Revealing the Plays the Broncos Must use to Upset the Chiefs
The past two weeks have seen a huge swing take place in the AFC West. The reigning Division-champion Kansas City Chiefs have lost two straight. The Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans used very similar game-plans on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball to attack the Chiefs.
Defensively, these two teams chose to play a lot of man coverage and worked to keep Patrick Mahomes in the pocket where he struggles a bit more. That has been helped obviously with him hobbled with an ankle injury.
The Denver Broncos would do well to continue that trend while mixing in some of Vic Fangio's zone concepts to hopefully come up with a big play here and there.
Offensively, the Broncos have been — in the nicest terms possible — inconsistent this season. There have been signs of life here and there followed by confusion and chaos.
The Chiefs will bring what should be the weakest defense the Broncos have faced all season to town on Thursday. If there is a chance to get right offensively, it is this game.
The Colts and Texans took advantage of a very weak Chiefs front seven and pounded the football right up the gut. As the old saying goes, 'the best defense is a great offense'.
The Colts held onto the ball for 37 minutes of game time while the Texans were even better at 40 minutes. That means on a shortened week, this Chiefs defense should come in very worn out and beaten up. The Broncos would be remiss not to lean on the run game, especially playing at altitude.
When they do have to pass, though, what can the Broncos learn from the success of the Colts and Texans? There are some very simple play designs that both the Colts and Texans ran that the Broncos can mimic to get the passing attack back on track.
Let’s take a look at four play designs that I would hope the Broncos identified on film and use, as it could lead to some big plays on Thursday night.
Play 1: 7:11 | First Quarter | Week 6
I picked out each of these plays for a few reasons. The first being that a lot of these are coming off of play-action. This should help Denver's offensive line out as the Chiefs will be selling out to stop the run.
Second, these are very easy reads for Joe Flacco. There are just a couple of main options available on these pass plays. Third, all of these plays do a great job of scheming players open. The Broncos will be able to pick which playmaker they want to get the ball to and watch them go do something in the open field.
As for the play in question, something that stuck out watching both the Colts and Texans games are how much they used motion to try and confuse the Chiefs. Kansas City has a lot of new moving pieces in the secondary and some of their top players are banged up right now. The youth is showing in how often they seem to get confused on who has what assignment. Motion also tells the quarterback whether they are in man or zone coverage.
At the snap, TE Darren Fells cuts across the formation. It looks like he is setting up as the lead blocker on a run play. One of the linebackers drops back into zone coverage on the receiver that just came across on motion while the other two crash hard on the run game. If you watch the receiver that was left on the left side of the formation comes across, he was wide open as another option if the Chiefs play the TE well.
The defensive end thinks the TE is coming to block him on the run and pauses. Fells then sneaks out while the coverage LB in that zone has turned to start running with the WR. Those false steps upfield leave Fells wide open for an easy catch and run.
The other nice part of this play is, if Fells could have made that LB miss on the tackle, he then had two lead-blocking WRs in front of him and an opportunity for an even bigger play. Fells is nowhere near the athlete Noah Fant is so this could turn into a nice catch and run. This is also a nice way to get Fant going early in the game and comfortable after a tough game last Sunday.
Play 2: 0:58 | First Quarter | Week 6
This is one of the few pass plays that will not have play-action involved. There are going to be times throughout the game where the Broncos will be in obvious passing situations. Teams have done really well this year in getting home when blitzing the Broncos on obvious passing downs.
The Chiefs are a team that likes to take some chances under DC Steve Spagnuolo, so I do expect they will blitz when the opportunity presents itself. I’ve picked this play because this is the perfect blitz beater of a formation and play design.
The Texans come out with a stacked WR grouping to the right of the formation and trips on the left side. They have this set up a little creatively with two WRs right next to each other in the slot position and one out wide up on the line of scrimmage.
The Chiefs do what a lot of teams try to do, crowding the line of scrimmage with a lot of bodies to make the offensive line guess who is coming. I want to focus on the left side of the offensive play here. The Chiefs choose to line up one CB in press-man coverage on the outside WR. They then only have one CB up near the line of scrimmage to the two slot WRs bunched together.
There is a safety over the top to help, but with this play design, the safety has no chance at doing so. The idea for the Chiefs is to have one of their LBs drop back at the snap of the ball to try and cover the WR that has the inside route. DeShaun Watson does a great job of taking exactly what the defense gives him. The blitz has no chance of getting home and this is an easy 10-yard pickup.
For the Broncos, they have used a lot of five-wide sets this year. OC Rich Scangarello would be smart to have some play designs just like this where the read is very easy. A blitz cannot get home with the quarterback getting the ball out so quickly. This helps protect an offensive line that has been struggling and helps the passing game pick up some chunk yards and possibly easy first downs.
Play 3: 8:12 | Second Quarter | Week 6
There are two things that I love about this play design. The first is that it looks like a run play all the way. The Texans once again use pre-snap motion to force the Chiefs to reveal what type of coverage they're in. This time they do something a little bit different in snapping the ball as the motion man is coming across.
The Chiefs look a little surprised the ball is snapped so quickly, but something like that usually signifies run with the WR being tasked with helping run block. The Texans also bring the TE across as the puller once again making it seem all the more that this is a run play.
The Chiefs are bringing a blitz on this play but because of it looking like a run design the two blitzers end up chasing the RB instead of the QB. Also, look at the LB who does drop back into coverage. He continues to look into the backfield trying to see if the RB has the ball. This is the old magicians’ trick of getting the audience to look one way while the action is happening elsewhere.
The play design helps the offensive line, giving Watson plenty of time to look down the field for the big play. Watson can make some easy reads here. If the LB panics seeing the WR open out in the flat, it should leave the middle of the field wide open for his WR trying to across the middle. If the LB stays home, then the flat is wide open with the WR cutting across the middle taking all the attention. A perfect design for what the Chiefs were trying to do and an easy pitch and catch for a big play.
Play 3: 8:56 | Second Quarter | Week 5
I wanted to save my favorite play that the Broncos should try to mimic for last. Scangarello would be wise to try and scheme some play designs that could get a player like Emmanuel Sanders open and play to the strengths of his game. The Colts here run a perfect play to get their best WR T.Y. Hilton wide open for a big play.
Hilton is the lone WR lined up on the right side of the formation. They motion Zach Pascal to try and get an idea of what the Chiefs are doing in coverage and then motion him back to the left side. The Chiefs show they are in zone coverage on this play.
At the snap of the ball the Colts run play-action, causing the first big moment of the play. All three LBs have the mid-range area for coverage. They first look in the backfield to make sure the RB does not have the ball. The Colts do a great job of running great routes to set up Hilton on this play. TE Jack Doyle and Pascall both run deep routes to help clear out the left side of the zone coverage.
The Colts run Chester Rodgers across the middle to the right making the LBs respect him coming into their zones. The LBs take some false steps to cover the middle leaving the left side wide open for an easy completion. Even if the LBs played this perfect, the Colts did a great job to get Hilton into an advantageous match up with a LB in coverage.
The Colts and Texans both had a lot of these types of plays where they flooded zones and tried to get a numbers game going in their favor. These are easy reads for the quarterback and opportunities for players like Fant, Sanders, and Courtland Sutton to get some one-on-one matchups and opportunities to turn a short pass into a very big play for the offense.
What it all Means
On Thursday Night Football, the name of the game will be run the ball and when the opponent gets sick of it, run it some more. That doesn’t mean there won’t be some opportunities for the Broncos to do something through the air. They cannot just rely on the run game to win this game.
Flacco and company are going to have to make plays. All of these are easy designs and easier passes that should lead to higher chances of success. The other great part of most of these plays is that if the Broncos are successful in the play action early in the game, they can come back to some of these formations and run the football out of them. The Broncos need to keep the Chiefs guessing at least a little of whether the run or pass is coming.
This game sets up well for the Broncos to have a lot of success on the offensive side of the ball. If they cannot find success against this struggling Chiefs’ defense, it might be time to rethink some of the decisions being made on the offensive side of the ball. The plays are there to be had. Learn from those who've come before you.
Follow Carl on Twitter @CarlDumlerMHH and @MileHighHuddle.
