Ladies and gentlemen of Broncos Country, welcome to the 2024 season of the No Bull Review. It is crazy to think we’ve been doing this now for 13 seasons and counting. Cheers to everyone new and old in Broncos Country and elsewhere!
Just a few reminders of what I do and what I’m about:
I’m an eye test guy. I form my opinions based on what I see in games (so I’m quite excited to finally see our team in preseason action against an actual opponent)
I like to share as well as listen. Feel free to post your takes even if they differ from mine. This post has always been a place for fans to discuss, learn, and share.
I call it like I see it in a blunt manner…if that’s not your cup of tea, feel free to read any of the other fine game reviews here on milehighreport.com. We’ve got a lot of interesting writers with differing styles to suit almost any point of view.
I also tend to only really talk about the standout players (positive or negative) in the game. If a guy only makes one decent play, don’t be surprised if I don’t mention it.
Now on to the game:
At a high-level review, I thought this was a well-managed preseason game from our coaches. We were running very vanilla schemes on both sides of the ball. We put the starters through a fair number of snaps and moved on to the younger 2nd-tier players pretty quickly to help give them a good amount of developmental snaps.
There were a troubling number of fairly foolish penalties, though you should expect that from every team in the preseason as the refs tend to call things a little more tightly than what they do in the regular season from what I’ve seen.
The Denver Broncos were down 3-0 in the first quarter only. For each other quarter of the game, we were winning when the clock hit 0. These things don’t mean a ton in a preseason game as the wins don’t count, but it leaves a positive feel for Broncos fans as we got to see winning football for the vast majority of the game.
Offense
The obvious problem on offense was the need for more production from the starters. We ran the ball pretty well throughout the game. All three quarterbacks had plenty of time to throw the ball. Both Nix and Wilson put up superb numbers in the passing game.
I think Sean Payton has this team competitive and is on track to have the team ready to compete in week 1 no matter who is behind center.
Quarterbacks
Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images
Jarrett Stidham looks like a backup. The woes of the starting offense can largely be put on his shoulders (or Payton’s if he’s calling a more conservative game with Stidham starting). There may be a ton of talk this offseason hyping him up as a potential starter, but I don’t see it. He still looks like a game-managing backup player just like he did last season. That’s not to say I don’t like him…I think he’s a fine option as a backup quarterback. I don’t think he’s aggressive enough downfield to have any realistic shot of being the guy starting week 1 for this team.
I thought Bo Nix looked like a promising young rookie quarterback. The moment wasn’t a bit too big for him (though not free of mistakes). He finished with 125 yards passing with 1 TD and 0 INTs for a passer rating of 102.7.
Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. His bobbled snap under center is worrisome but is something you live with with most young QBs coming out of college in today’s game. Nix needs to lead his crossing routes better. He cost us an easy 1st down by throwing behind his intended receiver.
He had far more plus plays for us to look at, though. Nix did a nice job rolling out to buy time and get a sideline throw to Sutton for a big 3rd and 10 conversions. I loved the execution Nix had on his quick play action outside pass for a touchdown to Mims. That’s a NFL quarterback red zone snap from start to finish and he looked the part with that and his missed TD pass to Josh Reynolds that should have been caught. His scrambling ability is going to be a strong weapon for this offense as he rushed 3 times for 17 yards on the day.
Zach Wilson looked like our 2nd best quarterback on the day. He played well, passed well, and made our 3rd string unit look far superior to the Indianapolis Colts’ defense. I’d honestly like to see more of him with the starters as well, as I suspect he may be a better backup than Stidham in all honesty.
Line
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I thought our line blocked well throughout the game. The battle at center between Luke Wattenberg and Alex Forsyth is probably the most compelling competition outside of quarterback on the offense. They both played great and looked like a solid upgrade to what we had at center last season.
Running Backs
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Jaleel McLaughlin continues to look like a rock star in his second preseason game. He averaged 4.3 ypc for the team on 7 carries which looked like the most efficient of any of our backs on the day.
Samaje Perine bobbled an easy pass and cost Stidham an interception. He didn’t really see more action after that which to me is fine as we have a lot of backs to evaluate.
Audric Estime starts off his NFL action with a 5-yard gain powering over a would-be tackler. I Iiked what I see from him so far. He’s got power and size that we don’t see from anyone else on the roster.
Receivers
Marc Lebryk-USA TODAY Sports
Marvin Mimms Jr. looked great in the red zone with a superb route to get a score on the board. I love seeing him get a look in a short-yardage scenario so we get to see what he can do with his elite quickness.
I didn’t really have a lot of specific notes on any one receiver outside of that. The Broncos really spread the ball around this game with the leading receiver getting 4 targets (Lucas Krull at tight end if you are curious). We really worked pretty basic route concepts in the game and put players in scenarios to see what they could do (for both the QB and receivers). The team had plenty of passes to running backs as well which is a wrinkle that Payton is fond of in his offenses.
Defense
I’m looking for two things for this defense to improve on compared to last season:
Stop the run at a far higher rate
Get pass-rush pressure from the edge players
We went 1 for 2 on those goals in this game with the Broncos holding the Colts to 2.8 ypc which is an excellent rate.
The pass rush on the outside was mostly nonexistent from our starters which isn’t a big surprise to me. The team didn’t do much to upgrade their OLB positions in the offseason so the team is pretty much left to Vance Joseph scheming blitzes to make up the difference.
Front 7
Marc Lebryk-USA TODAY Sports
I talked already about our lack of pass rush from the edge. There is an exception to that as we did see a sack and a quarterback hurry from Jonah Ellis in the 2nd unit that forced a bad pass into an interception.
For pass rush from the starters, Alex Singleton came on a blitz early causing an incomplete. Outside of that, it was the typical crickets from both Jonathan Cooper and Baron Browning.
I thought the front played the run very well overall from the starting unit and 2nd stringers (which is typically all you should really read anything into in a preseason game in my opinion).
Secondary
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Damari Mathis missed an easy interception that I was honestly amazed he didn’t catch. He had a great break on the ball and it was badly thrown right to him.
I liked a lot of what I saw from both Riley Moss and Ja’Quan McMillian. It won’t show up on the stat sheet, but that’s what happens in the secondary when you cover well and the quarterbacks don’t throw at you.
Tremon Smith was the one guy from our secondary who got burned for a 40-yard pass. He was easily a step away from being in the position to defend the pass. Hopefully, he’ll show more next week.
Special Teams
I’m honestly still getting my head around the new kickoff rules/plays, but one thing that stood out to me was how well the team covered kickoffs. I thought our special teams units were solid in keeping their lane integrity and minimizing the returns of the Colts outside of one return that went for 49 yards. Wil Lutz was 2 for 2 which is a great day for a placekicker.
Final Thoughts
Preseason football games are for the coaches by and large to evaluate the players at a deeper level. Winning and losing doesn’t mean much, but what we get to see is a kind of baseline of what the players can do. Schemes are always going to look vanilla, but you can at least get a glimpse of how well your team executes on both sides of the ball.
This was a good game for the Denver Broncos. I see a team that looks like it is deeper in talent overall than what we had last season. I thought the 2nd strings on both sides of the ball looked far better than what we saw last preseason which is encouraging and expected. As Sean Payton continues to build his team, things should trend up in that regard.
As always hit me up in the comments and share your own No Bull takes about our Broncos!