{"id":337352,"date":"2025-09-03T03:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T03:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/337352\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T03:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T03:31:10","slug":"sean-payton-broncos-eye-efficient-run-game-in-week-1-vs-titans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/337352\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Payton, Broncos eye ‘efficient run game’ in Week 1 vs. Titans"},"content":{"rendered":"

The plan had not been etched in concrete, Sean Payton emphasized. Yes, Denver\u2019s head coach wanted to get his starters just eight to 10 plays against New Orleans two weeks ago. Yes, he wanted to score quickly and get off the field.<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t happen. You know what they say about best-laid plans. It took Bo Nix and the Broncos offense three drives to get chugging, and All-Pro offensive guard Quinn Meinerz thus ended up playing 21 snaps rather than a handful.<\/p>\n

Meinerz preferred it this way, though, because of the 305-pound task awaiting him in Week 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want my first game-like snap, especially getting ready for this season, to be against Jeffery Simmons,\u201d Meinerz smiled in late August, referring to the Tennessee Titans\u2019 veteran defensive tackle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf my first actual game rep is against Jeffery Simmons \u2014 I don\u2019t want that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Titans are still ripe with holes coming off a 3-14 season that landed them No. 1 pick Cam Ward this past year. Their interior defensive line is not one of them.\u00a0Simmons is a three-time Pro Bowler who\u00a0will bring some Louisiana grit to the trenches Sunday at Empower Field. Promising second-year nose tackle T\u2019Vondre Sweat finished 12th in Defensive Rookie of the Year voting last year.<\/p>\n

Payton has lauded the Broncos\u2019 new-look ground game all preseason. There will be different principles, with a heavier emphasis on outside zone. There will be different backs, with explosive rookie RJ Harvey and free-agent vet J.K. Dobbins replacing Javonte Williams. But this Denver offensive front is no different, turning over the exact same personnel from 2024 to 2025 \u2014 and they\u2019ll shoulder the burden of Payton\u2019s expectations Sunday against Tennessee.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope, and I think, you\u2019re going to have a chance to see a more efficient run game,\u201d Payton said Monday.<\/p>\n

They know it. Veteran left tackle Garett Bolles made clear this summer that any improvement from last year\u2019s middle-of-the-road run game was going to come down to \u201cus five up front.\u201d And to avoid any sweat against Simmons and Sweat, any demonstrative run-game improvement Sunday will come down to the Broncos\u2019 ability to create holes up the middle.<\/p>\n

Denver\u2019s offensive line had the highest run-block win rate in the NFL in 2024, according to ESPN Analytics<\/a>. That stat sparkles. It also masks some stains. According to Pro Football Focus data compiled by The Denver Post, the Broncos finished 22nd of 32 teams in yards per carry on runs between the tackles in 2024 (4.14).<\/p>\n

The three top finishers on such carries last year \u2014 Detroit, Baltimore and Philadelphia \u2014 all had Pro Bowl centers. The correlation isn\u2019t hard to spot.<\/p>\n

Luke Wattenberg, the Broncos\u2019 incumbent at center, was excellent in pass protection last year but finished as the 26th-highest-graded run blocker out of 32 NFL centers with at least 500 snaps last year. Take PFF grades as a singular data point rather than gospel. But Wattenberg said himself in August that he\u2019s been working with assistant offensive-line coach Chris Morgan on taking the \u201cnext step\u201d in the run game.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying fast, playing with my hat, getting my backside hand in \u2014 have all been a point of emphasis for me,\u201d Wattenberg said.<\/p>\n

The backs, too, will need to add shots of life through the A and B gaps. Dobbins hasn\u2019t been relied upon much for outside burst through camp, but still has plenty of between-the-tackles pop. And after trying and failing to break a couple of runs outside in Denver\u2019s first preseason game against San Francisco, rookie Harvey clearly emphasized attacking interior gaps the rest of his camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times he bounces it, and it\u2019s a good thing, and it\u2019s good for a defense to have to worry about that,\u201d offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi said Aug. 20. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to do it every single run. Not every single run calls for that, and I think he\u2019s coming along and learning, and getting better at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Denver was largely stonewalled up the middle in joint practices with San Francisco and Arizona. But their battering rams proved fairly effective this preseason, jumping to the eighth-highest yards per carry (4.2) among NFL teams on runs between the tackles, according to more PFF data compiled by The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve liked what we\u2019ve seen from the running game and from our personnel, from that perspective,\u201d Payton said Monday, speaking on Denver\u2019s general ground game. \u201cWe get a chance to see it first this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Broncos release practice-squad CB: Denver released a member of its practice squad Wednesday, cutting cornerback Quinton Newsome. The Broncos now have a spot open, and correspondingly worked out seven skill players Wednesday \u2014 including running back Deuce Vaughn, a 2023 sixth-round pick by the Dallas Cowboys.<\/p>\n

Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The plan had not been etched in concrete, Sean Payton emphasized. Yes, Denver\u2019s head coach wanted to get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061],"tags":[925,258,7,1713,601,1274,46166,929,3883,926,6,3887,1813,9,526,394,2411,527],"class_list":{"0":"post-337352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennessee-titans","8":"tag-bo-nix","9":"tag-denver-broncos","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-garett-bolles","12":"tag-j-k-dobbins","13":"tag-javonte-williams","14":"tag-joe-lombardi","15":"tag-latest-headlines","16":"tag-luke-wattenberg","17":"tag-more-broncos-news","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-quinn-meinerz","20":"tag-sean-payton","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-tennessee","23":"tag-tennessee-titans","24":"tag-tennesseetitans","25":"tag-titans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115138257981464266","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}