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Broncos' RB Melvin Gordon Likes Teddy's 'Jab, Jab, Pow' Rushing Offense

Teddy Bridgewater has a name for the brand of offense the Broncos displayed on Sunday.

Broncos Country has been desperately searching for a cohesive winning strategy to emerge for the longest time, and it may have finally happened on Sunday. Most agree that the Denver Broncos will attempt to ride a stout, dominating defense coupled with a balanced error-free offense this season.

That kind of Quint strategy (from the blockbuster movie Jaws) is born out of the theory that constantly prodding and jabbing at your opponent forces them to surface to face the knockout blow. However, it still needs a point-man to explode on the opponent and sink their chances.

Against the New York Giants, the fatal 70-yard shot was fired by running back Melvin Gordon as he rumbled to paydirt in the fourth quarter to put the death knell on the opponent. On Monday, head coach Vic Fangio explained how wearing teams down means chipping away with the running game while executing on several plays.

“The big part of their game plan was obvious; they wanted to stop the runs, wanted to stop our boot game,” Fangio detailed on Monday. “They [Giants] made schematically drastic measures to do that. They were successful with it early, that’s why we had more success passing, but we did stay with it. If you stay with—not only Melvin’s long run but we popped a couple of 10-yarders in there, too, and a couple of six-yarders. Those were critical because those set up third-and-shorts-to-medium that we were able to convert. So, yeah, we’d like to be a team that could stay with the run even if it’s not going.”

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Gordon is 100 percent on the same page with Fangio and quarterback Teddy Bridgewater who believes running the ball successfully takes a top-to-bottom commitment to the process — and a liberal dose of patience.

“It’s something you still have to learn every week because it’s tough,” Gordon said Monday. “You put in work and you want a big run early. The earlier the better, but you just have to stay with it, you know you just got to—you know you can’t overdo it, can’t overthink, do too much, kind of just got to stay with the game plan, flow of the game. Like [QB] Teddy Bridgewater said, ‘jab, jab and then pow.’ There you go.”

What might make it easier to incrementally administer concussive blows is the fact the Broncos open up the 2021 season with back-to-back road games. That could allow Denver to play stealthy football and return home 2-0 with Broncos fans much more comfortable with the strategy delivering results.

One thing is for sure, Gordon is already confident that the ‘jab, jab pow’ offense has plenty of weapons at its disposal with which it can ultimately dispose of its victims.

“Yeah, that’s how we [are] going turn it up. You never know where the jab might come from,” Gordon said. “It comes from the tight ends or the receivers. We got so many athletes, so many playmakers man. Everybody jabbing. That’s the goal.”


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