Denver Is Missing A Huge Piece Of Their Offense
Analyzing the Broncos early down offensive structure through five weeks.
Russell Wilson and Nathaniel Hackett have commandeered one of the worst offenses in the NFL, and Wilson looks to be going through the worst stretch of his career. After all the hype this offseason what could be the biggest reason for an offense that has been as inefficient as this one? Let’s take a look.
Now there could be a lot of different takeaways as to why this offense isn’t producing. Russell Wilson’s play, Hackett’s play-calling, offensive line play, and to some degree all of those reasons are valid. But, the biggest reason for me is the absence of any substantial quick game passing or RPO packages.
If we look back at Nathaniel Hackett’s time in Green Bay, the offense was among the three teams who called the most RPO plays with 191 from 2019-2021 (per SIS charting), and 53% of their quick game passing plays from shotgun generated a positive EPA result. Reciprocally, they were 7th in early down pass frequency.
These things go hand in hand, if you look around the league at some teams who pass often on early downs and successfully stay ahead of the chains the bulk of that offense is quick throws and RPOs. Denver may be 14th in early down pass rate, but they are 20th in drop back EPA per play.
On 1-step drop backs from the gun, Denver has accumulated -15.88 EPA which is the worst total in the league, and 31.5% of passes have generated a positive EPA result, good for 30th in the league. This issue isn’t a talent issue, as Denver has the guys to win early and find open space, and quick game passing isn’t necessarily reliant on talent in my opinion. It is dictated through formations and defensive leverage.
The reason Nathaniel Hackett’s offense looks drastically different than what we thought he would be running is Russell Wilson. Wilson has never been a good quick thrower, that isn’t his game.
Receiver Montrell Washington did a great job of finding open space and sitting in the soft spot of the zone. For whatever reason, Russ didn’t like what he saw and didn’t read out the concept. Progressing to his check down is something he is doing much more than he has in years past, with an ALEX (average distance between the length of throw and the 1st down marker) of -0.5.
In the example above, the play call is a concept called Arches. A stacked release in-breaking route designed to beat man coverage and get the ball to a playmaker in space. The window may not look wide open, but it is a quick hitting concept where the timing and synchronization of the quarterbacks footwork and the break in the route define the throw, and there was definitely a window.
This isn’t to say Hackett is blameless, he absolutely is not. As a coach you scheme for what you have. You can mitigate the negative impact of the quick passing game by substituting a chunk of it with boots, nakeds and sprint-outs as an extension of your under center rushing attack and gain an element of multiplicity that way. The downside of that is it is much less sustainable than an efficient quick game package.
When your quick passing game is as inefficient as Denvers has been, and limited to a few concepts like stick and spacing like it is with Wilson, you lose a level of unpredictability on early downs and are left relying on your run game and high variance shot plays off of it leaving you one dimensional. As a result you often see your offense behind schedule and having to overcome 3rd and longs more than you should.