Sean Payton’s worst enemy greets him in the misty mirror every morning for a shave, then cuts him from inside the rest of the day.
If Payton ever got out of his own way, he’d rule the world. The Broncos coach needs to listen more to the voice on his play sheet — RUN IT!!!, it said at the top last Thursday, like a deranged Xwitter post — and less to the one inside his head telling him he’s better than that.
“I felt we ran it real well early in the game (in the) first half,” Payton reflected earlier this week. “The second half, there were two series I kind of kicked myself where, even when we did run it, it was the type of run we ran that wasn’t as effective.”
It’s not about Amazon cameras catching your menu, coach. It’s about you deciding to ignore the largest thing written at the top of it.
Audric Estime touched the ball in the second half exactly four times against the Chargers. He gained seven yards on one jaunt, lost one on another, gained five on the next, followed by seven more, before vanishing into the fog creeping north from Seal Beach.
We mention this because first off, Estime, not Javonte Williams, is the Broncos’ wisest hand going forward — hot or otherwise. Secondly, because we’re on to Cincinnati. And the 7-8 Bengals have been gashed for at least 140 rushing yards this season eight times, losing five of those contests.
Like Kansas in the Big 12, Cincy QB Joe Burrow is in full spoiler mode, rediscovering his mojo — the Bengals are 3-0 since Dec. 2 — just in time to ruin everything you’ve spent the last two months building. And like the Jayhawks, he’s a tricky matchup on paper, especially for a secondary that’s come unglued ever since Riley Moss left the party.
Runway Joe is surrounded by the kind of toys Peyton Manning used to score 40 with for fun. If the Bengals had Vance Joseph’s defense, they’d be the Lions, carving up the rest of the turkeys in the division.
Fortunately, they don’t, and Burrow can’t beat you if he’s on his back. Or stuck on the sideline, contemplating how to spend the Hermes gift card he just found under the tree.
“We had ample opportunities in that second half,” Payton said of the One The Got Away in L.A. “I thought our third-down numbers obviously weren’t where we wanted them to be. We couldn’t get off the field defensively and therefore we weren’t able to keep the lead we had going into halftime or coming out to start the second half.”
There was a reason for that — the same reason, more or less, that the Chiefs got off the mat back in Week 10.
The Broncos have gone into halftime leading or tied nine times and won six of those games. Which is good, except for the times that Payton gives up the ghost, forgetting the memos on his call sheet in the heat of battle.
In those nine games, when the Broncos have run the ball six or more times in the third quarter, they’re 5-1 — and 1-2 when those attempts are five or fewer.
In those aforementioned close games, they’re 6-0 when racking up at least 25 rushing yards in the third quarter; 0-3 when it’s 24 yards or fewer.
“This (middle part) of the game you’re talking about is the area that as a coach, you look at and you get frustrated,” Payton said. “Just with, ‘How do we put a break on the momentum that had shifted?’ I feel like we could’ve done a better job there.”
Note to self: Please start following notes to self.
Hubris makes fools of us all, eventually. For a 60-year-old coach with a Super Bowl ring, old habits are a beast to break.
The times that drive you up a wall are when it feels as if Payton is calling the game for who he wants the Broncos to be, who he wants Bo Nix to be, instead of who they actually are.
They’re grindy with great guards. They’re three yards and a cloud of gold dust.
Styles make fights, and in the Bengals’ defeats, they’ve held the ball in the fourth quarter for just six minutes, on average. Cincy is 3-6 when an opponent runs it 26 or more times, 4-2 when that rush count is 25 or less.
Don’t complicate this any more than Burrow’s already going to. Want to find the playoffs? Find your feet. Find Estime.
“I think he played well,” Payton said of the rookie back, who logged his first NFL touchdown vs. the Bolts and finished with 48 rushing yards on nine totes. “I was encouraged with the physicality he ran with. I think he’ll only get better, so I was encouraged.
“Even Blake (Watson) had some carries that were encouraging. So balancing that is going to be important for us here down the stretch.”
Just don’t run away from it. The path to the playoffs has always been right in front of you, coach, staring back in all caps.
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