Pressure is a privilege and it’s easy to make the argument that the Denver Broncos and Sean Payton have faced a ton of pressure and now have more on their plate after Sunday’s loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
Broncos facing pressure after Sunday’s loss
A loss in Week 1 is not the start Payton was hoping for in his second season with the team. After a loss, floods of criticism, woulda, coulda, and shoulda are amplified on social media. There were a handful of things the Broncos did poorly on Sunday, but there were also a lot of things they did well that they can build off of.
Denver’s defense and special teams units combined forced two safeties on Sunday, sacked Geno Smith twice, snagged an interception, and pinned Seattle deep into their own territory and the offense wasn’t able to capitalize.
“All of these guys, when we put the tape on today, coaches as well, especially coaches, we have to be able to start with looking inward. I think a lot of that is the personality and make-up of the player you’re coaching, and then how you go about coaching the player. I think that’s one of the important traits of a good coach is just being able to understand how they need to receive information. It’s the same thing with this team. I have a young team, and how was today’s team meeting relative to how it would have been maybe with a veteran team? I personally think we’re built for this, and what I mean by that is obviously if you just take the game itself—and you guys have covered this long enough—this pendulum swings back and forth in a game. The momentum obviously swung to the right in our favor for pretty much most of the first half. It felt like we played the first half on their end of the field. Then the third quarter came, and the pendulum began to swing back. The teams that become more battle-tested and experienced are able to keep the momentum a little longer. Then when the pendulum swings back, they can quickly correct it. I think that I could use your question as to how we coach Bo, and then also treat it as how we coach the team in general after a tough loss.”
Nix has a lot of room for improvement, but the offense can also do a better job within the structure of other positions that can help him out. Payton touched on the drops the team dealt with in the early portion of the game, some up and downs in pass protection, and the overall lack of run game where there were some missed opportunities.
“There were too many two-to-three-yard gains,” Payton said. “When you look at Javonte [Williams] and Jaleel’s [McLaughlin] numbers, we have to be more effective there and that’s something we talked about in the team meeting.”
Between William, McLaughlin, and Audric Estime, Denver’s rushing production saw all three of them combine for around 64 yards on 20 total touches. Vision on some of the carries was an issue Payton also harped on.
“There’s a couple of runs that we’ve got to see better vison-wise from the running back position,” Payton said. Audric has one, where I don’t know that his eyes are in the right spot, but he’s got a chance for a much bigger play. Javonte has one, so overall we’ve got to improve in that area.”
It doesn’t get easier this week as the Pittsburgh Steelers and T.J. Watt come to town.
