It's time to talk that talk, and we talk it like no one else. This is the stinking truth. Now, here's your host, Mark Schler. Hey, welcome to the Seeking Truth Podcast, Broncos edition. Alongside Mike Evans, I am Mark Schler. Thank you so much for making us a part of your day. Michael, how are you, buddy? I'm great, and a big, big storyline developing as we look ahead to Broncos and Chiefs coming up on Monday night. Looks like the Chiefs will be playing without their left tackle, Josh Simmons. Bad back, which means they'll have to turn to a rookie, Khalil Benson. Undrafted rookie out of Indiana. But boy, just from the surface, it seems like a big advantage for the Broncos. Doesn't it? Patrick Mahomes playing his first game since tearing an ACL nine months ago. He's got to go out there. You know there are going to be some...
some emotions, some anxiety. And he's got to worry about his weak side being covered by a rookie against Nick Benito. Right. And never a good deal when the first read of your progression normally is rhythm, one hitch, two hitch, you know, something of that nature. And then all of a sudden it goes, OK, here's your progression. It goes left tackle, check out Benito, rhythm, one hitch, two hitch, three hitch. That's not a good scenario at all. Bad news for the Kansas City Chiefs, obviously. And, you know.
Scouting report, we talked to our own Joel Klatt, good friend of the show, Joel Klatt, Fox broadcaster, Fox number one college broadcaster, who did a bunch of Indiana games last year and said, hey, listen, man, this kid Benson, big time run blocker, that's why he made it in the NFL, was surprised he didn't get drafted. But then all of a sudden, it becomes one of those things, okay, how do we protect him in pass pro? And so you're going to have to put protection over there. You're going to have to slide, you're going to have to chip with the back, you're going to have to line up a tight end over there and eat him up in protection as opposed to getting him out in the pattern. You look at all those situations, Mike, and you say, man, that's a disadvantage. The other thing is you start looking at your, like, what can we run? What can't we run? So now all of a sudden, if you're like, hey, man, we want to get five guys out, we call that scat protection, right? Get five guys out in the pattern. Well, we really can't afford to get five guys out in the pattern because we're going to leave him one-on-one with Nick Benito. Like, that's not, that's foolish. That's foolhardy. So we can't do that. And then a lot of people would say, hey, man, but, you know, they went out and got Kenneth Walker exactly for these situations. So they could run the ball and they could dominate the line of scrimmage. Hate to tell you, Kansas City fans, but Andy Reid has never wanted to run the ball.
I remember that Super Bowl against Tampa Bay where Tampa Bay, their linebackers were sitting six and a half yards off the line of scrimmage. They were basically going, please, we're giving you favorable number counts. We're giving you light boxes. Please run the ball. And Andy Reid was like, up yours. I won't do it. Right? I mean, he's just like, I'm not going to do it. And they ended up losing the Super Bowl because of that. That's one of the reasons they lost the Super Bowl. So this is not good. And then think about this. The Denver Broncos set a franchise record and led the league in sacks last year with 68.
which is incredible. That's a ton of sacks, right? They did that trailing at some point, I think in every single game of the season when teams were coming in and their one priority was like, let's not let them sack our quarterback. And they still were able to contribute 68 sacks to that defense. Now think about this. It's not Benson who's the major concern because what are we going to do? We're going to slide protection. We're going to line up a tight end. We're going to have a back over there chipping. We're going to make sure we help Benson out left tackle. Well, you know what that means you can't do?
You can't help out the right side. You got Jalen Moore, a guy from San Francisco that has struggled some with the offensive line that the San Francisco 49ers have. Dude, if they thought he was imperative to their operation over there, he'd have been here. The team that knows him best, San Francisco, said you can hit the free agent market and go to Kansas City. And now you've got Zach Allen, and you've got Ellis over there, and you've got a rotation over there that are going to get one-on-one opportunities against your players? Like advantage Broncos. How much will the Broncos feel the absence of Jonathan Cooper on the commissioner's exemplist when you look at, okay, I've got Jonathan Cooper, and I've got the trio of Jonah Ellis, DeAndre Tillman, and Q Robinson, okay? So how would you balance that out?
Cooper versus what those three guys can bring. Is it a wash or how much of a drop-off is it? No, it's a drop-off. I've told you this many times. I think Jonathan Cooper is their best edge player. Now, he's not going to have the sacks that Benito will have. I think Benito has gotten bigger and stronger and is a better edge player. But Jonathan Cooper is a physical mismatch. And not only can he turn a corner and dip, but, man, he can turn speed into power. And he's one of those guys that plays with great leverage and can shove people back in the backfield. They don't have that replacement. The other thing it does is you have to start one of your backups so your rotation becomes slimmer. You just don't have as many guys to rotate now because I would imagine Ellis is going to get the start there. And now you have two rotational players.
for two positions. Where normally you have two stars, you have three rotational positions for two places. And so it definitely hinders your rotation on the edge. And there's a reason you have starters and there's a reason there's backups. And I think the Broncos have great backups. I mean, great backups. But Cooper starts because there's a reason Cooper starts, because he's that good. How do you frame this game? How do you frame this game for the Broncos? It's week one of 17 games. It's a long haul, but it's the Chiefs and it's the Chiefs at Arrowhead. So, you know, how do you kind of frame this for all the Bronco fans out there watching?
I'm not going to claim it's a must win, but it is one of those games where you go in, and Vance Joseph, the defensive coordinator, has always had success against Mahomes in the last couple of years. But it's one of those statement games. People have disrespected you as a franchise. They disrespect Bo Nix. They disrespect you in totality of your football team. You have, what, the six best odds in your own conference in the AF7? Six teams. There's six teams they've rated ahead of you as Super Bowl potential. You won the AFC last year at 14-3, and everybody says, hey, man.
You had gone to the Super Bowl had it not been for Bo Nix breaking his ankle. So the level of disrespect, I think, is palpable for them. And much like Seattle and the Seahawks, I guarantee you they talk about it. I guarantee you behind closed doors, they're like, man, this is absolute garbage. And so you can put a stamp on this thing and say, hey, man, just so you guys know that we are still the team to beat in the AFC West. I mean, am I oversimplifying things? That lack of respect is...
is Bo Nix that the national media just looks at Bo Nix and sees a good quarterback but not necessarily a special quarterback maybe a quarterback who through the first couple years has been carried by the Broncos defense maybe carried by Sean Payton and that's the reason why the national buzz around the Broncos isn't as big as we all think it should be yeah I think there's I think that is the reason I think you're 100% right is that people for whatever reason don't believe what they've seen They believe in the Bo Nix who struggled early in games, not the one who competed his ass off and brought the Broncos back from the jaws of defeat time and time again. 11-2 in one-score games or something like that in the regular season. They don't believe in that guy. Why, I have no idea. But listen, man, I'm one of those guys that say, good, let the Broncos be the underdog. Let the Broncos lay in the weeds. Let the Broncos have a chip on their shoulder. Let Bo Nix hear the naysayers. Let him hear all the negative talk. Does Bo strike you as the type of guy,
that is looking and determined to go out and I'm going to prove people wrong. Puts that chip right there on the shoulder and then just, you know, feeds off it all year long. I think when you're a legitimate competitor, you don't let it irritate you or whatever, but you definitely want to shove it up people's cans. I don't think there's any question that you listen to all that. You're like, all right, we'll see.
We'll see how it works. But, you know, I'm really excited. I'm excited about this offense. I'm excited about what they can do. I'm excited about Davis Webb calling plays. I want to break something down for you because I love what they did. I think one of the things you're trying to do as an offensive coordinator, we saw this in the preseason. We saw them get into heavy personnel. We saw them running their kind of North Star plays, running their play action stuff off of that. But as a coordinator, one of the things you want to be able to do is understand tendencies.
And you want to be able to take those tendencies. So can I get you in from a personnel grouping and a formation to get you to play a certain type of defense? And I saw this. It was in the Green Bay Packer preseason game, preseason game number two. So I brought out my board. Love the board. Love the board. Let's do it. All right. I love our telestrator on the fly. Here we go. All right. So this is this is one thing they got down into the high red zone and I just did half a line. So the ball is sitting on this hash, the other hash over here. And they had, you know, they had some type of bunch formation over here, but I'm not concerned.
with this side of the football field, okay? I'm concerned with what they did over here. And I love exactly what they did. So they knew in this formation or this personnel grouping down approaching the red zone, they were going to get what we call cover four, okay? That's a four deep, three under defense, okay? That's all you really need to know. But what ends up happening, cover four is one of the toughest defenses to play because there's a lot of rules. And what you have to understand, when a receiver hits a certain depth in the pattern, then it becomes match, meaning you're playing that man-to-man, okay? So in this particular scenario, they have Cortland Sutton down here into the boundary in a cut split.
corner outside leverage, free safety deep. And so they get the quarters look they want. So Cortland, let me get this mic so it picks me up. Cortland takes an inside release, but instantly presses back out into the corner. So what does that do?
That engages the corner in coverage because you've got that deep core to the field, right? And I'm no expert in coverage, guys. I know enough to be dangerous, okay? But I understand this part of it. So now we always talk about complementary football, complementary routes. Cortland Sutton's not going to be the primary on this, but he's running this like he's getting the football. So he gets himself to about 12 yards, and then he cuts in. What does that do? Well, at about 12 yards is when you signal as a DB, man, we're a man-to-man here.
And at 12 yards, that's when the free safety is looking, going, man, I got to grab him man to man. So as he makes this in-cutting route, both the corner and the safety are locked on to Cortland. Now that puts the running back and the linebacker in a man to man situation. And you get R.J. Harvey, gets up on that linebacker right on his toes, gives him a little wiggle, and now he's hitting the wheel down the football field. Now what you've done as a coordinator is you've understood and established the fact that out of this formation, this personnel grouping, the likelihood is I'm getting quarters defense. And it's exactly what the Broncos got.
And they got the matchup that they wanted. They got a superstar wide receiver in this league to say, I'm not going to play selfish football. I'm going to run this route like I'm the primary, like the ball's coming to me. And he eats up both corner and safety. And we get 12. R.J. Harvey locked up on Johnny can't cover me. And Johnny can't cover me. He's running behind him going. And Bo Nix throws the perfect pass. Touchdown.
Broncos and it was perfect execution and that's what I love about what's going on they're going to get you with heavy formations they're going to run the ball they're going to do all these things but their coordinator understands how to get you in exactly what he wants you in and then they've got the players and the personnel and the quarterback to basically exploit that does that play work with Jerry Judy Well, yes, it does work with Jerry Judy. Well, if Jerry Judy was playing back. If he's Cortland's role. If he's Cortland's role, no, because Jerry Judy would half-ass it off the line of scrimmage. But if he was a running back, he'd beat that linebacker. Then he'd bat the ball down in the end zone like a DB. So, no, apparently that little game would not have worked if he's Jerry Judy. But I love what they did. I cannot wait to see this Broncos offense and how they morph.
What they did early in games, Mike, or in the preseason, they really played in 22 personnel, two tight ends and two backs. They played in 21, two backs and one tight end. They played in this heavy formation stuff. And then when Bo was in there for the one game, he was in there. They really spread a little bit more, played more shotgun. I'm looking to see. I'm just excited to see how how Davis Webb just morphs it all together and how this offense just takes off.
Gonna be a lot of fun. It is gonna be a lot of fun. For everybody involved in the Stinky Truth Podcast, thank you so much for making us a part of your day. Record numbers last week. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We are growing like a weed. Please make sure you share it with everybody. We appreciate you. Stay here all season long. We will break down the Broncos like nobody else on the Stinky Truth Podcast.