Parker Gabriel’s 7 thoughts following Broncos’ win in London, including an offensive line problem and how Sean Payton can fix it ...Middle East

LONDON — The Broncos somehow, some way got out of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday afternoon with a 13-11 win over the New York Jets. Actually, there was no somehow about it. Nine sacks against Jets quarterback Justin Fields did the trick.

Now Denver returns to Colorado with a home-heavy stretch of the schedule upcoming and a real chance to take their 4-2 record and make more hay.

They also have several questions to answer.

Here are 7 thoughts following the win.

1. The Broncos have an offensive line problem and it may not be as simple as the old mantra ‘next man up.’

Let’s caveat this first. The Broncos finally looked like they had a good thing rolling with their offensive line, the run game and protection, and an entire offensive flow when they left Philadelphia a week ago. It’s not impossible to recapture that kind of momentum. It’s not even impossible that Sean Payton could opt for the status quo after a rough afternoon and get better production in the coming weeks from the same group.

The eye test, however, provided a fairly simple diagnosis in England: Denver misses injured left guard Ben Powers badly and should at least consider its options at left guard beyond sticking with veteran Matt Peart.

A quick reset of how the Broncos got to this point: Powers tore his bicep on Denver’s final drive against the Eagles, meaning the club needs a new left guard for the first time since signing him in March 2023. He’d started 39 straight games before the injury.

During training camp, the Broncos used two guys who had previously been swing tackles for the team as their primary backups at four positions: Peart at left tackle and left guard, Alex Palczewski at right tackle and right guard.

The rationale: Payton explained that most linemen are more comfortable sliding inside-out or vice versa rather than flipping sides.

Peart did not look that way on Sunday.

He was penalized three times — a false start and two holding penalties — and had an up-and-down afternoon in both pass protection and the run game.

He wasn’t alone, but it wasn’t pretty.

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“I love Peart. There’s a reason why we count on him,” left tackle Garett Bolles told The Denver Post after playing next to a new guard for the first time since 2022. “He’s one of those guys. Obviously, he knows what he can do better. I’m not going to comment on those things. Obviously, he did what he needed to do, and I thought we communicated well, did some good things for our first game. But obviously we need to be better, and I need to be better — I’ve got to make him feel comfortable. I’m going to do a better job of that next week.”

Perhaps the Broncos will carry on with Peart at left guard. One of the things Powers did really well was communicate with Bolles, who is a terrific athlete and has been dynamic in pass-protection.

Denver has a forceful defensive front coming up next week with the New York Giants, though, and they should at least consider whether another alignment makes more sense.

The Band-Aid fix might be to plop practice squad guard Calvin Throckmorton in the lineup to give the Broncos a more natural fit at the position.

The reality, however, is Powers is going to be out two months or more. If there’s a time to experiment and try to find the best combination, it’s now.

That’s where it’s easy to wonder whether Alex Forsyth should be part of the solution. There are two ways to go about that. The first is to simply insert him at left guard and see how it goes.

The other would be to slide Luke Wattenberg to left guard and put Forsyth at center.

Forsyth, a third-year man from Oregon, has history with Nix in that they were college teammates. He also stepped in ably at center last year when Wattenberg did a four-week stint on injured reserve early in the year for a foot injury.

Playing Forsyth at either center or guard next to Wattenberg would come with some risk. The club clearly didn’t initially see that as the optimal route or they would have done it already. Teams typically don’t want to A) shuffle more pieces than they absolutely have to or B) disrupt any growing chemistry between the center and the quarterback.

However, the upside includes potentially checking several boxes.

If the arrangement worked, the Broncos could deploy two interior players in Wattenberg and Forsyth who are comfortable getting out on the move and playing in some of the wide zone concepts they’ve tried to incorporate more of this season.

They’d be able to evaluate whether the team needs to consider adding some interior depth as the trade deadline nears on the horizon.

Not as important, but potentially icing on the cake: Denver could get a look at what it has in the middle in Forsyth before having to make an offseason decision on Wattenberg, who is an impending free agent, and Powers, who could be a salary cap casualty next spring. Powers has an $18.425 million cap hit but no guaranteed money for 2026.

And as a bonus, they’d be able to maintain the roster status as-is rather than needing to add Throckmorton to the 53.

If it didn’t work, returning to the current setup or putting Throckmorton in the lineup wouldn’t take long.

There’s not much risk in the picture looking worse than it did Sunday.

“We’ve got to fix a lot of issues,” Bolles said. “There’s some things we’re just not doing correctly. We’ve got to look at the film and digest that because we’ve got a quick turnaround and a good team coming in Sunday, and we’ve got to figure out what’s going on.”

2. Vance Joseph relied heavily on simulated pressures against Philadelphia and then did away with any simulation in crunch time against New York.

Some of the prettiest defensive tape in the NFL this year came via Denver defensive coordinator Vance Joseph last week against Philadelphia on third downs.

He put on a simulated pressure clinic, regularly masking his true intentions by moving the front seven all over and then, almost always, eventually just rushing four.

The Broncos have smart players who can show as many different bluffs as possible and still get where they need to go in coverage.

Joseph calls the group “smart bullies.”

If you can create the free runner or one-on-one that a blitz forces without actually bringing extra bodies, that’s ideal.

“That’s the way to blitz these days,” Joseph said last week. “The ball’s coming out really, really fast. There’s a lot of pass game. So it’s fun to find pressures that can get home with four or five and still have good coverage. That’s the game plan each week.”

That’s not the way Joseph heated up Fields down the stretch on Sunday, however.

He did away with the “simulated” part of simulated pressure and just brought the house.

Fields dropped back four straight times on New York’s final four plays of the game. Here’s what Joseph did:

• First-and-10: Blitzed seven guys and played Cover 0 behind. Result: Sack for minus-5 by ILB Justin Strnad.

• Second-and-15: Showed six-man pressure, bailed out to four-man rush and played zone behind. Result: 7-yard completion to Garrett Wilson past nickel Ja’Quan McMillian.

• Third-and-8: Blitzed seven and played Cover 0 behind. Result: Fields got the ball out to Wilson, but behind him, and Talanoa Hufanga broke it up.

• Fourth-and-8: Blitzed seven and played Cover 0 behind. Result: Sack by Jonathon Cooper and Brandon Jones.

That’s three all-out blitzes on the final four snaps. Joseph and the Broncos defense basically bet they’d get home fast, and they did.

On the final snap of the night, New York even anticipated what was coming and kept tight end Mason Taylor and running back Isaiah Davis in for a seven-man protection. Cooper blew it up anyway, and the rest collapsed the pocket.

A thought that came to mind as Joseph called the closing sequence: Third-and-10 for the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 3 late in the game. Joseph rushed four and played zone behind, and Keenan Allen found a soft spot, hauled in a dart from Justin Herbert and then tacked on 15 yards when Talanoa Hufanga body slammed him.

Payton lit up Joseph on the sideline after that play. Of course, it’s a big spot, but the call seemed antithetical to the way the Broncos defense has played most of the season. Aggressive. Assertive. Assuming their guys are better than yours.

On Sunday in England, Joseph called the stretch run like he had closers on the field. He did.

3. One of the reasons the Broncos nearly lost Sunday: They got shredded on special teams.

New York started five drives following kickoffs, and their average starting field position came out to their own 43-yard line. The Broncos, meanwhile, started four drives after kickoffs and only managed to start at an average of their own 24.

Overall, the Jets’ average starting field position for the afternoon was their own 36 while Denver mustered only its own 27.

Another key part of that stat: New York racked up 204 total return yards between kicks and punts, while Denver had 115. That’s an 89-yard differential to go along with being minus-9 in overall starting field position and a whopping minus-19 on kickoffs.

That’s a bad day at the office for special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi.

“The big return they had, there’s contact made,” Payton said, indicating perhaps the return was more about missed tackles than scheme. “Still, we kind of knew going in they were in the top ten in kick return yardage. But I felt, in a lot of phases, even when we doubled the jammer, you ought to be able to win a look, and they’re splitting it or beating us.

“I think Darren is probably just as disappointed relative to his units as I would be relative to our offense.”

Payton had to make several coaching hires this offseason because his staff got raided after a 10-win season.

The special teams makeover, though, was Payton’s choice. After senior assistant Mike Westhoff resigned in the middle of the 2024 season to address a health issue with his eyes, Payton decided to fire coordinator Ben Kotwica when the year ended.

He could have promoted young assistant Chris Banjo to special teams coordinator but wasn’t sure the 35-year-old was ready for the job.

Instead, he let Banjo leave when the Jets came calling and offered him their coordinator job. Later, he hired Rizzi when Rizzi didn’t get the New Orleans head coaching job. It’s just one game, but Banjo’s group clearly outclassed Rizzi’s, and it almost cost Denver a game.

Payton has a saying about young talent on the roster: You don’t want to have a young player in your building, let him leave and then see him succeed somewhere else. Coaching’s not always as controllable, but the same principle applies.

The Jets may have a lot of problems at 0-6, but their special teams coordinator isn’t one of them.

Can the 4-2 Broncos say the same?

3b. One more note on the special teams front: It could easily have been much worse. The Broncos finally clawed the lead back with a 27-yard Wil Lutz field goal with 5:09 to play when Isaiah Davis blasted up the field on the kick return. It appeared he had a seam and was headed for a huge return, if not a touchdown. Except reserve safety Devon Key sliced in at the last minute, dove and tripped Davis up. Heck of a play and a tackle that perhaps prevented a 5-alarm fire.

4. Quinn Meinerz is frustrated by defenders using their helmets and he’s decided he needs to be more proactive about it

The Broncos’ first-team All-Pro right guard acknowledged he got his “butt whipped” by Jets defensive lineman Michael Clemons on the play that ended with the Broncos taking a safety.

Meinerz fell over backward and still had his hands on Clemons’ jersey as he went down, creating a pulling motion that the referee saw and immediately flagged for holding. The penalty occurred in the end zone and, boom, safety. The Jets pulled ahead, 11-10.

Meinerz, though, is also frustrated.

He said Clemons put his helmet straight into Meinerz’s chest, which is supposed to be a penalty. Not only that, he said Philadelphia defensive tackle Jalen Carter did the same thing on two occasions last week.

“I got a head straight down into my chest,” Meinerz said after the game. “According to the rule book, that is illegal. But I got my butt whipped. … I’ve got to be better. And my part is, I’ve got to talk to the refs. It’s the second week in a row that, by rule, I’m getting illegal rushes. But I’ve got to be better. That’s what happens in this league. I’m going on five years. You can get your butt whipped at any time.”

Meinerz had a chat with the official after the safety on Sunday, but by that time, it was too late and the damage had been done. It’s easy to predict Meinerz will check in with officiating crews before games or early in games going forward to try to ensure they’re looking for what he says are illegal rushes against him.

5. The Broncos’ bubble screen game can be hard to watch. It also might have earned them their only touchdown of the game vs. the Jets

Yeah, bubble screens are not sexy. More to the point, they’re too often not generating much for Payton and the Broncos offense.

Not everything is actually a bubble, but Payton has a variety of bubbles, tunnels, bananas, flat throws and RPOs with quick-hitters to get the ball out of Nix’s hands quickly to playmakers on the perimeter.

There were a couple of times Sunday when the Broncos picked up relatively easy yardage with a tunnel screen to Troy Franklin or a quick throw to the perimeter.

Overall, Nix was 9 of 11 on throws that traveled 3 yards beyond the line of scrimmage or less, according to Next Gen Stats, and eight of his 30 attempts were behind the line of scrimmage.

The quick game’s biggest contribution against New York, however, was creating a wide-open touchdown for tight end Nate Adkins.

Here’s how: Nix set up in the shotgun with running back J.K. Dobbins to his right. He had Troy Franklin out wide to the left and Mims in the slot, then Adkins in the slot to the right and Courtland Sutton on the outside.

Mims went in an orbit motion behind Nix and tracked his motion like he was running a bubble screen. Nix took the snap, flipped his hips out to the right and pump-faked to Mims.

Jets linebacker Jamien Sherwood, a terrific young player, bit hard on the fake and came up to the line of scrimmage toward Mims. One problem: Adkins was in his area, too. Adkins slipped behind him and Nix found him wide open in the end zone.

It definitely helped that two New York defenders followed Sutton to the post, but the screen action definitely sucked Sherwood up into a useless part of the field.

6. Broncos ownership toured Tottenham Hotspur Stadium back in 2022. Here are two ideas for a potential new building at Burnham Yard

When Broncos CEO and owner Greg Penner spoke with reporters Friday, he outlined a couple of stadium-related topics that felt relevant over the course of Sunday’s game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

The first is something he specifically stated as a goal of the Broncos’ new stadium at Burnham Yard, which he described as being in the early stages of design. Of course, there are layers and layers of planning, zoning and approvals to get through before construction even gets close to beginning, but Penner said the club is working with world-class architects and consultants on designing a potential stadium for the site.

“We really want that experience that’s loud,” Penner said then. “We want it to be a place that opposing teams don’t want to come play.”

Well, Tottenham is loud. Really loud. The Broncos’ new stadium won’t be designed exaclty the same way because the goal is to have a retractable roof rather than a canopy like Tottenham, but whatever the acoustics are in the building are worth considering for Denver.

Payton said after the game that he thought the building would be difficult to deal with if it were a true home field rather than the crowd of 61,000-plus being split three ways between Broncos fans, Jets fans and a sizable contingent of other teams’ fans who show up to these games in London because, hey, it’s NFL football.

“I think it would be a tough stadium to play in,” Payton said. “Because you could tell the noise doesn’t travel based the way it’s built.”

Another feature Penner called “a really interesting element”: The way Tottenham Hotspur Stadium handles having both a grass surface (for the soccer club) and turf (for NFL games and all other events).

The natural grass field is a first-of-its-kind, retractable grass soccer pitch. It stores underneath the concourses at the stadium and rolls out over the artificial surface in three parts. Then the sidelines and tunnels raise up, and it all integrates together seamlessly. The grounds crews can work on the grass sections in tight quarters underneath the concourses and get grow lamps on them even when they’re retracted.

According to a video the club put out several years ago as the system was being built, the total grass field and apparatus weigh more than 11,000 tons.

Obviously, the climates in Denver and London are quite different, and so are the growing seasons. Penner has said the club intends to have a natural grass playing surface, and it remains to be seen if they’ll pursue something similar to Tottenham or another kind of retractable field or if they’ll simply have a grass surface in place and keep the roof open enough out of season and away from game days in order to keep it in good shape.

7. Vance Joseph is now a two-time member of The Under 100 Club.

The Broncos on Sunday gave up only 82 total yards of offense to the New York Jets. That’s the fewest a Denver team has allowed since the 1971 season, when the Broncos gave up 60 and 66 on two occasions. Since then, opponents have failed to reach 100 total yards only three times: New England’s 92-yard performance in 1979, a 96-yard outing from the Chargers in 2003 and then Week 18 last year when Kansas City’s back-ups mustered just 98.

The difference from most of those other happenings: Only a few more yards from the Jets and the outcome of this game could have been entirely different. The Broncos won a 6-3 game while giving up 66 yards to Chicago in 1971. Otherwise the final margin of victory in games when they’ve surrendered less than 100 yards were 27 and 38. At Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Denver avoided losing a game despite such a dominant performance by holding the Jets to minus-10 net passing yards.

7b. Behind any good pass-rush is a secondary that can cover, and the Broncos did the job Sunday.

New York Jets receiver Garrett Wilson entered the game leading the AFC in receiving yards but finished the afternoon with three catches (eight targets) for 17 yards. Reigning defensive player of the year Pat Surtain II allowed almost nothing once again on the day and calmly knocked a ball away from Wilson when Fields finally looked his way.

“Obviously, Pat is the best in the game right now,” teammate Nik Bonitto said. “What he did today was special. We ask to guard the best guy, and we don’t hear from him again throughout the game.”

7c. The Broncos took off from the London area at 10:30 p.m. local time Sunday night and were slated to land back in Denver just before 1 a.m Monday, Oct. 13. They left Friday afternoon, Oct. 3. That’s a heck of a long road trip.

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