Denver Post Broncos writer Parker Gabriel posts his Broncos Mailbag weekly during the season and periodically during the offseason. Click here to submit a question.
At the halfway point of the season, who are your choices for Broncos team MVP?
— Ed Helinski, Auburn, N.Y.
Recency bias and a bad day at the office against Baltimore don’t change this answer for me. It’s co-MVPs and they’re both on defense in cornerback Pat Surtain II and defensive lineman Zach Allen.
Vance Joseph’s defense revolves around Surtain’s talent. His importance to what they do was put on full display when he got hurt the first play against Los Angeles. It’s not just plug-and-play. They had to change their whole approach to coverage when he left the game.
Then Allen has put together a monster start to the season. He’s on pace for career-highs in sacks and pressures. Before going without a pressure against the Ravens, he’d logged three or more in seven straight games and averaged 5.1 per game in that stretch. He entered Week 9 leading the NFL in run stuffs, according to Next Gen Stats.
And he’s doing all of that while playing 90% of Denver’s defensive snaps. If the Broncos defense bounces back and ends the season as a top-10 group, both of those guys are likely to be in All-Pro conversations.
As for other candidates, OLB Jonathon Cooper wouldn’t be far down the list, S Brandon Jones could be a down-ballot guy and perhaps no offseason addition was more impactful than defensive lineman John Franklin-Myers. Here’s an interesting question: How far down the list do we have to go before we get to an offensive player? And who’s first up on that list? QB Bo Nix is in the picture, for sure, but I’m inclined to say left tackle Garett Bolles. He’s had penalty issues — including a tough holding call that nullified a Nix touchdown run Sunday against Baltimore — but given his pass protection on the blind side of a rookie quarterback and the fact that he’s stayed on the field while the offensive line has juggled injuries, he’s almost certainly under-appreciated.
Yo, Parker. What’s the story with Marvin Mims Jr.? He surely merits more than one or two targets a game. What did he do to get into Sean Payton’s doghouse?
— Randy Swanson, Yukon, Okla.
Hey Randy, I get versions of this question a lot — and I see this one comes directly from the Sooner State — and it’s getting to the point where they just clearly don’t see him as deserving of being on the field as much as the other receivers.
We saw the explosive ability early last year but what we haven’t seen since is consistency.
Small samples all around, but Mims’ catch rate is way down this year (seven grabs on 15 targets for 46.7%) compared to a 66.7% catch rate as a rookie. His catch rate over expected, according to NFL Next Gen Stats, is -18% compared to +5.4% last year.
Some of that can be attributed to playing with a rookie quarterback. A couple of deep shots have sailed out of bounds and a pick against the Chargers in Week 6 was thrown high over the middle.
At some point, though, Mims has to make plays when they’re there to be made. He dropped a comeback route against New Orleans. He had a deep ball on his hands against the Chargers. Go get the ball when it’s there.
The Broncos need as many playmakers as they can get offensively. They aren’t going to intentionally keep guys off the field who demonstrate they can tilt games.
Coaches have continued to say positive things about Mims. Here’s what receivers coach Keary Colbert told The Post last week:
“He has a great mindset and mentality and he’s focused on the right things, which is winning and doing whatever he can to help the team win,” Colbert said. “He knows that the opportunities are going to come and he’ll be ready whenever they do. He busts his tail every single day and he’s coming out here and working and doing everything that’s asked of him.
“I think he has a great mindset about his approach to the game and I tip my hat to him for that.”
This isn’t exactly a Bronco question, it’s more of a football conundrum. In the Vikings-Rams Sunday night game (Oct. 24), a safety ended any hope of a comeback for the Vikings. Unfortunately, everyone except the ref saw that the sack resulted from a blatant facemask. Even the Rams player walked away with his hands on his helmet because he knew he grabbed the quarterback’s facemask. Here’s my problem. The announcers said it wasn’t reviewable because it was a non-scoring play, but it wasn’t. The Rams received two points for a safety. Since it was a two-point “scoring play,” why couldn’t it be reviewed?
Thank you for your time and thoughts!
— Jaye, Cheyenne, Wyo.
Jaye, great question. The way the referee in that game, Tra Blake, explained the situation to a pool reporter after the game wasn’t about scoring plays or non-scoring plays. He simply said neither he nor the umpire had a clear view of the Rams player grabbing Sam Darnold’s facemask. Blake said his view was blocked because Darnold was faced in a way that didn’t allow him to see the facemask grab.
This is where the NFL’s replay assist system should be able to make a difference. It seems to work great in the areas where it can be used currently — a spot gets changed or the clock gets reset or a completion is ruled to have hit the ground and it happens so much quicker than if a coach had to challenge or even if the league buzzed the referee so that he could look at the play on the field.
There’s a fine line, of course, because you can’t do this for every situation. Holding can be subjective, we don’t want replay assist from a remote location throwing flags for holding, necessarily. But on a black-and-white call like that? Yeah, it would be great to make sure that doesn’t get missed.
Can you walk me through Payton’s love for Lil’Jordan Humphrey? I swear he is involved in nearly every negative play or turnover. Am I missing something?
— Drew Darling, Olathe, Kan.
Hey Drew, it has indeed been a tough stretch for Humphrey. He fumbled on the first drive against Carolina and then had Nix’s first pass of the afternoon against Baltimore bounce off his hands for an interception.
One of Payton’s go-to compliments about a player is “You know what you’re going to get from him.” He has a defined vision for players and when a guy executes that vision, it’s a dose of certainty for Payton as a play-caller in a game where there’s always a lot of things you can’t predict.
Of course, that only works if you consistently do your job and also don’t turn the ball over. Humphrey knows that. He owned the mistake after the game.
But Payton also threw down the gauntlet after the Carolina game. He told the radio broadcast afterward that if his receivers didn’t hang onto the ball, he’d find new receivers. Then Humphrey played a big role in a turnover again against Baltimore. Will it cost him playing time? Josh Reynolds is eligible to come off injured reserve this week — it’s not yet known if he will — and when he’s back in action he’ll take snaps from somebody.
Hello Parker! I know it might sound weird after such a rout where the offense only scored 10 points, but I was actually encouraged by Bo Nix’s performance. Yes, he again showed inaccuracy and it is troublesome, and sometimes he looks already ready to take off instead of going through his progression. But in a tough environment against a Super Bowl contender, I thought he looked a little more settled, in command of the offense, and he’s really starting to hit his receivers, again spreading the ball around. Globally he has few negative plays, and he often brings a spark with his legs. All that is to say that he makes me feel more confident about him now than he did a few weeks ago. Do you feel that way and wasn’t it the goal of the season?
— Yoann, Beine-Nauroy, France
Hey Yoann, totally agree with you. I wrote earlier in the week that I thought he did a lot of good things in the first half. The big misses — Troy Franklin open for a touchdown on fourth down Sunday, for example — are going to hold the offense back but he really competes and he gave the Ravens a handful. There’s a long way to go and a lot still to learn and clean up, but there’s also no denying Nix has made progress. That’s obviously a good thing for the Broncos now and also looking into the future.
I put it this way after the Ravens game: There were a couple of games earlier this year where it didn’t feel like Nix played as well as the box score might make it seem. The loss to Los Angeles comes to mind. But the opposite was true against the Ravens. He played better than the line looked afterward.
Can you tell me why Nik Bonitto wasn’t credited with a sack against the Ravens? He took down the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage. It sure looked like a sack to me.
— Mark, Arvada
Hey Mark, yeah it was kind of a strange play. The scorer ruled it was a designed run play, so Jackson was a runner. Because of that, it goes in the books as a tackle for loss rather than a sack.
Seems somewhat subjective. The Ravens offensive linemen were blocking like it was a run play from the start. Two guys ran routes but mostly they looked like they were attempting to run off defensive backs. Jackson and Derrick Henry didn’t appear to be on the same page. A botched pay all around, but apparently not a sack for Bonitto, who would have run his streak to seven straight games if it were ruled the other way. Perhaps the NFL will take a look at it.
Disappointing results Sunday for this lifelong Broncos fan, especially living here in Maryland with so many Ravens fans nearby. Hey, I’ve noticed on TV camera shots that Sean Payton doesn’t do a very good job of covering his face when talking on his headset. I don’t read lips but someone who does could easily pick up what he is saying. Is this a potential issue?
— Ed S., Silver Spring, Md.
Hey Ed, yeah, sometimes that’s true with Payton, although I don’t think it makes much of a difference. It would be really difficult to accurately get what he’s saying verbatim and relay it, somebody, to relay it to somebody else on the field in time for it to matter at all.
What’s more interesting is what came up last year with Payton’s play sheet. It’s big and sometimes the camera catches the verbiage pretty clearly. One of his former players in New Orleans told me last year that he saw the screenshots of it and it looked almost identical to what they were calling stuff several years ago.
Payton downplayed the significance of the sheet showing up on national television then and doesn’t appear to have changed his approach in a major way since, so clearly he’s not particularly concerned that there’s some kind of advantage to be gained defensively.
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