The Broncos haven’t merged old-school and new-school

I don’t think I’m breaking any news when I say the Broncos offense has been bad this year. In fact, for most of the season, it’s been downright inept.

On the surface, it seems pretty clear why the unit has struggled so much. A porous offensive line, an ineffective quarterback and questionable play-calling have all played a part in the disappointing first half of the season. However, that doesn’t tell the whole story.

Take San Francisco, for instance. The last undefeated team in the NFL this season, prior to last night’s overtime loss to Seattle, runs a carbon copy of the Broncos scheme; in fact, that’s where Rich Scangarello cut his teeth. They’ve played a chunk of the season with second- and third-string offensive tackles, their skill position talent was worse than the Broncos (until they brought Emmanuel Sanders over at the trade deadline), and their quarterback is inconsistent and struggles against good defenses. Yet somehow they’ve been able to win ballgames.

Look at Minnesota, another similar offense. They’ll host the Broncos this weekend with a 7-3 record, just weeks after Adam Thielen called out Kirk Cousins for his inability to throw an accurate ball and a month removed from Stefon Diggs looking to get out of dodge. They’ve had their own offensive struggles, but found their way to success nonetheless.

So what’s the difference?

Here’s what I think: The Broncos are trying to mix old-school with new-school and those two ideals just don’t work together.

Heading into the season, it was clear that John Elway wanted to play old-school football. He hired Vic Fangio, a 61-year-old football lifer to coach the team. He traded for a quarterback that resembled himself near the end of his own playing career. He tried to bring Gary Kubiak back into the building to run a West Coast offense he himself ran more than two decades ago. When that fell through, he turned to the next available option in Scangarello.

And that’s where the disconnect happened.

Fresh off his work with Kyle Shanahan, Scangarello is about as far from old-school as it gets. What Kyle is doing in San Francisco is innovative, adaptive and fresh. That’s what we all expected to see out of his protege, but it’s not what we’ve gotten. Blame that on the atmosphere he’s forced to operate in.

“Old school” is just a nice way of saying “unwilling to change.” That’s not always a bad thing, so long as everyone is on the same page.

That’s why things are working so well in Minnesota. Kubiak, Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer, and the front office all fall in line and are able to maximize the assets they have in they system they want. At Dove Valley, that’s not the case. Scangarello is the odd man out and his offense will never look like its counterpart in San Francisco because he doesn’t fit the direction of what the franchise wants to do.

Could the Broncos offense look better than it has throughout the first half? Probably. But it won’t ever be truly dynamic because it’s operating with a significant handicap.

Something has to change. The question is, will it be the overall direction of the organization or the one piece in the puzzle that doesn’t fit?

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