The Broncos have yet to get out of their own way through three weeks in a 1-2 start that’s been confounding from a variety of directions. Here’s a look at stock movers around the team after a brutal last-second Week 3 loss to the Chargers.
Stock up
Courtland Sutton, WR1: The Broncos paid this guy $92 million for a reason this offseason, folks. Sutton’s not just a veteran leader in this young receiving room; he’s also Bo Nix’s most trusted target. And Sutton quietly had one of the better games of his career Sunday, finishing with 118 yards and a touchdown on six catches. When the Broncos’ pass game struggled, Nix simply looked to Sutton’s side of the field. Head coach Sean Payton said it’d be “important” in Week 3 to find Sutton touches, and he got them.
Sean Payton’s aggressiveness: Say what you want about the personnel rotations. Say what you want about the aggressiveness. It worked on Sunday. Payton dialed up an absolute beauty that completely shifted momentum going into halftime: a fake-pitch to J.K. Dobbins with left tackle Garett Bolles lined up on the right side of the formation that ended with Bo Nix tossing a 52-yard bomb to a wide-open Sutton. The Broncos would’ve — should’ve — pulled off a successful flea-flicker on a second-quarter third-and-19, too, if Nix had just put a tad less air under a ball to Marvin Mims, Jr.
Nik Bonitto’s speed-rush: The world has rarely seen a pass-rusher burst off the line of scrimmage as fast as Bonitto did a couple of times Sunday. Chargers tackle Joe Alt came into Week 3 having allowed just one pressure through two games. Bonitto made him look like a turnstile on a couple of snaps, as the Broncos outside linebacker recorded two sacks and handed another to John Franklin-Myers. Bonitto has gradually bulked up to 250 pounds over the course of his NFL career, and it clearly hasn’t affected his first step.
Alex Singleton: It’s no secret that Singleton struggles in coverage, and he still allowed six catches for 53 yards when targeted Sunday. Dre Greenlaw would help cover up some of those flaws if he were healthy. But on the first anniversary of last year’s devastating ACL tear, Singleton had his best early game of the season against the Chargers, racking up a team-high 12 tackles in his Southern California hometown. He had several impressive stops in the run game and laid a variety of L.A. ball-carriers on their backsides. The lateral quickness needs to improve, but Singleton played a solid north-south game Sunday.
Stock down
Pounding the rock: The Broncos’ run game generated absolutely nothing in the first half against the Chargers, a week after Payton resolved to give the ball to Dobbins three straight plays to open Week 2. Dobbins exploded in the third quarter and entered the final frame of Sunday’s game with 10 carries for 79 yards — prime position to become the first rusher in the Sean Payton era to eclipse 100 yards in a ballgame.
Payton then gave Dobbins one carry the entire fourth quarter.
Dobbins seemed to settle into a comfortable role in Week 2 as the opener and closer in the Broncos’ offense. But he was neither in Week 3. Payton gave touches to rookie RJ Harvey to lead off the game and then had Bo Nix drop back to try to extend Denver’s lead late. The commitment to the run game for three weeks has been about as consistent as 1990s-era Dennis Rodman’s commitment to a single hair color.
RJ Harvey: On that note — Denver’s second-round pick has picked up 10 yards on the ground across seven carries combined the last two weeks. Payton hasn’t shown a clear faith in Harvey to figure it out in a two-back system, even if he has obvious big-play ability.
“You just keep giving him stuff that he feels comfortable doing out there,” running backs coach Lou Ayeni told The Denver Post last week.
Harvey, though, has taken exactly one snap through three weeks as a pass-blocker, as the Broncos clearly prefer Dobbins and RB3 Tyler Badie on third-down looks. It’s hard to keep Harvey on the field if the team doesn’t trust him in such situations.
Denver’s WR distribution: On the bright side, Sutton had 118 yards Sunday. On the gloomy side, the Broncos had 153 passing yards total. In other words, Sutton had over three-quarters of the Broncos’ passing offense. This is a theme that’s persisted; Franklin was the guy in Week 2 with minimal looks for Sutton. Starting any Denver receiver in fantasy football right now is a complete crapshoot.
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“I never even really knew that was possible, to be honest,” Nix said of the offensive offsides penalty.
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