Denver Broncos quarterback Teddy Bridgewater has to stop leaving plays on the table after the bye or the Broncos will go down in flames.
The Denver Broncos are 5-5 and coming out of the bye week, they have a chance to jump from fourth place in the AFC West all the way into second place.
As hard as that is to believe, it’s true.
The Broncos are not out of the 2021 playoff chase, not even a little bit.
Teddy Bridgewater has to be more aggressive for the Broncos
Teddy Bridgewater is on his way to a career year in 2021 with the Denver Broncos. That is both a testament to his strong play in about four games so far as well as a couple of games in which he was able to put up some garbage time stats.
Although the stats may tell a different story, the fact of the matter is, Bridgewater is not passing the eye test this season and has left far too many plays on the table.
Bridgewater is earning a reputation among Broncos Country for throwing the ball five yards on 3rd-and-7 almost all of the time. Although that’s obviously not literally true, that’s the way it feels because of how often Bridgewater has thrown short of the sticks on third down plays.
Although Courtland Sutton leads the team in targets this season, and Tim Patrick is not all that far behind, the Broncos have thrown a combined 58 passes to their running backs Melvin Gordon, Javonte Williams, and Mike Boone.
Considering how little of an impact it feels the running backs are making in the passing game in general, those 58 targets (which would rank third on the team behind Noah Fant’s 59) feel like a lot of plays left on the field.
As in, checking the ball down to a back when a calculated downfield risk could be taken.
The fact that the running backs are outpacing $30 million receiver Tim Patrick this season is not good.
The fact that even considering his time missed to injury, Jerry Jeudy doesn’t have a touchdown this season? Unacceptable.
Courtland Sutton has been targeted 14 times in the last four games combined.
Patrick has been targeted just 19 times in that same timeframe.
Melvin Gordon and Javonte Williams have been targeted 12 and 14 times, and Williams had a game with zero targets.
What’s the point?
The point is, too much offense is being left on the table for the Denver Broncos because of Teddy Bridgewater’s unwillingness to push the ball downfield.
Specifically, in the last month, Bridgewater has not been getting the ball to his star receivers nearly enough.
The fact that Gordon and Williams are getting the same number (or even close) of targets as Courtland Sutton is embarrassing for Bridgewater, the Broncos, and everyone involved in the offense in general.
Some advanced statistics would tell you that Bridgewater has been among the league leaders in air yards per throw, but once again, that hasn’t been the case in recent weeks whatsoever.
Bridgewater’s downfield throwing must be better, more consistent, and the wide receivers must be fed much more than they have been.
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If Bridgewater doesn’t stop leaving offense on the table after the bye week, the Denver Broncos will go down in flames.