Tape Don’t Lie: Trevor Siemian should not be the Denver Broncos’ Starter

Trevor Siemian has played poorly as of late, but I assumed a lot of it was due to his injured shoulder. Even though it is not his throwing shoulder, it still has sapped his power and some of his accuracy as he cannot fully follow through on every pass.

However, once I put on the tape, it was the same story from all my profiles on him in the preseason. He looks to the check-down far too often (but not to the RB, just the TE and WR checkdowns which is extra maddening).

What’s different from the preseason are his reads. Against vanilla defenses, he knew which throws were open and showed off his accuracy on short passes to win the job.

It took the NFL about a month to catch up on the 7^th round unknown. Here’s their second play of the game against the Raiders last Sunday.

Demaryius Thomas turned the DB’s hips and is breaking open into a clear throwing window. Meanwhile, the safety is reading Siemian’s eyes that are locked on to a covered Sanders.

There’s a decent chance that could have been a touchdown if he hit DT in stride. On the next play, we see the Raiders jumping all over Siemian’s tendency again.

DJ Hayden (#25) is so certain the checkdown is coming that he’s pointing to the safety to run down and cover the zone that DT’s route is flowing into. Meanwhile, Sanders is wide open on a slightly deeper in route.