The Denver Broncos took care of business in their preseason showdown with the Green Bay Packers last week.
After Sean Payton’s squad won 27-2, the coach was pleased with the overall performance, but he had one major complaint.
“[W]e had enough penalties for three games, and we’ve got to get a lot of that cleaned up,” Payton said. “We’ll see the tape. They’ll come in here tomorrow, but I liked how we played relative to the effort. They’ll be a number of things we look at on tape and we’re happy with and they’ll be some things that obviously we have to get cleaned up.”
The Broncos were penalized 13 times for 120 yards against the Packers. That amount of laundry would be costly in a regular-season game.
“We have a 38-yard run called back because of a penalty,” Payton said. “I want to look at the tape. Like I said at the onset, [we had] far too many fouls. So they set you back. They take yards off your numbers, but more importantly they also take away field position.”
Now approaching their preseason finale against the Arizona Cardinals, Denver’s players will aim to be more disciplined on Sunday.
“The penalties are tough because whenever you are moving the ball, moving it well and then you have a penalty that brings it back, it’s hard to overcome that,” quarterback Jarrett Stidham said. “This league is too good, the players on the opposite side are too good, the coaches are too good. Whenever it’s 2nd-and-15 or 1st-and-20, it’s always hard to bounce back from that. We’ll definitely look at it and see what we can do to get better.”
For players on the roster bubble, committing fouls could be the difference between making the 53-man roster and getting cut. We’ll see if the Broncos can get the penalties in check for Sunday’s preseason finale.
