On Sunday, Brock Osweiler continued the undefeated start to his career with a 17-3 victory over the San Diego Chargers; he also showed Broncos Country that he, against popular belief, is not perfect.
Victory aside, Osweiler and the Denver offense only scored 10 points all day, and seven of them came on the first drive of the game; that’s not exactly explosive. And honestly, it’s not far off from what we saw from Peyton Manning during the first half of the season.
For the first time this year, we saw a Brock that looked a little flustered. He missed easy reads, failed to look off the safety on deep seams down the middle and threw a needless interception in the end zone. From top to bottom, Denver’s offensive output was anemic at best.
The question, though, is whether this is a hiccup in a young quarterback’s development or a sign of things to come? We know that Brock has the physical tools to be an NFL quarterback, and we know that he has the poise to lead a 14-point fourth-quarter comeback against the defending champions, but when defenses begin to understand him, can he adjust?
The answer is simply that we don’t know. We’ve seen plenty of quarterbacks shine early in their careers only to quickly fall back to earth as defenses learn to better defend them. Conversely, we’ve seen plenty of quarterbacks struggle to find their footing in the league before taking the game by storm. And if you’re in the Brock needs to start camp, that’s your best case; if the Broncos pull the plug now, they’ll never know what they truly have.
But based on Gary Kubiak‘s words from his Monday presser, it’s clear that the “shine” has worn off, it was ever there to begin with. And that’s not to say that he or the Broncos don’t believe in Brock Osweiler — they absolutely do — but they’re also not oblivious to the fact that he needs to improve if the Broncos want to make a serious playoff run.
That’s why these next few weeks are so imperative, not just for playoff seeding but for Osweiler’s development. Defenses are only going to continue to get smarter, and if Osweiler can’t adjust as quickly as they are, he’s going to start having performances that look a whole lot worse than 166 yards, a touchdown and an interception.
But if he can make the adjustment, if he can rebound and improve, then we’ll know that Brock Osweiler may just be the real deal.
Time will tell, but here’s what Kubiak had to say:
On opponents having game film on Osweiler:
“I just think we continue to grow together. He’s done a lot of good things, did a lot of good things yesterday, also a lot of things that he can continue to learn about himself and making decisions and those type of things. It’s also me, [Quarterbacks/Passing Game Coordinator Greg] Knapper [Knapp] and [Offensive Coordinator Rick] Rico [Dennison] continuing to understand him better as a player and the things that he is most comfortable with. It’s early. Like you said, three weeks. What’s that 12 or 14 quarters of football that I think he’s played this year? I think good football is continuing to come and I think that it will continue to come as he gets more and more experience.”
On if opponents have adjusted to Osweiler:
“I think I’ve seen some things. This team was a little bit like they’ve been though. They’re very aggressive up front in some of the things that they do. Coverage-wise they didn’t change a lot. I wouldn’t say that, but as far as how people maybe have made him be patient and made him do some things as a quarterback, yeah I think he’s kind of seen a little bit of everything the last three weeks. One thing that he’s learned probably more than anything is that you can study film all you want during the week, but on gameday people have a plan. When you go out there and it’s time to go execute your stuff, this is their plan for the day, so these are things that you have to do. This is the way that you may have to play today for us to win. I think that’s what he’s learning because so many times as a player you go practice and practice and say, ‘Well that didn’t look the same.’ No joke, it doesn’t always look the same, so you have to adjust. That’s something that he’s learning.”
On the offense’s lack of production:
“We struggled from that standpoint yesterday. We were very good early in the game. That was a very impressive start. On the second drive, we had a big penalty, which took some things away. I would like to have seen us get more out of what we were doing, but we stayed with the run and we kept battling. I think that there are certain ways that you win on a given day. Yesterday was about continuing to run the ball, hammering the ball and playing great defense, so you do what you have to do on game day, but yes I’d love to see us score a lot of points every week. It just didn’t happen yesterday.”
