Denver Broncos should unleash secret weapon at RB after bye
The injury to Javonte Williams earlier this season has paved the way for the Denver Broncos to get creative at the running back position here in the 2022 season. Of course, the team already had Melvin Gordon and Mike Boone on the roster, but over the last four or five weeks, the Broncos have made a variety of moves at the position with Boone also suffering an injury and Gordon not exactly having earned the full trust of the coaching staff.
The team almost immediately went out and added Latavius Murray, who was previously on the New Orleans Saints practice squad. He’s got a couple of touchdowns in his first couple of games for the Broncos. They also just recently traded for Chase Edmonds, who was more than just a throw-in in the Bradley Chubb deal. Sandwiched between those moves to acquire Murray and Edmonds, however, was a rather surprising move to add former Indianapolis Colts 1,000-yard back Marlon Mack to the roster.
Can Marlon Mack be a secret weapon for the Denver Broncos in 2022?
Back in 2017, a lot of Denver Broncos fans really wanted Marlon Mack, a star tailback at the University of South Florida. In that draft circuit, the Broncos ended up going after Utah running back Devontae Booker after the Colts got Mack, much to the chagrin of many in Broncos Country, although at the time, Booker was a pretty good consolation.
For the first three years of his NFL career, Mack seemingly just got better and better every year before ultimately running for over 1,000 yards in the 2019 season. During the 2020 season, Mack tore his Achilles at the worst possible time — his contract year — and re-signed with the Colts in 2021 only to appear in six games.
Here in 2022, Mack was the presumptive RB1 for the Houston Texans before the offseason emergence of breakout rookie Dameon Pierce, who has been one of the best backs in the league so far this year. The Texans cut Mack, who then resurfaced with the San Francisco 49ers. The Broncos plucked Mack off of the 49ers’ practice squad, and after the team acquired Chase Edmonds in the Bradley Chubb trade, they decided to cut Devine Ozigbo instead of Mack, keeping the former 1,000-yard back on the roster.
Do the Broncos have plans to unleash Marlon Mack at some point in the 2022 season? At this point, it’s hard to know exactly what they are planning with him, but they would need to also hope that Mack could return to his 2019 form if he is truly going to be a second-half secret weapon for the Denver offense.
If the Broncos could get that? It would certainly be a huge boost to this offense. Melvin Gordon and Latavius Murray are more “between-the-tackles” types of backs and Chase Edmonds doesn’t have explosive speed but can give you some good production in the passing game.
Is Mack still a 4.5-flat type of runner? Is he still capable of the same explosiveness we saw from him once upon a time with the Colts? We’ll see what the Broncos envision from him going forward.