The Broncos offense isn’t good enough to keep beating itself

The Broncos went into San Francisco needing a clean game against a team with real Super Bowl hopes. They didn’t come close.

Denver lost 24-14, and the offense spent most of the afternoon getting in its own way. There were dropped passes, seven penalties for 44 yards and a turnover. The Broncos are now 2-2, and the problems that cost them Sunday are the same ones that have shown up all season.

On a recent edition of “Stokley and Evans, with Mark Schlereth” on 104.3 The Fan, Mark Schlereth made his diagnosis quickly.

“You’re not good enough to make mistakes. You’re not good enough to play stupid football,” Schlereth said.

He then went through the game drive by drive.

“And you start looking at their drives, you know, couple of penalties in each drive, a dropped pass in each drive. Whether it was Waddle dropping a pass, or whether it was your tight end, Evan Engram dropping a pass, you’re not good enough to make mistakes,” Schlereth said.

The drops were especially hard to watch. Jaylen Waddle was the star of the Jacksonville win, and Engram was supposed to be more comfortable in his second year. Against a 49ers defense that doesn’t give up much, every wasted chance mattered.

Schlereth said Sunday fits a bigger pattern.

“And then ultimately, you keep looking at this football team, and it’s always something. It’s always a missed block, it’s always a missed assignment, it’s always a dropped pass, it’s always a false start, it’s a holding call. And you put yourself behind the 8 ball, your quarterback is not playing well enough to pull you out of those holes,” he said.

In the wins over Jacksonville and Los Angeles, Bo Nix rescued the Broncos late. In San Francisco, he couldn’t.

When an offense keeps facing second-and-long and third-and-long, its quarterback has to be great just to keep drives going, and Nix hasn’t been consistent enough to do that every week.

Schlereth closed with his broadest criticism.

“They’re not good enough, anywhere across the board, to play undisciplined football. And that’s what I see from the Broncos on the offensive side of the ball on a consistent basis,” Schlereth said.

The Broncos have two games left in the opening six-week stretch: the Chargers and the Seahawks. Neither one will be forgiving. If Denver doesn’t clean up the penalties, drops and missed assignments soon, a 2-2 start could turn into something worse.

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