Top 5 reasons the Broncos failed in season opener vs. Seahawks

The Denver Broncos lost a close game to the Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night Football in a game that will be remembered for a wide variety of reasons. Russell Wilson made his return to Seattle to a chorus of boos from the crowd, and the Broncos came out in this game looking extremely sloppy. Unfortunately, as the night progressed, that would not improve.

The Broncos lost to the Seahawks 17-16 despite a second-half resurgence from the Denver defense after a pretty awful-looking first half. The game ended on a bizarre 64-yard field goal attempt from Brandon McManus. More on that in a bit. The Broncos had a wide variety of chances to put this game well out of reach but they simply couldn’t execute.

So why did they fail in this game? There’s not really just one reason that will tell the full story. That, in itself, is quite unfortunate. We need to unpack a variety of reasons why this game went poorly for the Denver Broncos and why it ended with Seahawks defensive lineman Shelby Harris signing off with a “Let’s Ride.”

Broncos HC Nathaniel Hackett makes questionable decisions in final moments

This is one that certainly has some layers to it. Let’s start with the obvious, though.

At the end of the game, the Denver Broncos had the ball with plenty of time left on the clock. The offense simply had to get the ball in reasonable field goal range for Brandon McManus, something that shouldn’t have been overly difficult for them to do considering the Broncos punted just one time on the entire evening and had moved the ball for 433 yards of offense including almost seven yards per play.

Russell Wilson averaged 8.1 yards per completion. Javonte Williams averaged 6.1 yards per carry. In the end-of-game scenario, the Broncos were trying to bleed the clock out and not give the Seahawks an opportunity to respond. That’s not the problem, though. The problem is, on a 4th-and-6 from the 47, Nathaniel Hackett decided to send out the field goal unit instead of putting the ball in his $296 million quarterback’s hand.

There have been 25 field goals made from 60-plus yards in the Super Bowl era. The odds of your kicker making one, historically, are below low. The odds of Russell Wilson completing a pass for six or seven yards? Well, he did it on average throughout the game. It was a horrendous decision by Hackett to bleed the clock out with over a minute to play on fourth down and not keep his timeouts, go for it on fourth, and try to get the ball back from Seattle again.

Unfortunately for Hackett, his feelings here betrayed him horribly. As a rookie head coach in the NFL, we can expect Hackett to be a little imperfect, but this was bordering on football 101. You’ve got a superstar quarterback, and you’re going to kick from 64 while letting the clock bleed out? It just makes no sense. How can you justify the odds of a 64-yard field goal over the odds of Wilson converting a 4th-and-6?

But again, there are layers to this game from Hackett.

Broncos fumble not once but twice from the one-yard line

If you were wondering, no NFL team has fumbled twice at the one-yard line in the same game since 1987. Not until the Denver Broncos played the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night, that is.

Fans on Twitter were absolutely livid over the first fumble from the one, which game on a fourth-down play. Russell Wilson lined up in the shotgun formation, which had everyone frazzled in the first place, but Melvin Gordon was also on the field for this particular play after Javonte Williams had been rolling the entire game. Gordon ended up getting the ball knocked out of his hands and lost control of it before he could reach it over the goal line for a score.

This play had everybody coming on the internet with their pitchforks at Gordon until the Broncos gave the next opportunity at the one-yard line to Javonte Williams, who got smacked in the backfield and fumbled into the end zone where the Seahawks recovered for a touchback. This play also came from the shotgun formation, and at this point, everyone and their dog was wondering what Nathaniel Hackett was doing running these plays from the gun at the one-yard line.

Nobody is even arguing that the Broncos should have taken the three points in the first situation, mainly because the odds and analytics are pretty clear about going for it from the one-yard line. Your chances of converting a one-yard play are pretty good in any instance, so it’s a worthwhile roll of the dice. But the Broncos unfortunately will now have to look back at this one and wonder why the blocking was so bad on these plays, why the backs couldn’t hold onto the ball, and why they decided to run from the ‘gun instead of just plowing it in behind Andrew Beck, who had a great game.

Denver Broncos had trouble tackling the Seattle Seahawks in the first half

This was pretty brutal throughout the game. There were far too many plays where the Seahawks were getting to the second and third level of defense due to poor tackling on the Broncos’ part. This is really the one justification for playing starters in the preseason in my personal opinion, although I’m sure everyone has varying opinions there.

The tackling was bad enough in this game that it cost the Broncos’ defense throughout the entire first half. Rashaad Penny had a pretty modest 5.0 yards per carry considering the number of times it felt like he was breaking through into the Broncos’ defensive backfield. The Broncos’ defense didn’t give up a ton of yardage in this game overall, but missed tackles in the first half were a huge reason why Seattle was able to get momentum from the very beginning of the game and ultimately build an insurmountable lead.

Broncos were plagued by penalties against the Seattle Seahawks

Although some penalties are arguable, the Broncos racked up 12 for 106 yards in this game. It was really astounding, frankly. Again, some of these penalties were arguable at best. The officials in this game made a really bad roughing the passer call on Bradley Chubb — who had a great second half with two sacks — when he smacked Geno Smith right in the chest a split second after he threw the ball.

ESPN’s new color commentator Troy Aikman kept saying that Chubb hit Geno Smith directly helmet-to-helmet, but I’m not sure what he was seeing because that clearly wasn’t the case nor was the hit so egregiously late that it should have been called. There was another ticky-tack unsportsmanlike conduct called on Jonathon Cooper who — heaven forbid — celebrated a great tackle.

In terms of plays the Broncos can actually go back and fix, there were some correctable ones in this game, but there were also just some really bad penalties that killed drives or made scoring borderline impossible. A false start penalty by Courtland Sutton negated a go-ahead touchdown from Andrew Beck on a brilliantly designed shovel pass play.

There were three critical red zone penalties in this game:

• False start by RT Cam Fleming
• Delay of game by Russell Wilson and the offense
• False start by WR Courtland Sutton

You simply cannot have that if you want to be a competitive team in the loaded AFC West.

Same mistakes of old continue to plague the Denver Broncos

This was a weird performance from the Denver Broncos’ offense overall.

On the one hand, there were some brilliantly designed drives by Nathaniel Hackett in terms of his play-calling. There was outstanding execution at times from Russell Wilson and the playmakers offensively. The Broncos’ running game was humming most of the game.

There was really a lot to like offensively in this performance, including on some of the drives that didn’t end in touchdowns. An inch prevented an Eric Tomlinson touchdown. The ground popped the ball out of Eric Saubert’s hands on a glorious throw from Russell Wilson that would have otherwise been a touchdown. The false start from Courtland Sutton prevented an Andrew Beck score.

Unfortunately, what was it that plagued the Denver Broncos in this game against the Seahawks most of all? It was the same offensive miscues that we’ve come to loathe in the last six years.

• Inefficiency in the red zone
• Fumbles
• Extremely untimely penalties
• Poor clock management late in the game (at least in my opinion)

Ironically, you could say that this loss to the Seattle Seahawks was a death by inches, and many on Twitter did say that. But it couldn’t be more apt despite the irony, because it was the game of inches that cost the Broncos in this game.

Inches from an Eric Tomlinson score. Inches from two rushing touchdowns. Inches from a field goal by Brandon McManus to win it. Inches here, inches there.

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Let’s hope the Denver Broncos are actually ready to ride when they return home next week against the Houston Texans. The Seattle Seahawks played tough, but there is no reason the Broncos shouldn’t have won that game by two touchdowns or more. They could have easily put 30 points on the board, were it not for those mistakes that we’ve become all too familiar with in recent years.