Is Denver's Offense Fixable? | Kurt Warner Breaks Down the Tape on Russell Wilson and the Broncos

Alright, studio head special edition and a tweet posted earlier in the week about watching the Broncos in the first half and my frustration with some of the Broncos details, so I don't like to send those tweets ever. I often can't keep up with what I'm talking about and the details I'm talking about, so I wanted to make sure I put in some of these plays. I think I got 11 plays that came out of the first half. from this game you know a lot of things that I'm doing well why why you do it exactly like this why this particular detail how does that help or maybe more importantly, don't you know how that can hinder a quarterback's thinking?

The process or the type of throws he has tells you a few things at the quarterback position, so again I just wanted to break down some of the plays I saw early in this game and some of the same issues I'm still seeing. With this Denver Broncos

offense

, everything is fine, here we go. Okay, early game of the game, so they have this play that is a go and a go and then they are going to turn their back to this side, let's run. another seam down here and then we're going to run down this side okay so a couple of things here so once we see too high rotation they're going to be too high okay so what I'm looking for is this guy, right? microphone linebacker here Mike linebacker turns here to Jerry Judy comes on the field okay great now I have a chance if I want it to be two on one against this safety okay so I'm going two on one against this safety if this safety stays hidden inside and I want to go outside and this corner takes it with it, so I can just kick it into my swing right here, so I just want you to look at this part first so you can see it.

I put the microphone on the linebacker. turn over there, okay, I've got this here, the safety hidden inside maybe I'll have a shot here again if I feel like this guy's gotten soft enough, which he's gotten pretty soft here, just kick him right there and we get a played while we play this. You see a possible shot right here. I know the ball is coming anyway. Everyone's looking at it, but you see the potential two-on-ones coming back to that side of the swing. Now I want to get into the details of this other side, so I mentioned this in a tweet a couple of weeks ago is that I can't stand receivers running Slants or unders inside short breaking routes on inside breaking routes and they start releasing outside what we call velocity release, okay, so we release velocity. outside waiting for this guy to turn and walk away because he thinks we're following a route and then we can slap him and go back under him, okay yeah sometimes it works but I think most of the time it works.

It doesn't work against good cornerbacks who aren't afraid of you running next to them most of the time, so they'll sit back, stay in your back pocket and contest the throw, so you Look here, Cortland Sutton, try to break free from the outside, try go outside the guy, what's the corner? He squats because the other thing here is that he knows he has help on top? He's not even worried about it because he's not in man to... man coverage, so we try to push out, he squats on us, this is where Russell tries to go with the ball, which again I'm good because there's really no one in this window.

I'm fine with him making the decision to release it, but he watches. at Cortland Sutton the defender is hitting it the defender is inside it we have no chance to complete this ball and it's almost intercepted okay and again I don't know why we continue to throw speed you just have it the space it just seems inside it it seems inside lean on it him lean on it then spread yourself wide, worst case scenario the receiver is between the defender and the ball and I guard him and we have a chance to complete it, he has to go through me to get the you know. knock the ball down and I'm winning for my quarterback, my quarterback comes at me and expects me to be inside that defender, instead we're losing leverage, we can't get back in and my quarterback doesn't have any possibility. going to that side when it should be on Easy Completion Details the details are all the details across the board okay here's a tough one so let's run a play I call 72 okay I'm not a fan of this one work, whatever it is.

In my opinion it's only good against man, although everyone in the league does it against Zone and I don't understand it because we have to wait for the defense to make a mistake to make it against Zone, but we're going to do it anyway and then we're going to running this particular concept here, okay, I call it under, so it's an inside and an under over, okay, again, this is just a play in my opinion that's good against too high, so basically we have , Hey you. We know we have a situation here where we have a play on the bottom that is only good against man coverage and a play on the top that is only good against an overly tall shell.

You'll notice that in this play we don't get either of those things. Of those we have a high defense of three, why don't I like this? Well, because I have a corner that will be there for route seven and I have two under the fenders here for this. under so I don't have any advantage here as to where these routes go, there's no advantage, so for me it's only good against the man when everyone's chasing the man. Now we have two fugitives. I can live with that against the Zone. I don't like it because in most situations, you're going to have guys in these particular areas that can take it away.

Well, go to this side, okay, on this side we are also in a bind because they have one guy sitting in the inside zone and another guy who should be taking the outside zone, so we are not getting any advantage for either of them. these sides against this type of defense, so I always talk about giving answers to the quarterbacks, giving answers to the quarterbacks, what is my answer against Cover Zone 3 on this particular play. you don't have an answer, you have to wait for the defense to screw it up and that gives you an answer, so they kind of screw it up because this guy here chases instead of just passing it to this guy he chases, so now there's a possible shot , TRUE? there, but as a quarterback, how do I know that?

How do I know where to read this particular play when neither side is really good against this coverage? You put it on your back and you're forced to throw it behind your back, but when you're stuck in this situation as a quarterback, you're just left guessing. Okay, which side should I choose, maybe I'll get this guy to carry all seven. and I'll play this right before him, yeah, but now we're making things up, now we're trying to force things because there's no quality design on this plate to attack this particular coverage to me, that's why good play design it's one that has answers against every coverage and they may not be good answers, but at least you can see as a quarterback what the possibilities are on a particular play, so Russell is right, you're going to get sacked here and yes, it's a quick pressure and we can I talk about a lot of things from the beginning because I agree, I don't know if he is completing any of these passes anyway because the pressure comes very quickly, but the bottom line is that there is no answer anyway, there is no Nowhere you can go unless you let him. his check here against a cover three coverage, which to me is something that we always have to have an answer for because everyone has it in their playbook, so here we go, everyone remembers this interception in the game, so basically we have all. let's go again, okay, we're running, it goes there, we're running, it's going this way.

Okay, so we have to go everywhere, back, checking the ball. Okay, so what we're going to see when we get this particular coverage once again is that We're actually going to read, just pick one side, but we could read this Mike sponsor if we think it's Tampa two, so if it opens like this Now once again, I could go to my two against one on this guy or else we don't. I don't think it's Tampa two, now we could read our two on one on this guy, so either way it really works, so look up first, so if I'm looking up you'll see that here will be our two.

One is probably a good shot to hit all that outside shot. Okay, if we look down, where he is here. Okay, now we look at the safety and read it accordingly, but here are the details I want to talk about. I want you to see this tight end here, this tight end here, run directly to the middle of the field, run directly to the middle of the field, so again I'm going to let you see that he's running directly to the middle of the field. there, okay, he's at an angle, he runs straight to midfield when he does that, okay, this guy is not threatened by him at all, so this guy is going to widen and hold his position, what does that mean if I want to try launch?

This ball right here I have to place a perfect ball up and over the corner, but with enough speed to beat the safety and it becomes a very, very difficult shot. Well, Kurt, what would you do differently? What I would do differently is. I get whatever release I have to get and then I would attack the safety, I would attack the safety, okay, attack the safety, you try to get him to turn and throw with you, which now gives me the ability, as a quarterback, to have more air margin for my launch. On the field, the other thing he does is if this guy wants to extend now, he's giving me a better shooting lane because I have distance from this guy and this guy now has to chase me to get the relationship we want.

If I'm just going to run inside, I'm running at this guy, he's running right on my back and I have no separation for my quarterback. then I can set my angle and it will give my quarterback a better launching angle. Here he will have a better influence on the safety, so we have to just run straight in, so again the safety feels good. You see this guy's pitch. right here we're trying to throw it perfectly up and over because we're a little worried about this guy here and again it's not a great throw it leaves him underneath but all those elements make it more difficult for a quarterback and this leads to a great interception in the game, okay, not all bad like this one here, okay, we're going to run this, we're going to have a great finish and then we're going to sneak over here, so we're going to get a high and low with my back and my route here is fine, so I like the game design.

I like what we're trying to do here. Okay, in the back we're going to run a corner and then wherever I go to the flat, so if I get deck two I can read the high and low back if I want, but we're all good in the front, good work, this Defender that we're coming down high falls under the end arm, leave it right there, it's third and long and I was I'm going to tell you that the quarterbacks make the play, okay, this is the play they gave you, make the play, don't try to block it here just so you can get the first down, this is your play read, the play says leave it on my check. down I leave it on my check down even if we're not going to get the first try good decision right there good game design we get a good profit even though we don't come all the way back for the first try okay?

I didn't want to be completely negative, although I didn't like a lot of details about some of this stuff, hey, it was a good play, good execution, good stuff, okay, so here we go, some game action we're going to do. run this is a rod or a deep hook when I say read sometimes if this safety goes down okay we just read this and take it to the top and run a pole if that's safety it stays if that safety stays high so we just hooked it right there and read it and then we have a guy going to the apartment and then we have a check underneath, okay, so the most important thing as we do this is that we are stepping up, I want you to feel it, I want you to give it a chance for you to see how fast Russell is already throwing this football right now, he's already throwing it right now, okay, but I think there's a big window here to hit the chunk throw right here.

Step up time your feet to the throw and give the throw a chance, give the chunk throw a chance right there, okay, right there we have a window to make that throw, instead we're checking it out, hey, check that one out. window, this guy has a little more. depth I'm fine, go ahead and check it out, but give it a chance, give some of these pitches a chance. I think this ball tilts over, let's see it from The End Zone, copy, play, pretend, okay, you see it, okay, this. The guy goes there, looks at this guy, turned his back on him,corner, okay, that corner softens, so once that corner softens, my eyes are on this guy here, okay? so if this guy gets away with me, I have to work back to this end or get to my checkpoint, well once that corner is closed and bail out if this guy takes it all, that should be my shot right now and I say that because Russell is looking to the left.

I could very easily say forget all that. I don't like that front side and I'm going to go back to my high and low. I can live with that because his eyes are on the left, we have to talk. about that went well so I'm going out I see a soft corner out there this guy is soft there's your shot you're trying to get out of bounds anyway you're trying to stop the clock that's the shot on this particular play I gotta let it go you have to let it go right there watch it break right there let it go let it go The pressure is coming I get it that's why you have to see it and you have to anticipate it this guy's hips are turned inward let this go outward, if we fail, We miss, but no one else will get it, if we hit it, we get exactly what we want, we catch it and we go out of bounds, so let's see why I had so much frustration. of different things happening with that

offense

a lot of things that can be cleaned up are small details it's not that all the plays are terrible and have no answers and we're not really sure that there are some good things There are some things that are open as you can see from everywhere, but we have to better understand the details toFor me, the details make the quarterback's job a lot easier.

The small details and the little movement of the defenders make shots easier and increase the margin of error. Okay, Russell Russell has to do a better job of understanding where I get advantages within this offense, maybe it's not something he's done in the past, but we have to come to understand where the numbers work in our favor, we're spacing plays in our favor, the receivers have to understand what their technique is, win quickly and win to take advantage of what that is the right thing to do for quarterback coaches, we have to make sure we give our quarterback answers against all the things that we can see the best that we can so it doesn't get caught in the pocket when they have limited protection like we do.

We know we don't talk a lot about protection, we know they've had problems up front, that's why it's so important to get the ball out to see how to get the ball out, call plays that have answers for your quarterback, so we've got to do a better job of giving you answers in certain situations, so again, that's why you see the frustration. It's not just one thing, it's here, it's there, it's over, it's this problem, it's that problem and now it leads to a really, really bad offense. victory in football there are opportunities there are opportunities for them to be successful if they start putting it all together everyone is on the same page this can change because they are still in this many ups and downs in the NFL season, they are still in this if they can turn things around quickly, but it's been ugly and this is just an example, these are 11 12 plays from just the first half the other day and that's what in week eight, game eight should start to clean up some of This is getting better across the board. if they want to have any chance of saving the season.