The Denver Broncos only managed to score 16 points in Sean Payton’s first game in charge, which was viewed as an underwhelming total for an offensive-minded coach who was brought in to help fix the team’s defense.
Given the unusual circumstances, though, three scoring drives — plus another drive that ended in a missed field goal — look a little better than the final score suggests.
Buy Broncos Tickets“It’s unusual in that it’s rare both teams end up with just six possessions,” Payton explained in his next-day conference call on Monday. “In other words, points then become at a premium. Generally speaking, you’re between 10 and 12 possessions a game.
“Part of it was a result of both teams having long, sustained drives, overcoming some third downs, maybe some penalties to keep drives moving. It was a little unusual that way.”
Scoring 16 points is still disappointing, but the offense only punted twice, which is a good total compared to last year’s average of 5.6 punts per game. With long, time-consuming drives, the Broncos offense did not have many opportunities to score points.
“I think the biggest thing is — we had six possessions,” quarterback Russell Wilson said after the game. “I thought we did well on pretty much all of them. I think the biggest thing is finding one more play here. We knew it was going to be a fight. We knew it was going to be a battle. We thought we were going to come out on top. Unfortunately, we didn’t.”
Wilson believes improvements will be made.
“We felt like we had opportunities,” the QB said. “The guys will watch the film and see what we can do better. There’s going to definitely be some things [to clean up]. Playing tough football, we want to be able to play, being versatile and everything else, we just have to make one more play.”
Up next for Denver’s offense is a showdown with the Washington Commanders in Week 2. The Broncos will obviously aim to score more than 16 points in that matchup. Getting the ball for more than six drives could help make that happen.
