, Sarah, it is so one-dimensional. And I think everybody who has watched the game can see that. The Broncos have been searching for that for three years. And it’s crazy that the offense has done some of the things that they have without a reliable tight end that could be a consistent downfield threat, a matchup threat. Once again, no offense to Adam Troutman. Adam is not that type of guy. Adam is a possession tight end in my opinion. And I think he’s a good blocker, but man, they really have to find a way to use Evan Ingram to unlock this identity that they are searching for. Yeah. And him being hurt last week and coming back this week is, like I said, it renews a bit of optimism. Okay. Like the first two games, six targets, four receptions. The two missed targets were near interceptions because they were trying to force feed him the ball on quick out routes in which the defensive backs read it like a book. I mean, it was all too predictable. And where we really want to see Evan impact the game is over the middle of the field. that play in the preseason, I can’t remember who they were going up against, if it was the 49ers or whoever, but that one play where he took the ball over the middle of the field and then turns up the sideline for a huge gain. I mean, that’s exactly what we all anticipated and envisioned when Evan Ingram was signed is a guy who can take a short passing play with a full head of steam and gain a bunch of yards after the catch because he is an athletic mismatch. And I would love to see him get a higher volume of targets overall, Cody, but really just let’s make let’s make this week easy e week. Come on. That’s what we need to see. We need to see somebody like Evan Ingram go out there and just be that easy button for this Denver offense. You know that other guys are going to command attention. Courtland Sutton’s going to command attention. The Bengals after last year, I know it’s a different defensive coordinator. Marvin Mims is going to capture a lot of attention for them. and the first three weeks have shown anything. Troy Franklin’s going to catch a lot of attention as well because the Broncos have forced the ball into his hands a number of times. So, Evan has a real chance here to do something special against this kind of defense where you feel like, man, didn’t get off to the start we wanted. We didn’t get him as involved as we wanted. Wipe it all away. Flush it down the toilet. Whatever you got to do, go get Evan Ingram involved this week, especially if he’s feeling it out there on the practice field. Yeah. And and I say his return will be a welcome addition because I agree with you. You know, you can’t just come out stationary the way that the offense certainly has here. Find a way early on, I mean, even if it’s just a couple, not the out s, but like let’s say, you know, he’s lined up in the slot or he’s lined up offset, not in line with his hand in the dirt, find a way to just run him on a sit route. Get him get get four or five yards. Like imagine that on first down, you know, if you can isolate that matchup maybe against a smaller nickel defender. Uh, I’m very curious to see how much the Bengals play nickel or dime personnel this week considering they may try to replicate some of the stuff the Chargers did. Granted, it’s hard to do because they don’t have guys like Derwin James or Diane Henley that can make those things work for them. And I certainly don’t believe they have the defensive front that can do what the Chargers defense did to Denver’s offensive line. But there are so many things here that I think have to go right for this Broncos offense that are we going to see Shawn Peyton and this team come out and keep it simple stupid. Like that’s number three. The kiss method. it’s worked many of times. Simplify things and then you can start to add on to those wrinkles there. I I think that’s going to be a very big key this week here for this Broncos team. I think if Denver’s going to have success going forward because look, got the Bengals on Monday night, Eagles next Sunday, London game against the Jets. You come back against the uh the Giants and then you have the Cowboys. You have to find a way to get this offensive identity clicking sooner rather than later because this is right here. Even without Joe Burrow, this is the toughest part of the Broncos schedule for the remainder of the season in my humble honest opinion. I don’t know how you feel about that, but that’s where I’m kind of laying my cards. Yeah. What’s crazy is I think that if you look at it, I think the Broncos have four games left with teams I know it’s so early in the season, so take this with a grain of salt, but I believe they have four games left against teams with winning records right now. So, the Bengals are one of them, and I think the Eagles are obviously the the next one. So then you have the Chargers as a third. So right now where the Broncos schedule is at, yeah, you have to look at this as an opportunity to really get a full head of steam going into the fall here. And I love that the opportunity is being presented with Evan Ingram because I feel like he’s going to make everybody better on this Denver Broncos offense. If he can get going, it opens up the running game because whenever he’s on the field, you can’t just stack the box and and assume that well, it’s going to be a whatever. You’re going to create lighter boxes if you can start getting Evan Ingram going. You’re going to create favorable matchups for your other receivers if you can get Evan Ingram going. You’re going to draw people into the middle of the field and open up things over the top if you can get Evan Ingram going. So that right there, Cody, maybe that’s the underlying hint that Shawn Payeyton is giving with in conjunction with Evan coming back and saying, “Hey, we’re we want to find that bread and butter sooner than later.” Maybe that is Evan Ingram. And I know that may seem like hyperbole because, you know, Evan was the big offseason addition and things like that, but to me, that position in this offense just opens up everything else for everybody else. And he’s got to be the guy to go out there and make it happen. You talk about bread and butter. Can Evan be the knife that spreads the butter on the bread potentially? Right. you look at all those uh like just how other teams utilize their tight ends and I just I find it laughable a little bit that Denver hasn’t been able to get to that point just yet. I mean, it almost seems like, you know, it could make everything easier for you if you do it, but there’s I don’t know if there’s this non-commmitment level like emphasis by Sean to get it going or if it’s just, hey, we’re not there yet, but commit to it. I guarantee it’ll make the process easier all across the board for all those things that you mentioned. Broncos country. Let us know your thoughts here on Evan Ingram’s return and what you hope to see from him here on Monday Night Football here. But coming up next, Broncos quarterback Bo Nick Knicks, despite having a couple of overthrows in Sunday’s loss to the Chargers, his plan is to keep on slinging it. We’ll talk about that and more. We’ll hear from Bo here on today’s episode of the show. Today’s episode is brought to you by our friends over there at Mazda. And Mazda, they craft cars for those who do more than simply move. From footwork to breath work, athletes sweat all the details. And Mazda brings this same intention to how we craft every model. You can feel Japanese craftsmanship in every detail. From metallic accents to available Napa leather upholstery. And you can make everyday drives feel like anything but. From smooth handling to intuitive controls with all-wheel drive standard in every crossover SUV, you can drive with confidence through almost any season. Like our players, we sweat every detail because when you make every move count and possible becomes irrelevant. Mazda move and be moved. Bo Nick’s confidence surely isn’t shaken after Sunday’s tough performance. He was very reflective this week as the Broncos prepare for a Monday night football showdown against the Cincinnati Bengals and a defense that has a safety and Jordan Battle who’s snagged two interceptions so far this season. The Broncos have to be calculated with their passing game this week. And hopefully the run game can follow suit. But if you ask Broncos quarterback Bo Nicks about how he’s going to approach those deep balls here, he’s going to keep slinging it. I felt like we learned a lot from him. Sarah, let’s go to Bo where he talked about Shawn Peyton. Like, you know, Shawn this week doubled down and said, you know, I’ve got his back. Like, we’re not talking about overcoaching on on a couple of throws that were outstretched on the fingertips. He said that his placement is good. Obviously, just a little bit too far in those instances we saw against the Los Angeles Chargers. But Bo had a lot to say about Shawn having confidence in him despite that. Well, I love it. That’s uh uh you know, the name of the game. You just keep making the next play. You keep throwing it. Um you know, you don’t want to be um you know, afraid of failure. You don’t want to be afraid of missing. You just go out there and shoot the shot and uh you know, we’ll hit them. Cody, I I love his mindset and mentality when it comes to this whole ordeal right now. It feels like I know that I know that wins and losses are at stake here, right? I understand that everybody wants to see Bo become an MVP candidate as soon as possible and and you want to move on to the next alternative if you feel like your heart is going to be broken at some point. So, you’d rather just move on now, have your heart broken down the line. I get that. But when it comes to the way that quarterbacks in today’s NFL get evaluated, it’s such a disappointment to me. It really is. I mean, you and I have to go through the whole spiel every single week Nick for missing throws that went off the finger. I mean, Shawn Payeyton talked about that at his presser as well that he he’s like, we’re talking about throws that went off guy’s fingertips. I mean, we’re not talking about you missed by we’re not talking about you can’t hit the broad side of a barn. We’re talking about you hit you you hit the fingertips, you got to go try again. And that’s what that’s the thing that I dislike about the whole discourse with Bo Knicks and quarterback development in today’s like look at look at all these guys who were given up on around the league that teams probably would be kicking themselves. guys who lost jobs over making draft picks like Sam Darnold who’s crushing it with the Seattle Seahawks and and crushed it last year with the Minnesota Vikings. How many stories the stories like that that Daniel Jones those stories are so much more common now. So just let Bon Knicks develop, man. I don’t get it. We we can’t afforded time to develop because we need it now. I need it now. I want it now. It’s the worst part. It’s the worst part about I think social media because look, if Twitter was around when John Elway was a rookie, I guarantee you fans would have ran him off as well. And I don’t buy the narrative. You know, fans are always talking about Josh Allen should have been a Denver Bronco. I mean, seeing how fans talk about Bo and talk about quarterback development. They would have never let Josh Allen develop here either. I I also think the conversation, Sarah, it it’s a little frustrating to me because I I always ask, do people watch other games around the NFL? Like, have you watched three of Kansas City’s games this year where Patrick Mahomes has overthrown receivers? We’re talking about he’s overthrown guys by several feet at times trying to go downfield. Are we going to go back to the same game here against the Chargers where Sarah, I mean, how many deep shots did we see Justin Herbert try to make downfield where he overthrew guys, but because the Chargers won, nobody is talking about that because the Broncos lost, every throw gets put under a magnifying glass. And so, I think it’s unfair. Like if you look at the actual game itself, folks, like you see this all around the NFL. It’s nothing that’s earthshatteringly concerning at this point. We’re not talking about Bo Knicks throwing like Tim Tibo for crying out loud. That’s I think where my frustration kind of came in on the whole discourse this week. And you see all the people already giving up on Boicks. Look, some people have already made up their mind. So be it. Some people have already said the season is over. Like I don’t know how many comments we’ve gotten. We’re like, “All right, the season’s over.” Well, guess what? Don’t comment. I don’t want to see a comment from these people that are already saying the season is done with right now. Turn off the games. Don’t watch another Broncos game all season long. Like, if you’re going to keep that same energy, at least stick with it. Have the dignity to do just that. I just It’s frustrating to me, Sarah, because social media, and I understand everyone’s got an opinion. I respect that, but sometimes the dumbest opinions get the magnified the most. The sometimes the dumbest opinions are the loudest people in the world. And it is so frustrating because you really can’t have nuance conversation like that anymore. Like you don’t get that like we used to do like at school coming back, you know, over the weekend you go to school, you talk to all your friends, there’s nuance conversation at least. You don’t get that anymore because of this thing called social media. It’s a blessing. It’s a curse. I love obviously the platform. I love the community that we have, but my goodness, it some days it has me not even want like I don’t want to respond to comments sometimes just because I’m like, man, like I don’t want to say that this person’s take is dumb. And I’ve had plenty of dumb takes, too. I’m not saying that I’m I’m not susceptible to doing that, but I think that we lack nuance in these discussions these days. It’s reactionary, instant gratification. I think even the commentary with Riley Moss is a spot-on example of the same exact thing that we’re talking about here with Bo Knicks. It really is. I mean, when you’re you’re writing guys off for no good reason, really, that’s the that’s what it comes down to. And so, there’s, I think, ample reason not to write Bicks off at this point. And over a 20ame sample, because he just started his 20th game, not including the playoff loss to the Bills last year, Cody, over a 20ame sample, Bo Knicks is the best quarterback the Broncos have ever drafted. I know, and including John Elway in these numbers. I mean, when you break down every single number, when you break down everything that I know context is different, different eras in the NFL, all these sorts of game harder today. I think the game is the game is harder today. And I think that’s 100% true. I think playing the quarterback position, especially the microscope that you’re under, I mean, there was better job security back in the day. There’s no question about it. When Jay Cutler was drafted by Mike Shanahan, Jay Cutler’s job security was, I mean, ironclad as long as Shanahan was in the building because Shanahan loved him. So, I just think that when you talk about these these things that are that we’re seeing in real time, it’s so difficult to see the forest for the trees because you want to focus in on these missed throws like and they were off the fingertips. And some could argue as we watch other breakdowns and we see your breakdowns, Cody, could you lay out for these these passes. I mean, Courtland Sutton did it still wasn’t good enough. Did could Marvin Mims have laid out? I mean, you can ask these questions and I don’t think it’s unfair either to criticize Bo Nicks. I think that’s the thing that lost in this is that you and I have criticized Bo plenty on this show, but at the same time, I don’t think you throw the baby out with the bathwater. You can criticize a game. You can criticize throws. you can criticize decisions without saying is he for sure the guy because right now he’s for sure the guy like this is Payton’s ship that he’s going down on. So there’s no sense in being miserable for the next handful of years or at least couple of years here. He’s he ain’t going to be cut this off season. He ain’t going to be traded this He’s going to be the starting quarterback in 2026. No question about it, Cody. So, I just think that it’s interesting that we we have to write the guy off after a couple of missed throws in a tight one-sore game like this. Have people seen how bad college quarterback play is really? Like, you don’t see those prototypical guys anymore? Like, even guys who had the best college football seasons even last year? Like, think about Will Howard and the success he had? Will Howard is not even in the conversation of ever starting in the National Football League. Like, that’s that’s where we’re at. Like, some people are like, “Oh, the next college quarterback’s going to be great.” Um, here’s one last thing I wanted to touch on this one in terms of like offensive identity. I thought Bo Nicks had a great touch and a great kind of plant his flag moment on why the team is find is trying to find their identity, where they’re at with that, and maybe some of the circumstances that have impacted them. Here’s what Nicks had to say. Well, I think with uh, you know, you look at our offseason acquisitions, the guys that we got, we’re still trying to fit them uh, into our uh, into our scheme, find out, you know, where we are as a team. Um, but you know, we still um, have an identity um, up front. you know, they’re going to keep the guys off of me. We’re going to be able to um, you know, not stay in long yardage because of sacks. We’re going to complete passes. Courtland’s going to have good games and uh, you know, those other guys as they continue to grow, they’re going to find their rhythm. Um, and I’m going to continue um, you know, after, you know, just 20some games I’ve played going to continue to get get better and better and see things well. And then, you know, we’re going to continue to find um, the rhythm and the uh, you know, the plays that we like, the scheme that we want to fall back on. Um but you know it takes about you know three or four weeks um you know each season you always looking around unless you have the same exact team with the same exact coaches. Um and even with an identity you know it’s it’s important to have it’s it’s important to uh use and um be able to fall back on that but the defense also knows you know what you’re good at. So at the end of the day you’re going to have to change a little bit you know year by year. So much changing every single week here and Bonick’s put it right there Cody. I think that obviously it’s still early both in his career and this season. So, let’s see if they can build some steam. I think they can do that. I think they can I think they can get people back on their side. You know, it feels like it’s oh, you lose a couple games like this early in the season. The expectations were not met. It’s tough for everybody. I get it. But I love the perspective from the starting QB there. Well, you take care of business on Monday Night Football and let’s say somehow the Broncos go in and beat the defending Super Bowl champions. All of a sudden, the narrative, the conversation shifts a lot. And the Broncos, they’re in control of their destiny. Broncos country, enjoy your NFL Sunday with Denver playing on Monday Night Football. You can enjoy Red Zone like myself, my wife Sarah, and his family. You’re going to get all that. And then on Monday, you’re going to get an extensive game preview. Sarah and I were going to share our players to watch on offense, defense, and our keys to victory that’ll lead you right up into kickoff Monday Night Football. What they say, Broncos country. We’ll see you next time for another episode of the show. You’re not part of the turbo team.

The Denver Broncos offense is in search of their identity as head coach Sean Payton pointed out, but could Evan Engam be the key to helping them unlock it if they start to utilize him effectively after he returned to practice full go after missing last week? Plus, Bo Nix plans on slinging it still after last week’s game against the Chargers. Cody Roark and Sayre Bedinger break it all down.

Cody Roark is a credentialed beat reporter for Mile High Sports and covers the Broncos daily in person. Sayre Bedinger is the site expert for Predominantly Orange. Both bring Broncos Country the most in-depth and objective coverage of the Denver Broncos.

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