The Denver Broncos were handed a pretty favorable situation on Monday night against the Cincinnati Bengals, who were playing without star quarterback Joe Burrow. The absence of Burrow built some margin for error for the Broncos, who clearly needed it on offense.
The offensive line for the Broncos had serious issues against the Bengals with penalties, but maybe blaming the entire unit isn't fair. The source of most of the issues was center Luke Wattenberg, who shouldn't be in the starting lineup for the Broncos going forward.
Wattenberg, at one point, was getting laughed at by ESPN color commentator Troy Aikman, who simply couldn't believe the comedy of errors he was witnessing.
Broncos must bench Luke Wattenberg after another brutal start at center
Wattenberg had no fewer than four errant (high) snaps to quarterback Bo Nix in the game, and was called for a wide variety of penalties. He nearly had himself a BINGO card filling up at one point.
Wattenberg was called for being an ineligible man downfield on multiple screen passes. He was called for holding on a nice RJ Harvey run in the 4th quarter. Immediately after that, he was called for an illegal snap.
Enough is enough for Sean Payton and his staff. Wattenberg has been called for ineligible downfield multiple times already this season and has clearly struggled with the timing on getting out in space to make his blocks on designed screen passes.
It would be one thing if Wattenberg were playing at an elite level and was making mistakes occasionally. But the interior offensive line has not been great for the Broncos this season, and Wattenberg is a major reason for that.
The Broncos' backup center at this point is former 7th-round pick Alex Forsyth, whose infamous play against the Kansas City Chiefs last year has soured pretty much every Broncos fan against him. But at this stage, how could it possibly be worse? Forsyth was solid last year when inserted into the starting lineup as an injury replacement, and he could do it again.
He's been a more effective run blocker in a limited sample compared to Wattenberg, anyway.
You simply can't have back-breaking penalties like we've been seeing from Wattenberg. You can't have issues consistently with the operation, especially when it's the basics of doing your job. The center is obviously responsible for a lot at the line of scrimmage, but Wattenberg has fallen miserably short.
It's time for head coach Sean Payton to make a change.