This is long overdue and I already know this is going to be a tome, so I'll get right to it.
2024 Broncos vs Colts (best video I could think of);
For anyone who watches any of the post game video (I do because the footage is better) you already know how much smash, sail, yankee, y cross and dagger the team runs. This is meant to show you why they run what they do and what defenses are doing to counter it. Every QB School, Chase Daniel and anyone like them only goes over the offense. In this post, I'm going to try to show the interaction between both sides in this post. Maybe I suck at, but I'm going to try anyway.
At 59 seconds of the video above; that's dagger vs Tampa 2. The pole runner/pipe route is carried initally, but he breaks it off and hunts crossers. If you look at the safety's, they get zero width. There is zero fear by the defensive coaching staff of anything deep to the sideline.
You might be familiar with 2 read/ palms, a 2 match coverage, but I'm going to show you 2 trap, hard 2 and squat. With that out of the way, what Indy played on that down was Tampa 2, with a caveat. Instead of carrying the pipe route, and the safety's getting width, defenses know Denver, in that incarnation, attacks with hole shots, and what defenses where doing to stop them, the defensive game plan for that week was to change how those coverages responded to Denver's personnel.
Dagger, sail and smash are all good 2 beaters. To keep from losing to those concepts doesn't mean you have to stop playing those coverages. Denver's coaching staff was trying to get defenses off of them, they did all those concepts and tried different ways to get to said concepts, but sometimes it blew up in their face with some of the adjustments the defense made to Denver.
Now you've seen one trick, and that's using MEG/MOD (man everywhere he goes, man on demand) and match/cap principles, let's examine more. If you put your DC cap on, and you don't believe Denver will attack you deep with multiple vertical threats, this is what you might do.
Squat. At 5:27 of that video, that's sail against match 3 mable. On paper, that's a win for Denver with sail against cover 3. The deep 3rd corner had the freedom to sit on Sutton's route, and Sutton stuttered when he saw him do it. If you remember in that game, it led to a curfuffle on the sideline between Sutton and Peyton.
One more time; i f you don't think Denver will challenge you deep, this is one adjustment you can make.
At 6:37 in the video, that's just another way to get to smash. Because of what the defense was doing, I'm convinced Bo double clouched because he wanted to be sure the coverage would behave the way he thought it should, and was late to a sideline out route, but a deep safety in cover 2...again. It looks like a split coverage too. Palms TE side, Kathy the other. I don't know how you run smash to both sides and get both corners to behave so differently.
Those are the 3 picks Bo threw, and the big takeaway for me was how fast and quick Bo was to identify coverage. For all the critics, I don't know how you can't be impressed with this kid. By all rights, he should have over 40 picks and maybe 35 TD's. The defense refused the middle of the field all day and compromised the very nature of their defense to take away hole shots.
Proof; 3:11 and 11:03. Both TD passes. Watch how Trautman isn't carried at all and Bo makes it count, and that move by Sutton got that reaction? C'mon. They were sitting on everything and made Bo look bad.
Also, just because, at 3:58 and 7:14 with 3rd and 7 and you play cover 2 hard? That one has to be the clincher. If there was any doubt that Denver was getting srewed with, that erases it.
With all that said, what have we establisheed? The middle of the field was absolutely refused by defenses for the past 2 seasons. The TE's weren't struggling to beat M-M, they were taken out of the game entirely. The only TE wins available were vertical. Which Trautman did...twice. Carolina too. I'm not looking that one up though. And those were both his TD's for that year. Off stick nods. With Trautman.
What Waddle changes; the abilty to run 4 verts and mean it. Even 3.
Imagine twin posts with Waddle in the slot. If the defense moves to quarters in response then you have 1st window deep over routes to TE's. The idea is to get Waddle against a safety downfield against either coverage. Cover 2 or quarters is essentially Waddle against a safety. You'd probably need a 7 man protection for it, but you can hit it.
Because Bo is so good at identifying coverages, you won't need to run smash both sides. That moves defenses into more predictable and easier to manipulate split coverages like 6. You can still run dagger against it, but you might need to hit the 2nd window, which takes longer, but if you have speed at receiver you can literally outrun the pass rush.
The biggest response might be how much more cover 3 the team sees. 3rd and 7 with a hard 2 corner? Not anymore. And if so, gimme. With speed on the perimeter they won't be doing what you saw Indy do.
Other concepts you can run are mills and anything fast to the flat. Those running back pass plays will be less stressed because you won't see 2 trap anywhere near as often.
If I guess right, the offense won't run too much different, but it'll be executed so much easier. A lot less immediate contact after the catch, more open field YAC opportunities because of less of what you saw Indy play against Denver. Those types of things will open up, but you have to show you mean it.
That means in the early portion of Denver's schedule, there's going to be another feeling out process. For the 3rd year in a row Denver might start slow again, but at least the promise of a big play will be noticible. Being able to orchestrate downfield shots won't be anywhere near as much of a struggle and 3rd and 7 might even lead to a more frequent occurance to the rare sighting of a TE. If defenses move away from cover 2 that'll happen. If not, let it rip downfield.
Waddle might end up with a very Devery Henderson type role, which is fine. He might end up with 65 catches for 950 yards, and even though that line looks modest for the commitment the team has to him, it'll feel like much more.
Now onto the run game. Because of the lack of diversity and how easily it was to see the coverage, the marriage of the coverage to the run fits was too easy as well. Denver tried to rectify this with large personnel changes, but we saw how that worked out.
How the defenses can unmarry the coverage to the front is done a few ways (for those who criticize Vance Johnson, he's as absolute master at this). One way the Ravens have used in the past is stemming. That's just changes where everyone lines up just before the snap. Defensive lineman literally changing their technique during the cadence. For those who don't watch much football outside of the Broncos, this is a new trend going around made popular by TCU following their run in the tournament a few years ago.
Another way is the Vance Johnson way; use angle calls and post snap movement. The defense uses G calls, or nail. Much less nail in Denver though. Denver plays a lot of under fronts, whether even or odd. That's what other defenses do to Denver as well. Which really speaks to how well the line has played also. There was a lot going against them too.
There's pretty much 2 ways to stop the run game; 1. lever spill stuff, that includes lever spill lever, spill overhange and other variants. 2. Gap switching. This is what Denver does almost exclusively.
What you see against Denver is a lot of gap switching which is what the textbook says against zone heavy teams. You don't see a lot of run throughs like you would using a lever spill approach.
In order to have a chance of a running clearing the L.O.S. without contact, Denver used more gap schemes than they probably wanted to, because for the first time since Shanahan or Kubiak, Denver has a running game that they're poractively trying to marry to the play action passing game. Sometime around midseason, Denver started using more counter GT and pin and pull concepts. Counter GT to beat all the defensive line action and weird G front calls and pin and pull to get to the perimeter.
A G front is simply putting the nose in a 2i technique. A nail call is putting him in a 2 or even technique. This allows the tackle to play under or over the block depending on movement. Now, knowing that puts the nose opposite the back, that means in jet protection the slide is made towards the nose. That means the formation strength side or weakside of the passing strength is managed when rushing the passer. That means you really need a hoss at LT and LG. For those that pay attention to PFF, that means those ratings are substantially inadequate. Those 3, Bolles, Powers and Palcho, had a tough task as they had a lot of 1-on-1's the defense could dictate. They won a lot of them.
What that means for the running game is that any duo or zone concept was immediately cluttered. That's why the running game looked the way it did. Alot of action at the L.O.S.
If Denver can force defenses into trying to disguise their coverages more, than that opens up the running game as well. You can catch the defense trying to slant and angle into spaces where they try to introduce a safety into a run fit when you use an imbalanced formation from 12 personnel.
To wrap this up, the point is how important speed at WR is in todays NFL. It impacts a ton. That's why you see teams with the better WR win games. It's why Crappy teams tend to stay crappy until they have quality at that position and they make a playoff run (Cleveland, Chicago, Miami). How crappy QB's get good (Mayfield, Darnold). This position has become so important that it should be looked at the same way as edge, LT or corner. Denver just got one.