The good, bad and ugly from Sunday’s loss to Tom Brady and the Bucs
Sep 28, 2020, 6:57 AM
The Broncos just aren’t playing good football on either side of the ball and are currently winless with an 0-3 record after losing to the Buccaneers on Sunday by a score of 28-10. This season has quickly gone off the rails. Injuries are a big reason why the Broncos are winless, but that cannot be used as a complete excuse when you see a team like the 49ers (with as many if not more key injuries) play hard and win for their head coach Kyle Shanahan.
The Broncos have been dealt a bad hand – but they can’t stop fighting with so much season left. Some fans want them to tank for a better draft pick (currently they’d have the No. 4 overall pick), but that doesn’t seem to be in this team’s DNA. They’re going to try and win, even if that seems like a long shot on a weekly basis.
Broncos head coach Vic Fangio was succinct when asked about what the team needs to recover after their 0-3 start.
“Our whole focus is going to be on this short week and trying to go win a game in New York and try to get to 1-3. Just take it one game at a time,” Fangio said.
The Broncos are not in a good spot right now as the schedule is set to get tougher after this next game. Up next, the Broncos have a short week as they travel to play New York on Thursday night in Week 4. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s take a look at the good, the bad and the ugly from the Week 3 loss.
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The Good
Just like last week, there’s not much good to be taken from this loss. That being said, I do have to praise the play of second-year pro Brett Rypien. With Jeff Driskel struggling, the Broncos turned to Rypien and he drove the team down the field – only to throw an interception in the end zone.
Rypien didn’t finish the drive with a score, and he committed a turnover on his final throw, but he did not seem overwhelmed by the opportunity. He handled the blitz well and made quick decisions, plus Rypien would change protections pre-snap at the line of scrimmage. Those are all signs of a quarterback who is not in over his head.
After the game, Fangio did not pull any punches when talking about why he made the change at quarterback.
“Obviously, we were struggling on offense. Our pass offense in particular, but we didn’t run it well either. I just wanted to get a new guy in there. See if he can get it out of his hand a little quicker, direct the protections and see if he could provide a little spark there,” Fangio said.
The Broncos are going to make a quick decision on who is starting at quarterback in Week 4. That means we could know if Rypien did enough to earn a starting job as soon as Monday. The way he looked against the Buccaneers and knowing the Jets bad defense I say, ‘why not?’
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The Bad
The Broncos are struggling on defense. The Buccaneers offense is not yet clicking on all cylinders, yet they were able to put up 23 points in the first half and pretty much coasted to the victory from there.
Tom Brady was able to move the ball up and down the field. He worked in space well as one would expect, but Brady also worked well near the end zone where coverage is tighter. In fact, in two pass attempts to Mike Evans he tossed two touchdowns – for a total of two yards.
Giving up these short-yardage passing touchdowns didn’t sit well with coach Fangio.
“The last one there, they had the ball on the half-yard line, so we loaded up for the run. They beat us one-on-one outside. There’s not a lot you can do. It’s just the 50-50 ball. We should have been a little more aware on the one they popped in there from the one on the quick throw. We had talked about that play and think we could have played it a little better. It’s still tough when they only need a yard,” Fangio said.
The defense has to lead the way if the Broncos are going to get on the winning track. The offense isn’t good enough to rely on – especially without Drew Lock at quarterback – so that means the defense has to be the side of the ball that can take over and control a game. We have yet to see that this season, and those struggles on defense have led to this 0-3 start.
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The Ugly
The offensive line is struggling to handle the blitz and that means the entire offense struggles as a result. Driskel was sacked five times and Rypien was sacked once. The offense struggled to get into a rhythm because of the pressure that Buccaneers defensive coordinator Todd Bowles had no problem throwing in their direction.
After the game, Fangio talked about the heat that Tampa brought to the field.
“I think it was a little bit of everything. They were bringing a lot of people. Sometimes, we weren’t on the right people. I think most of the time we were. We were either getting beat or we weren’t getting it out quick enough. It was a combination of everything. Until we solve that problem, teams are going to continue to pressure us down after down until we can make people pay for it,” Fangio said.
The Broncos offensive line was already a huge question mark before the start of the season. After three games, all our fears were justified. The Broncos won’t perform better and have a better chance of winning if the offensive line doesn’t clean things up.
