Karl Mecklenburg originally shared this post on his social media pages, and it was re-shared here with permission.

The Broncos Thursday night win against the Seahawks was a defensive struggle. It was appropriate that an interception in overtime set up the game winning field goal. I don’t want to minimize how well both defenses played, and I usually don’t get technical here, but there were way too many football 101 offensive mistakes made in that game.

One that stands out to me happened a couple of times when a Broncos wide receiver was coming in motion to block the end man on the line of scrimmage on what is called a crack block. He’s coming from the outside in, looking to allow the running back to bounce outside of him. It’s an outside play, not a zone pick-a-hole play. The wide receiver can’t block the defender in the back so it’s up to the running back to get outside so the defender will turn into the wide out. In each case the running back cut the ball inside and was tackled by the unblocked defender for little or no gain.

The Broncos had five sacks in the game. On the first two sacks the pass rusher was completely unblocked with a Seattle lineman looking around not blocking anyone. Coordinated pass blocking requires communication between the linemen. The crowd noise in Denver makes that communication difficult and the Denver defense takes advantage of that with varied schemes.

Todays NFL teams, especially offenses, take more time to coordinate. With free agency moving players from team to team, training camp contact restrictions, very few full speed drills, and fewer preseason games, it takes time to get everyone on the same page at full speed. Throw the shortened preparation time for a Thursday night game on top of that, and you get sloppy play with multiple mental errors. It’s hard to win in the NFL. It’s hard to beat last year’s Super Bowl Champion. It’s hard to win when you don’t play your best. The Broncos have put together a 4-2 record, against good opponents, while not playing their best on offense. They should continue to improve, and win, as the season goes on. Go Broncos!