Broncos’ ground game, fundamentals allowed them to win slugfest against Jaguars

DENVER — For the Broncos, all the difference came because they were willing to play ground-and-pound.

Yes, they also unleashed Jaylen Waddle for 138 yards on eight receptions and 10 targets over the course of Sunday’s 20-13 come-from-behind win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. And if they continue to give Waddle downfield shots, it will likely open opportunities to run by forcing safeties to account for the vertical threat posed by the Broncos’ most coveted offseason acquisition this year.

Denver had 22 non-kneeldown carries against 31 pass plays. But it’s worth noting that four of the Broncos’ first six plays were handoffs to starting running back J.K. Dobbins — the last of which was called back on account of a holding penalty against wide receiver Pat Bryant, his third such infraction in two games.

Three of the Broncos’ first four first-and-10 plays were handoffs. So were four of their six goal-to-go snaps in the first half — with three-consecutive runs from the 1-yard line at one point. Those didn’t result in touchdowns, but the tone was established: The Broncos were going to try to wear down the Jaguars on the ground.

And those jabs that didn’t seem too effective at times — especially near the goal line — became haymakers as the game progressed. By that time, Dobbins’ hamstring had forced him to the sideline in favor of rookie Jonah Coleman, who carried six times for 33 yards on the final drive to ensure that the Broncos’ four-minute offense did its job flawlessly, draining the Jaguars of timeouts and the clock of minutes and seconds to where Denver could take three kneeldowns to drain the final two minutes from the game.

The tenor established early paid massive dividends late. By the final moments, the Jaguars were out of breath — quite literally, in some cases, left gasping in the mile-high air.

“You gotta chop wood in this league and especially at a 2 o’clock game at Mile High, when the sun’s out there and the altitude and whatever, you gotta keep chopping wood,” right guard Quinn Meinerz said.

“Putting the game on our shoulders — on the O-line’s shoulders — we prepare for that every single week.”

But a little more went into it this week after the damage the Jaguars’ front did to the Broncos last December when the teams met.

“They have a really good defense and a really good front, so they gave us a lot of fits,” Meinerz said. “… Their defense came out in tons of different fronts, tons of different personnels, and definitely challenged some of our rules and whatever. But I think our we did a really good job as a as a team running the ball.”

It wasn’t intentional, of course, but the early/late punches from Dobbins and Coleman proved lethal. It also validated the Broncos’ selection of Coleman in April’s draft; part of the reason why the team liked his immediate potential was because his skill set and frame would allow him to replace the seven-year veteran without altering anyone else’s workload.

“He’s got a lot of veteran people around him and as a rookie coming into a program that’s in Year Four, you have to kind of mature quickly,” Meinerz said. “I think he’s done a pretty good job of that.”

The results of the day included Coleman’s first NFL touchdown — which he celebrated with a Mile High salute — and a smart play when he galloped for a first down just before the two-minute warning and then slid to the ground in-bounds, effectively ending the game, as the Jaguars were out of timeouts and the clock was draining toward the two-minute warning. Because of Coleman’s veteran-like decision, the competitive phase of the game ended.

Coleman was more than ready for his chance.

“J.K. always preached to me, ‘Be ready for your opportunity; be ready for your moment and take full advantage of it,” Coleman said.

AND ON THE DEFENSIVE SIDE, THE BRONCOS POUNDED AWAY

The missed tackles that defined their play last Sunday were largely absent, with the tone established on a first series that would have ended in a strip-sack fumble by Nik Bonitto if not for a downfield penalty against cornerback Riley Moss.

But the real work on that was done during the week. When the Broncos returned to practice last Thursday, defensive players quickly went into tackling drills. The emphasis helped provide a pointed reminder, and on Sunday, the glitch was fixed.

When multiple Broncos players said after the Week 1 game that the issues were “correctable,” that’s what they were talking about.

“We know how to fix tackling, and it’s early in the season, there’s a lot of good teams that are going through similar things,” defensive end Zach Allen said.

“So, yeah, it’s just a credit to the group that guys have the right mindset and there’s no egos and they approach it the right way, and just were ready to come back to work.”

And now?

“We just gotta do that again this week,” Allen said.

But they’ll do that with a win in their back pockets that put them a step closer to establishing a defining identity.

For more, watch the embedded video.

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