When asked about the first offensive play against the Oakland Raiders, Denver Broncos OC Rich Scangarello said he wants to be a fearless play caller.
As we know, the Denver Broncos were unable to come away with a win against the Oakland Raiders on Monday night. One of the question marks in the game was the very first offensive play for Denver.
That play was a jet sweep play to rookie tight end Noah Fant. Unfortunately, the play backfired for Denver, as it went for a 5-yard loss. The next two plays were positive, as they went for a combined fourteen yards.
The problem there was that, in the end, it was fourth-down-and-one and the Broncos had to punt.
Broncos offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello acknowledged that play on Thursday:
He has a good point. As an NFL player, you should not be afraid to fail. Something that is always engraved into the heads of players is “one play at a time.” There is no question that plenty of things went wrong for the Denver Broncos on Monday night. Blaming the loss on that drive is not very smart.
However, it was the first week of the season and it would have been nice to execute regular plays instead of a gadget play during the very first series. Scangarello is a first-time play caller. He will absolutely learn when it is the right time to call something like that.
It is good to see Scangarello take ownership of that mistake of a play. It is easy to blame the players, but the players are supposed to do what they are told to by the coaches.
Going forward, I expect the offense to continue to improve on everything, including when it is the right time to try and pull off a gimmick play.