Jeffrey Essary
@JeffreyEssary
Staff writer for Mile High Report http://www.milehighreport.com
Hackett does know how to slow down an offense
At Packers camp today—coach Matt LaFleur says former OC Nathaniel Hackett has rejoined the staff in "an analyst role for our defense." This is becoming more common across the league, where an offensive coach comes in to give the defense his perspective or vice versa.
It’s been over a decade since Denver has returned a HC/QB combo. ‘14 Fox/Manning ‘15 Kubiak/Manning ‘16 Kubiak/Siemian ‘17 Joseph/Siemian ‘18 Joseph/Keenum ‘19 Fangio/Flacco ‘20 Fangio/Lock ‘21 Fangio/Bridgewater ‘22 Hackett/Wilson ‘23 Payton/Wilson ‘24 Payton/Nix ‘25 Payton/Nix
I just know @MaseDenver is over the moon right now!
The #Bucs are bringing back their 1976 throwback uniforms this season — which they will wear in Week 3 vs. the Jets. 🔥
Whew - Nuggets non-Jokic starters shooting 4-24 from three in game 7 ain’t gonna get it done.
10x the cap hit of Bo Nix for the next 3 years. Something something diminishing returns and closing windows.
Highest paid QBs in the NFL on a per-year basis: 🏈Dak Prescott: $60M 🏈Joe Burrow: $55M 🏈Josh Allen: $55M 🏈Jordan Love: $55M 🏈Trevor Lawrence: $55M 🏈Tua Tagovailoa: $53.1M 🏈Brock Purdy: $53M 🏈Jared Goff: $53M
Having watched a lot of Vance Joseph’s defense over the years, I’ve held his biggest weakness is box coverage and Denver’s biggest area of concern coming into the this year was RB/TE/Slot matchups. They’ve since added Hufanga and Greenlaw, and now Barron. Massive improvement.
Vikings did the same thing with Peterson. He was nine yards short and they played for the FG win to make the playoffs to get bounced from the wild card a week later that absolutely didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. So frustrating.
The decision to sit Saquon Barkley and not go for the single season rushing record is everything that is wrong with sports in 2025. We’ve collectively made it to where NOTHING matters but championships and it’s ruining sports. It's anti-fan, anti-competitive & anti-fun. I hope…
“We practice it” Sure, Sean.
I’m still not convinced we’re not all being gaslit and they made this free kick rule tonight.
I’m still not convinced we’re not all being gaslit and they made this free kick rule tonight.
Am I a terrible person? Probably. Do I regret it? Not at all.
Funny how you're no longer hearing complaints about picking QB6 at the No. 12 spot in the first round.🤔
Most annoying thing about today’s outcome is Bo Nix being robbed a signature win for his young career. Went into Arrowhead, out-dueled Mahomes, and lead his team down to the perfect spot for the win.
I’m not sure anyone in Denver’s skill positions besides Sutton on a good day would start on any other NFL roster. Desperately need a new talent haul around Nix.
Denver is clearly getting taken to the woodshed, but man I haven’t seen such a blatantly one sided officiating game against the Broncos in a while.
This is a coaching graph as much as anything and also a QB decision-making barometer. Broncos score pretty nice on both counts.
How often QBs throw into tight windows and their turnover worthy play rate (on all throws)
If you’d told me at the beginning of the year Denver would be within one score on all three of their losses and be 4-3 heading into the Panthers game without Pat Surtain for two games and Bo Nix still figuring things out I’d take that all day. Happily.
I’m joking - relax. We just won 4 of our last 5 games with a rookie QB and beat Sean Payton’s former team 33-10 in prime time. Let’s enjoy it and have some fun!