ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — The Denver Broncos haven’t any scarcity of riddles to clear up on offense.
Such as: Why do not they use play-motion extra after they have a lot success with it? Or, why have they got a love-hate relationship with the pink zone? But one in all the oddest questions is that this: Why is receiver Courtland Sutton seeing his participation dwindle in the passing recreation?
Sutton has 14 targets and 7 receptions in the previous 4 video games mixed. That’s the similar variety of targets and one fewer reception than he had in the Broncos’ Week 6 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, when he had eight catches for 94 yards and a landing.
“Our objective is to win the game,” Sutton mentioned earlier this week. “It is not to get Courtland Sutton a lot of targets. Our objective is to win the game. However that comes about is the way we would like it to come out. Wins are the things that matter.”
This is not a fantasy soccer dialogue about targets or touches. In that realm it’s virtually unimaginable for each participant to get as many alternatives for touchdowns as of us would really like.
It’s actually extra of a pink flag for the Broncos and their incapability to discover rhythm in an offense that has Sutton and receiver Jerry Jeudy.
Look, Sutton leads the Broncos in receiving yards (649) and has each of the workforce’s 100-yard receiving video games this season. With 464 yards over the Broncos’ closing 5 video games of the common season, he would simply prime 1,000 yards for a second time in addition to set a profession-greatest in receiving yards for the season.
It’s simply since Jeudy returned 5 video games in the past from a Week 1 ankle damage, Sutton has had two or one reception in every of these video games. For his half, Sutton, who signed a four-year, $60.8 million contract extension earlier this month, has maintained he’ll maintain his eye on the prize, as a substitute of his private numbers.
“Stats take care of themselves when we are winning,” Sutton mentioned. “We capitalize on certain things and get more plays here and there. Who knows? The targets might have come, but our whole mindset is win the game, not to get a specific person targets so people can say look how many targets this person got, but they lost. That is not what we are trying to do.”
“It’s coincidental more so than by design, for sure,” mentioned Broncos coach Vic Fangio. “We’d like to get the ball to Courtland as much as we can. Courtland is a playmaker for us, and we’ve got to find a way to get him the ball.”
Defensive coaches, who spend quite a lot of time making an attempt to maintain the ball out of Sutton’s arms and have been polled informally this week, mentioned they believed they may usually stress Broncos quarterback Teddy Bridgewater and discover holes in move safety earlier than the receivers have been all the method into their routes. This is particularly true in the longer down-and-distance conditions when the Broncos had additionally opened the formation. To that finish, 25 of the 32 sacks the Broncos’ have allowed this season have come when Bridgewater has been in the shotgun, the place he has lined up much more usually in the Broncos’ losses than of their wins.
“We’ve got things that are dialed up to get guys the ball specifically, we might come out of the huddle and say we want to throw the ball to Court here and the play a coverage that takes Court away now [Jeudy] gets an opportunity to catch the pass,” Bridgewater mentioned. “That’s just how it works. … Teams are aware of the guys that we have, their skillsets, we’re just trying to create ways to get them the ball and allow them to do what they do best.”
Conventional knowledge would counsel if each Jeudy and Sutton are in the Broncos lineup, the targets and catches would shift barely at instances as defenses reacted a technique or the different. But Jeudy has had fewer than 4 catches simply as soon as since Halloween whereas Sutton hasn’t been above two. Meanwhile, Bridgewater has burdened the significance of taking the ball to wherever the protection dictates.
“Every week is a huge opportunity for everyone on this offense,” Bridgewater mentioned. “You watch us — we try to get different guys going.”
“We are trying to win games,” Sutton mentioned. “That is the biggest thing.”
