Did Brock Osweiler Earn Starting Job in Strong Debut Win over Bears?
Some think the Denver Broncos now have a quarterback controversy. Fourth-year pro Brock Osweiler took over as the team’s starter for the Week 11 game against the Chicago Bears. The team needed to turn to Osweiler because Peyton Manning partially tore the plantar fascia in his left foot and was not performing at a high level.
Osweiler led the team to a 17-15 win over the Bears, and he looked good in his debut. The team seemed to rally around Osweiler, and the Broncos offense operated like a well-oiled machine. Osweiler posted (team) season highs in completion percentage (74.1), first-down percentage (51.9) and touchdown percentage (7.4).
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While Manning has been a turnover machine in 2015 (17 interceptions), Osweiler guarded the football well and went through the game without throwing a pick. In fact, the Broncos did not commit a turnover for the first time this season, leaving the Tennessee Titans as the only team with a turnover in every game this season.
On Monday, Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak revealed that Osweiler would start another game—this time against the New England Patriots in Week 12.
Kubiak explained the decision.
“We said that we would go back and review the entire situation at the beginning of this week, which we have done. Basically nothing has changed. We made the decision we made last week. We think this is best for Peyton and for our football team right now.” Kubiak clarified, “That's the way we will proceed. Like I said, we're all in on the next football game.”
Did Osweiler do enough to earn the starting job for the rest of the year after a strong debut against the Bears? Let’s grade his performance and take a look at his upside.
Under Center
Osweiler ran the Kubiak system to the letter of the law. A big part of the design of the Kubiak offense involves the quarterback working from under center. On Sunday against the Bears, we saw Osweiler run the offense in a way that Manning never has.
In Week 11, Osweiler dropped back to pass 17 times from under center. That’s more times dropping back to pass from under center than Manning has done in any of his 57 games with the Broncos. On these dropbacks, Osweiler completed 11 of 14 passes for 172 yards and a touchdown while also getting sacked three times.
Kubiak took away plenty of positives from Osweiler’s performance against the Bears.
“It's encouraging," Kubiak said. "The thing that he's going to be able to do is see a lot of good things, but he's also going to look at some things and say, 'Boy, I can do that. I could have been better in this situation.' I think he's going to take a lot from that, but it was encouraging, I think, for a first start in this league—[It was a] tough start on the road [against] a really good defensive football, which Chicago has been.”
Kubiak continued, “I think he has to feel good about the first step. Let's take it a week at a time. He needs to be better this week. His team played well for him. That's the most important thing.”
So long as Osweiler is starting, the team should continue to primarily operate from under center—just like Kubiak wants to.
Helping the Ground Game
With Osweiler at the helm, the Broncos were able to run for a season-high 170 yards against the Bears. The Broncos ran the ball 34 times on snaps with Osweiler under center, 16 more times than their previous single-game season high.
Starter Ronnie Hillman recorded his third 100-yard rushing performance of the 2015 season, and his first as the team’s lead back. There were no long runs for Hillman in Week 11 (long carry of 15 yards), and his 21 carries were mostly hard-fought touches where he had to find holes as they opened or anticipate/locate cutback lanes.
Osweiler’s scrambling ability is an asset that defenses need to honor. Now, back-side defenders can no longer crash in on the running back immediately. They instead must follow Osweiler—even briefly—just to make sure he’s not running a bootleg or rolling out to pass. This helps open up cutback lanes for Hillman and C.J. Anderson.
Anderson is not surprised with Osweiler’s performance.
“He probably proved something to you all. Everybody's asking the Brock questions, but we knew Brock can do this," Anderson said. "He's always been a part of our team and he got an opportunity to show the world, show you guys what he can do—what we've always seen in him.”
The Broncos should continue to run a balanced attack so long as Osweiler is starting. Kubiak knows what a balanced offense featuring both the run and the pass can do for the team.
“It helped our team, not just Brock. It helped our whole football team," Kubiak explained. "We stayed in rhythm with what we were doing. We kept our third downs manageable. We were better as a third-down team in the game. It obviously helped us offensively, but it helped our football team.”
Going to the Tight Ends
A hallmark of the Kubiak system is the frequent use of tight ends. With Osweiler running the Kubiak system, it’s no surprise we saw the tight ends used more than ever before in 2015. Osweiler completed 15 of 18 passes for 207 yards and two touchdowns to receivers between the painted numbers.
A primary beneficiary of Osweiler being inserted as the starter was veteran tight end Vernon Davis. Added in a trade around the midway point of the season, Davis hadn’t done much for the team before the game against the Bears.
That all changed Sunday.
Davis was targeted six times by Osweiler. That mark ranked second-highest on the team behind only wide receiver Demaryius Thomas (8). Davis caught every pass thrown his way and finished the game with six catches for 68 yards. As you can see in his passing chart, Davis caught all of his passes between the lines.
In addition to Davis, veteran tight end Owen Daniels was also heavily involved. Daniels led the team with 69 yards receiving against the Bears. He was targeted five times and ended up catching four of those passes. Daniels seemed to be energized by running a system he has such intimate knowledge of.
With Osweiler as the starter, the tight ends should continue to get plenty of work each week.
Things to Change
It wasn’t a perfect performance from Osweiler, and he has a few areas of concern to clean up moving forward. As he continues to start, we could see more of the playbook opened up for Osweiler.
The team didn’t ask him to throw deep that often. Osweiler has a rocket arm, but he was rarely taking deep shots against the Bears. Of the 28 starting quarterbacks in Week 11, Osweiler had the sixth-smallest air-yards-per-attempt average. Osweiler’s passes only traveled an average of 6.44 yards, while the league average for Week 11 was 8.57 yards.
The Broncos should move forward with a plan that includes more deep shots by Osweiler. Even if these passes fall to the ground incomplete, they will at least back off defenders and make them aware they need to honor the deep pass.
Osweiler was sacked five times by the Bears on Sunday. They entered the game with only 15 sacks on the season, a mark that ranked them 26th in the league in that category. So what happened? Why was Osweiler sacked so often against Chicago?
The Bears didn’t blitz him at an exorbitant rate. Osweiler was blitzed on 30.3 percent of his dropbacks. The league average for that rate in Week 11 was a bit higher at 32 percent. Of his total dropbacks, Osweiler felt pressure and was put under duress on 30.3 percent of them—the same amount of times he was blitzed. This means when the Bears blitzed him, they were getting to him.
In fact, Osweiler was sacked on a whopping 15.2 percent of his dropbacks (league average only 6.9 percent).
Osweiler held onto the ball too long against the Bears, and this allowed the pressure to get to him. His average time in the pocket 2.32 seconds, and his average time before pass was 2.49 seconds. These numbers rank a bit longer than the league average for Week 11. In an effort to avoid getting sacked so frequently, Osweiler needs to make quicker decisions and get rid of the football.
Summary
The Broncos are better off with Osweiler as their starter. Manning is not healthy, and even when healthy he lacks the ability to run the Kubiak offense true to its design.
Kubiak revealed Monday that Manning has traveled back east to get more insight into his foot injury.
“I guess I should mention that he is getting another opinion on his foot today," Kubiak noted. "He is in Charlotte. It's something that was decided on Saturday, so he's not here today. We're going to wait until he comes back from that.”
Kubiak continued, “He should be back I think tomorrow morning sometime, so we're going to evaluate that. [Head Athletic Trainer Steve] Greek [Antonopulos] will evaluate that. We'll see how that goes and we'll take it a day at a time, worry about a day at a time and just working and, like I said, staying focused on getting this team ready to play New England.”
The best test for Osweiler will be going against the undefeated Patriots in Week 12. If he can do the unthinkable and beat the Patriots, then Osweiler should lock up the job for the rest of the year. Even if Osweiler has a good performance in a loss, the team should be looking to him as their top quarterback.
All quotes and injury/practice observations obtained firsthand. Record/statistical information provided via the Broncos media department unless otherwise noted. Advanced stats via ESPN's employees-only database.
Contract and salary-cap information provided by Spotrac. Transaction history provided by Pro Sports Transactions.
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