Allen Park — The Denver Broncos have plenty of quality offensive weapons, but they’ve been more quietly efficient than explosive through much of the 2021 season.
Coming into Sunday’s matchup with the Detroit Lions, the opposition was actually averaging fewer than 20 points per game.
But with a clearly wounded foe — missing several starters and key reserves due to injury and illness coming into the game, and losing a couple more starters early in the contest — Denver had options with how to attack Detroit’s depleted defense.
Ultimately, they chose to lean on their ground game, headed by the potent backfield tandem of Melvin Gordon and Javonte Williams, who ran behind a slew of heavy formations. For much of the afternoon, the Broncos had two tight ends on the field. In total, the team’s four tight ends combined for 107 snaps on the team’s 68 offensive plays.
And despite no runs longer than 16 yards on the day, Denver was able to rack up 184 yards on 39 carries, the team’s second-highest totals in both categories this season, just behind the 190 yards and 40 carries from a Week 9 victory over Dallas.
For the Lions, it marked the fourth time they’ve surrendered that many rushing yards this season, but it also ended a positive two-game stretch where they held the Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings to a combined 168 yards on 56 carries (3.0 yards per attempt).
So what went wrong in last week’s 38-10 loss, beyond the obvious personnel issues, and possible fundamental slippage after a week of limited practice stemming from a flu outbreak? This week’s film breakdown focuses on Detroit’s disappointing day against the run.
Shaky from the start
The Broncos started the day with a pair of lengthy touchdown possessions, taking 11 plays to go 74 yards to open the game, before a 12-play, 74-yard series later in the first quarter.
The tone was set immediately with Gordon and Williams combining for 48 yards on six carries on the opening drive. Gordon, the veteran, gained 11 on his first carry as defensive tackle Michael Brockers was driven out of his gap on the counter run design and linebackers Alex Anzalone and Jessie Lemonier — making his first start — were sealed outside the lane by Broncos blockers.
Linebacker Josh Woods, also making his first start, showed his inexperience on the snap, overplaying the counter action and showing too much hesitation in his recovery, which kept the lane wide for Gordon. To polish off the gain, the back spun free of a tackle attempt of safety Dean Marlowe for an extra 5 yards.
The Lions limited the damage on Gordon’s next three carries to 9 yards, including a 1-yard stop on a first-down carry. On that play, Marlowe did a nice job setting the edge as an overhang defender just outside the box, funneling the back inside where he was dropped by Lemonier. The young edge defender was able to able to get a hand into the chest of the tight end early in the play, maintain his gap and easily shed the blocker for the stop.
That success was short-lived as Gordon gained 21 on his next two touches. After a pass interference call gave the Broncos a fresh set of downs, the veteran back took advantage of a big hole created when rookie defensive tackle Levi Onwuzurike was blown off the line by a double team and Anzalone guessed wrong and found himself out of position to make a play, resulting in a 13-yard pickup.
On the next play, the Broncos ran another counter, getting much of the defensive formation moving right while Gordon went left. The edge defender to that side, Rashod Berry, another rarely used player, was cut down and sealed outside the lane by a pulling tight end, while Anzalone was easily blocked up by offensive tackle Garett Bolles in the second level.
After another short Gordon run, Williams checked in and scored from 5 yards out on a counter going right. The tight end was able to keep Lemonier outside the lane, while right tackle Bobby Massie sealed Onwuzurike inside.
Safety Jalen Elliott was unblocked on the play, but was late to react to the handoff, not making contact until the 2-yard line, where the back used his momentum to power across the goal line.
On the team’s second possession, the Broncos opened with six consecutive runs, with Williams taking the handoff the first five for 25 yards. The Broncos had a couple of nice blocking designs during the stretch, including a third-and-1 that sealed much of the defense inside and got the back one-on-one with cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman on the perimeter. The veteran defensive back made an impressive open-field stop, but not before Williams picked up the first down.
Williams gained 9 yards on the next snap when Berry was again taken out by a pulling tight end. In the second level, it was rookie Derrick Barnes who found himself out of position, overreacting to that pulling motion and abandoning his gap responsibility.
After a 32-yard pass to tight end Noah Fant on a perfect throw from quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, the Broncos capped the series with four runs on the next five plays. None of the four red zone carries gained more than 3 yards, but they got the job done with Gordon plunging in from a yard out for the touchdown on third-and-goal.
Settling down
Detroit’s run defense settled in the second quarter and the Broncos would go three-and-out with their third possession. That sequence was kickstarted by strong gap across the board responsibility on first down, forcing Williams to bounce outside where he was met by Robey-Coleman and dropped after a short gain.
Denver’s next possession also fell apart quickly when rookie defensive tackle Alim McNeill registered his first sack, taking advantage of excellent coverage erasing Bridgewater’s first read. That hesitation gave McNeill the time to shed his blocker and drop the quarterback for a 5-yard loss.
The Broncos tried to get some of that yardage back with a draw play to Gordon, but it was blown up in the backfield by Charles Harris, who nearly bull rushed Bolles into the exchange before peeling off to make a tackle behind the line of scrimmage.
Denver got the ball back once more before the half, but strictly stuck to the pass in the hurry-up situation that netted a field goal as time expired.
Game slips away
To be fair, the defense got put in some pretty rough spots in the third quarter after Godwin Igwebuike’s fumble and the offense couldn’t convert on a fourth down had the Broncos twice starting inside Detroit’s 40-yard line.
But instead of limiting the damage, the Lions allowed touchdowns on both possessions.
After the fumble, the Broncos gave the ball to Gordon three straight times, with the first two gaining 22 yards before a hold wiped out the third.
Gordon gained an easy 6 yards on the first after Brockers was easily driven out of his gap by a double-team on the inside zone play. The back followed that up with 16 more, turning a bad situation into the day’s biggest gain.
After taking the single-back handoff, Gordon ran into trouble as Woods aggressively shot into the backfield. The back hesitated and got some late help from rookie guard Quinn Meinerz, who peeled off his combo block to push Woods past the play. Gordon was then able to bounce the run outside, to the right, and get the edge before being chased down by Barnes.
Three plays later, Williams was back in the end zone for a second time, but this one came on a little flare to the left flat. With only one man to beat, the back spun through a tackle attempt by Elliott for the 10-yard score.
Minutes later, after the Lions turned it back over on downs, the Broncos continued to punish the Lions on the ground with four straight runs.
Williams received the first three carries, netting gains of 5, 5 and 9. Woods did a solid job on the first two, limiting the potential damage with his execution, but got caught cheating on the third carry as the Broncos’ effective tandem block on Onwuzurike opened the lane for a 9-yard pickup.
Gordon checked in and finished the drive with a 14-yard touchdown up the gut. The Lions went light in the fox on the snap, opting to put five across the line of scrimmage with just Barnes in the second level.
Whatever the defense intended to do was disrupted by Meinerz knocking Onwuzurike out of his gap with a strong punch. With Berry sealed outside by the tight end and the right tackle shooting into the second level to body Barnes, Gordon burst through the hole untouched, angling away from and running through a diving tackle attempt by Elliott to finish the play.
Performance punctuated
With comeback hopes dashed by another turnover on downs, this time deep in Denver territory, the defense found to force a punt early in the fourth quarter. That rare stop came on the back of two effective run stops, starting with Woods shooting his gap on first down to drop Gordon for a loss of a yard.
That speedbump was quickly forgotten as the Broncos milked more than seven minutes off the clock while driving 88 yards on 14 plays for the game’s final score.
They opened that series with a smart, play-action pass, taking advantage of the increasingly aggressive play of Detroit’s linebackers to execute a simple rollout pass to the tight end for 16 yards.
That transitioned into a stretch of five consecutive runs, followed by another three straight for Gordon, before another play-action pass to the tight end capped the series.
Conclusions
As you might expect, there wasn’t a singular issue with Detroit’s inability to bottle up Denver’s backs. Up front, the inexperienced outside linebackers struggled to set an edge, while the interior linemen had issues holding their ground against double teams, particularly Brockers and Onwuzurike.
During his limited playing time before exiting with an ankle injury, Anzalone was wholly ineffective, while Barnes also rarely found himself in position to make plays.
Woods, taking on a much bigger role with Anzalone out, had some predictable inconsistencies, but he ramped up his aggression in the second quarter and put himself to make more and more plays as the game progressed. Similarly, Anthony Pittman flashed some instincts with his playing time in the second half.
The secondary, particularly the safeties, weren’t much help in run support. Elliott, filling in for Tracy Walker, who landed on the COVID list late in the week, consistently showed his inexperience with his slow reactions and missed tackles.
jdrogers@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @Justin_Rogers