by Ben Muth

Peyton Manning came in for Brock Osweiler in the third quarter of Sunday's Denver-San Diego game. It was much discussed, but I'm going to try to make that the last mention of the Broncos' quarterbacks, because I honestly don't think either had a big effect on what happened last Sunday. This win was about Denver's offensive line, wide receivers, running backs, and tight ends coming together and moving the ball as well as they have all season.

When Gary Kubiak took the head coaching job in the offseason, a lot of Broncos fans were excited about seeing the type of zone running game that turned Terrell Davis into a dominant force (and made Olandis Gary and Mike Anderson into fantasy football stars) in Denver once again. Unfortunately, the Kubiak running game hasn't been exactly as advertised. It has been OK, but a bit underwhelming overall.

There have been two big problems. First, the run blocking on the edge hasn't been very good. None of the Broncos' offensive tackles (and they have played a few) have had good seasons. Ryan Harris has been the best of the bunch, and he's been just OK. Ty Sambrailo was off to a rocky start to his rookie season before he got hurt. Michael Schofield stepped in and has been absolutely abysmal. I think this is my fifth year writing Word of Muth for FO, and I'm comfortable saying that Schofield is the worst player I've ever seen start multiple games. Schofield was finally benched for Tyler Polumbus, who has been a bad player for eight years but was at least an upgrade on Schofield.

It's hard to get the edge when those guys are at the point of attack, so the Broncos' backs have been forced to cut too many outside zones back and to cut them back too quickly. They just haven't been getting enough stretch from their offensive tackles (meaning, the tackles have done a poor job widening defensive ends from their initial alignment). As a result, Denver needs to be really good on the back side of the play, and until this week that has not really been the case.

The tough thing about outside zone is that it requires a ton of practice reps to run it well. It's all combination blocks, and there are a couple of different reads for the running backs to make while they're running at full speed. It's the type of play you can run against the same defensive front five straight plays, and it could hit in five different holes based on how each block goes. So, the key is to get a ton of reps so the center knows exactly how much help he can give the back-side guard and still be able to get to the linebacker, so the back knows exactly how long he can press the 3-technique before sticking his foot in the ground and cutting up inside him, and so on. That timing aspect is why some outside zone gurus say it can take more than a year to really get it going good.

The other problem is that even if you do get a ton of reps in practice, it isn't quite the same as reps in games because no NFL teams let you cut block in practice (and if they do, it's very rarely). If you want to get anything going on the back side of outside zone you need to cut block. This causes two issues. First, when Sunday rolls around, you get guys who are throwing crappy cut blocks, or too nervous to even try. Second, backs aren't comfortable trusting a backside cutback because it's always muddy in practice.

So between mediocre offensive tackle play, poor cut blockers, and backs that weren't used to seeing a lot of daylight, the Broncos' outside zone game has struggled to really get cooking. But that changed this Sunday. I don't know if it's the run game finally gelling late in the season or San Diego being a poor run defense (my guess is a bit of both), but I think the Denver running game looked as good as it had all year, and a lot of it was Denver cutting people down on the back side of the outside zone play. It seemed like after every running play there was a San Diego defender picking himself up off the ground.

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Now to some, this may be a chop block, and it probably technically is if you want to enforce rules to the letter, but to me this is a great combo by the left guard and tackle. Max Garcia (73, the left guard) does a nice job of running through the defensive tackle's shoulder as he's going up to block the linebacker. He's not really trying to block the tackle, he's just trying to get to his man, and the tackle is in the way.

As Garcia is trying to get to the second level, Ryan Harris (68, the left tackle) comes in and cuts the defensive tackle, who is more engaged with Garcia than Garcia is engaged with him. What I love about Harris is how deep he is into the play before he cuts. He's a yard-and-a-half downfield and 5 or 6 yards inside from where he lined up. Too many guys throw the cut too soon and don't get their far shoulder to the defender's play-side thigh pad. Harris makes sure to get all the way across his man before he chops him down.

Virgil Green (85, the tight end) also gets a cut block here, but his is crappy. It's what we call a coffee table cut, because he just kind of lies down in front his opponent and hopes the guy trips over him, like how you might bang your shins on the coffee table in the middle of the night.

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This one has even less of a case to be called a chop block. In fact, if anything, Kendall Reyes (91 for San Diego) should get called for defensive holding. Again, Max Garcia (this time at right guard) is trying to block a linebacker. There is no way for him to get there without making some contact with the defensive tackle. So, he sticks an arm out to keep Reyes from grabbing him (it didn't work). Garcia ended up being a little late to the linebacker, but got just enough of him to knock him off balance.



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At right tackle, Schofield (79) isn't as good as Harris was on the previous play, but because Reyes is holding Garcia instead of playing the guy trying to block him, Schofield gets the job done. With both interior back-side defenders on the ground, Ronnie Hillman is able to cut it up inside for a big gain.

Before we move on, I do want to point out Ryan Harris on this play doing a good job of getting some stretch from the play-side defensive end. If you go back to the first play, you can see that Schofield really doesn't widen the edge defender at all (maybe a yard outside the defender's alignment). Here, Harris takes the defensive end from just outside the hash to just inside of the numbers. That allows a play that seems like a big back-side cutback to actually hit outside the hash on the play side despite the ball being in the middle of the field at the snap.

When announcers talk about running games being more effective as the game goes along, they're usually trying to imply defenses are wearing down or quitting or some other hard-to-quantify metric. I've certainly seen that happen, but far more often, when a team has more success running the ball in the second half and into the fourth quarter it's because of random variance or the defense adjusting how they're playing to take something else away (like playing more nickel to slow down a passing game).

The Broncos' running game looked good in the first half but really took off in the second half. Now, people have theories on changes Denver made that might have improved the running game, but I think it had a lot more to due with Denver's success hitting back-side cutbacks in the first half than any personnel changes they made in the second half.

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The key here is how the linebackers are playing. Let's start with 52 on the play side (Denzel Perryman. He has the B gap (the gap between the guard and tackle), and every key he has is screaming at him to get up there and fill that B gap right away. It's full blown outside zone your way, the guard is too far upfield for this to be a boot, everything he's taught should be telling him to get into that guard as soon as possible and knock him back into the hole. But he doesn't, he slow-plays it, hedging against a back-side cut because he had seen a bunch up to this point. As a result he gets reached by Garcia, and the back gains 20-plus yards right through his hole.



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As bad as that is, the back-side linebacker (50, Manti Te'o) is even worse. If Perryman had plugged the play-side B gap, the back-side A gap (Te'o's gap) would have been wide open too. Te'o decides to go back-side instead of filling his gap, probably because he had seen too many plays cut behind him. Maybe these guys are tired, but I think it's more likely that if you get hurt by a similar play too many times, you start cheating on your responsibilities to take it away and end up giving up huge chunks of yards right where you should have been. Classic case of guys trying to do too much.

One thing I pointed out a lot with the Cowboys and Browns this year is that running the ball successfully takes all 11 guys on offense. The quarterback needs to get you in the right play (and scare the defense enough to threaten them throwing the ball). The ballcarrier has to hit the right hole, run hard, and occasionally make someone miss. Everyone else, and I mean everyone else, needs to block. So many plays look like crap because tight ends can't block or wide receivers don't look interested in trying. That's why I want to highlight this play.

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Do you see it? No, it's not Schofield getting good movement on the double-team (maybe his best block of the game). It's not Evan Mathis (69) pulling and covering up the linebacker. Look at San Diego's safety on the play side. He's aggressive in run support, and he looks like he's about to make the play in the hole for a 2-yard gain, when Emmanuel Sanders comes from out of nowhere and cleans his clock. Let's look at it from the wide angle.

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I LOVE this. Sanders is lined up outside the numbers, and the safety is coming up in run support very aggressively, but Sanders still gets the block because he wants too. He busts his ass, flattens down the line, and gets a hat on the guy. It's rare that you see a wide receiver get there to make this block on a safety playing that aggressively (unless they really cut down their split, which Sanders didn't do). It only turned a 2-yard gain into a 6-yard gain, so it wasn't a game-changer, but it's indicative of the type of blocking effort Denver got from its wide receivers all night long, and it made a big difference. I LOVE this play.

That does it for this week. I'll be back next week writing about one of the wild-card games (to be determined); after that, it will be the Broncos until they get bounced or win it all.