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 Stinky Truth Podcast alongside Mike Evans. I am Mark Schler at the Denver Bronco Edition. Thank you so much for making us a part of your day. Make sure you hit that subscribe button, whether you watch us on YouTube or you follow us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Podcasts, or you listen to us every week on the Odyssey Radio Network. Mike, how are you, buddy? Great. We just got done with cut down day. That's always kind of fun. It creates some debate, a little bit of controversy this year with the release of the fifth round pick, the tight end, Justin Jolie. And there was a lot of wondering why. I mean, for a team that...
needs to fill and needs to develop more tight ends, you identify this guy, you draft him in the fifth round, and he doesn't even make it onto your team, and you expose him to waivers, you end up losing him to the Miami Dolphins. What do you think about the way they handled Justin Joliet? Well, I think part of the problem with Bronco fans, and I love you guys, you know that I love you, but part of the problem is you're used to having a crappy team. For the last decade, before Sean Payton got here, you guys were garbage. They were. And so you just assumed a fifth round pick had so much value and they all made the team. I come from a different perspective. I don't think rookies and fifth round picks are worth a squirt of piss. Like they don't matter to me. And so until you prove yourself that you can play, then all of a sudden I'll give you the respect that you deserve once you prove yourself. This goes down to where the Broncos are. Their roster is so loaded because I heard people in the hyperbole, man, he could have been the next Shannon Sharp. And I heard people say, oh, listen, this is a real, you know, scarlet letter on George Payton. No, it's not. You took a flyer.
on a guy that you thought might have potential. But you're in a place right now as an organization that you're looking for production over potential. Placing a guy on your practice squad who's not ready for prime time is not helping you win a championship this year. And this is a championship or bust season for the Denver Broncos. They fully expect to be in the AFC Championship game and they fully expect, if healthy, to win it and represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. So Justin Jolie is a guy that came in, got injured, was banged up, was behind from an understanding of the offense standpoint and everything else. You know what's really interesting?
And I've talked to a bunch of coaches around the National Football League about this. When it comes to offense, the guy who's got the most on his plate by far is the quarterback. You've got to understand formations. You've got to understand motions. You've got to understand the offensive line and the protections. You've got to understand the running game, when we can, when we can't, where we go to, how we flip it from one side to the other. You've got all these different things that you have to understand. You really have to know defense. You're not just throwing the routes. You're throwing the routes based on the coverage and who we're putting in conflict and all these different things as a quarterback that you have to know. You know what they say the second most on their plate is? Tight end position.
Especially when you start talking about the movement tight end, which really Joe Lee was going to be. And it's interesting. So I went back. through that preseason game, that third preseason game, and watch Jolie versus Bentley, who made the team, seventh rounder, who made the team. And let me just tell you right now, watching Bentley, he earned it. That's a production over potential decision by the Denver Broncos. Bentley has a great, first off, I always look at guys' stances, especially tight end, because there's a lot of guys that have no business playing on the edge, playing the Y tight end, guy that's in line, the guy that's going to be a blocker. You got no business. First thing I look at their stance, I go, there's no way you can block a guy out of that stance. You have just done nothing in college but run routes.
First and foremost, Bentley has got beautiful balance. His stance is perfect, right? And then I'm watching him block, and I'm telling you what, he is dispensing justice on the end of the line of scrimmage. He is dominating guys. He's not getting shucked off late. I mean, he is coming off the ball. Feet are just, bam, contact in there and staying in that block. And so I watched him do a bunch of different things, even pulling on counters and everything else and filling in, finding his linebacker. And I was like, this dude.
And that was against third-teamers, now second third-teamers. But I said to myself, this dude has the potential to grow into the best blocking tight end on their roster. A true why. And he's a good receiver. So I understand why they decided to do that. And my thing was...
Even if you'd taken Bentley in the fifth round and you'd taken Jolie in the seventh round, you know what? Nobody would say boo in this town. So trust me, they just kept the much better player. They looked at production, his blocking ability, where Jolie was not only missing assignments and not exactly sure, but I watched them run an ISO with Jolie and there was questionable courage. He circled the dude and the guy made a play in the backfield. And I'm like, you can't, right there, you got to cut him. All right, so I get the whole idea of the production versus potential debate. But everybody said about Jolie coming out of college, including you, this guy's raw. This guy's raw. He's got a lot to learn.
You shouldn't be shocked when during camp you see this is a guy that is far from being an unfinished product. But you drafted him with that understanding. Right. And you also drafted him with the understanding that because he was a fifth round pick, there are probably going to be other teams, especially talent star teams like the Dolphins, that would probably pounce on this guy if you cut him. So really, all the guy did was go out in training camp and perform the way you thought in your evaluation. And you didn't have a plan as to how you're going to be able to keep him on your roster and continue that development. Well, I think.
part of the development is he had, he'd missed time in OTAs, he'd missed time in training camp. And so that, that development was, you know, was limited because of the time that you missed. And then he didn't catch on as quickly as, as you thought he was, you know, from a, where am I in formations, motions, shifts, all those things that you screw a couple of those things up. And then, you know, what else doesn't happen to you? You don't get those practice reps because the coaches are like, you're slowing down practice, learn your position. And then ultimately he's not blocking anybody. And part of the issue in college football, Mike is.
There are very few guys that have overall duality. Like there are guys who just catch the ball. They're not going to block anybody. And it's part of the way receivers are raised and tight ends are raised in, you know, coming up through seven on seven into high school and everything else. You know, everybody wants to be the guy catching the ball. Nobody wants to line up the line of scrimmage and be a glorified tackle. And so you get to the NFL, man, you've got to be able. It's not a spread offense league or it's become more of a spread offense league, but it's more condensed than that. And you've got to have dudes that can line up and do both. And Bentley was that guy. All right. The other roster debate.
Three quarterbacks, Bo Nix, Jarrett Stidham, Sam Ellinger, who looked terrific in the final preseason game. The question is, and this is the way I look at it, you tell me, but I get in Bo Nix's first couple of years, you want a good quarterback room, right? You want as many good quarterbacks that can help with learning the system and just that extra set of eyes and also get along really well, which was the case with Bo Stidham and Zach Wilson and now with those two and Sam Ellinger. But I just wonder if Bo now has arrived at that stage of his career where he doesn't really need. that extra quarterback in the quarterback room? And would the Broncos be better off just going with two quarterbacks? Because we saw in the AFC Championship game, if you're going your backup quarterback, you're pretty much screwed. Never mind if you have to turn to your third quarterback. So whether it's Stidham or Ellinger as your backup, have we gotten to the point where carrying three quarterbacks is unnecessary? Well, I'll give you a train, just a couple of trains of thought on here, a couple of different things that I think about with keeping three quarterbacks. One, the quarterback room is still incredibly important. Those guys have a great rapport with one another. They really support one another. And I think that's important. I think you want to keep that continuity there and have things to bounce off of people, especially with Stidham, right?
And so I think that's a big part of it. The other thing I would tell you is there's a 53-man roster, but 46 guys dress on game day. And I would tell you that I think that third quarterback is more important than the 53rd guy who's never going to put a uniform on during the season. Those guys don't play. Those guys don't play. So I want to keep my third quarterback. Plus, you look at this league, they are quarterback starved in this league. I mean, the Miami Dolphins got rid of all their quarterbacks and traded.
for a guy from Green Bay and said, OK, well, this guy's not been in camp. He doesn't know our offense. But we'll bring him over from Green Bay. You know what I mean? So I think that's a quarterback starved league. I think that's an issue. I don't think the 53rd guy is more important than the backup quarterback. And then I would tell you this. If, God forbid, Bo Nix gets hurt.
and somebody has to come off the bench right away. I think it's Stidham. Like, hey, listen, man, I'm going to bail you out for one or two games. I know the offense. The operation is going to work with me. I know Sean Payton and everybody has my trust. But what if it's not just a half? What if it's not just two games? What if it becomes six or seven or eight games?
I understand that. I know. I know what you're saying. But then all of a sudden, if it's six games, I think Ellinger becomes a little bit more appealing because he's got more athleticism. You can operate the quarterback run aspect of the game. In their third preseason game, they ran a couple of read option leads. So they motioned a tight end across the formation. Bam, fake the dive, right? Quarterback reads the defensive end. It's a defensive end squeeze, pull, and run to the outside following the tight end who is a lead blocker out there. So now if that defensive end...
stays and basically surfs that, now you just hand the ball off, right? You're just reading that defensive end. But you put plays like that in with Ellinger and you watched him on his bootkeep game and you watched his athleticism, like that's intriguing. So I think for the Broncos, if you're looking at the potential of missing Bo and he's had the ankle injury, you know, his multiple ankle injuries, like that gives you a little bit more viable option that way. So I think those two things is, hey man, a quarterback is more important than the 53rd guy on our roster. I think they look at it that way. And I also think that Ellinger is intriguing to them if Bo misses any length of time.
I think the two biggest storylines, and there were many, but I think the two biggest storylines going into camp and the preseason, how does Bo look? And how does the Bo Nix-Davis-Webb collaboration, how does the Davis-Webb run offense, how does that look? What were your impressions of Bo and Davis-Webb? Well... I looked at the Davis Webb. Bowe was great in the preseason, the second preseason game. You know, put a drive together, touchdown drive through a, got a cover four down, you know, in the high red zone. Got a one-on-one matchup off that cover four with his running back, kind of running a, you can call it whatever you want, option, wheel, rail route, whatever you want, whatever the semantics are.
Saw it, spotted it, threw an absolute dime piece. It was R.J. Harvey lined up one-on-one with a linebacker. Great recognition, but great play call, understanding, hey, man, the likelihood is we're going to get this coverage here, and we're going to get that one-on-one matchup with a linebacker, and it was executed perfectly, so it was great. But when I looked at the offense, and the Bo Nix offense was a little bit different, and I think it was because they wanted to get Bo Nix a bunch of passes, and they wanted to get him in some shotgun stuff. I know you said it, and you're going to sit there and pat yourself on the back. Well, somebody has to, because you were...
blasting me when I suggested they do that, but let's not make this about me. Yeah, okay. And you know what? You were right. You're really smart. We're both pretty. Both of us are pretty, so let's just move on. So, in their first two games, I was thoroughly impressed, and this goes back to a conversation that I had with Davis Webb, and this was this spring, about
kind of North Star plays in what we want to be as an offense. And everybody talks about, we want to open this offense up, right? We want design. We want to go over the top. And so it was really interesting. This will blow you away. So I looked at all the running plays in the first couple of games. And so I broke down every run in the third preseason game. And so the first 14 runs in the third preseason game, how many of them do you think were out of heavy personnel?
And how many of them do you think were out of three wide personnel? Define heavy. Heavy would be two tight ends and a back. Two backs and a tight end. We used to call that base, but now that's more of a heavier personnel, right? Fullback, tailback, tight end. Two tight ends and two backs. 22 personnel, right? That's almost goal line type of stuff, right? 14?
Yeah. And so I look at this like this is like 90s football. When you get in the two tight end formation, bring a full back in there, we're going to shove it up your ass, you know, that type of stuff. So how many? I'd say nine to 10, 10, 10. We're in heavy personnel out of 14. And, you know, it was really off of mid zone. And then what are your adjunct plays? You know, we got mid zone here that we ran a little power. We were at a couple of counters, but we ran some ISO and I love ISO. And I want to show you a play that I've never seen before. And we talk about design, innovation, and we always think of design and innovation.
in the passing game right but design innovation in the run game is what leads to the play action stuff that gets you over the top so i want to show you this play because here we go this is this was unique okay when we're running iso in this league we usually put see this f fullback or tight end he's usually lined up an i and when we run iso it's that fullback right here let me just draw it up here real quick this fullback is leading on this backer okay and then we're turning everything else out we're spraying this way we're turning this that way right and we're going after this iso and that play comes this direction right so everything flows that direction all right now this is what happens they get into this play iso which they've run over the course of the preseason and i've never seen this before they run iso what i would call iso bend for lack of a better term so they're running combination here kicking out right there center right guard right tackle right tight end okay left guard man to man okay so kick out here kick out here short motion this over here when they snap the ball quarterback comes out and they run like a 14 handoff motion right this guy rolls in here because the linebackers hunting now ear holes his ass and this is a design cutback that went for about 20 some odd yards and it's a slight variation of an iso play
off of and this is how you build an offense this is adjunct so we've been running mid zone to the right and we've been gutting them five yards of carry they're five yards of carry now we show them mid zone but we iso ear hole so this linebacker's looking this way and he just gets wham by the tight end on that side or fullback whatever you want to call him right gets ear hold in there and it's the design cutback by the back that created like a 20 yard game and now all of a sudden you look at that kind of stuff right and you're like oh my gosh like for me that's like i mean that's football porn you're like oh my gosh that is awesome i love that play is that the kind of stuff now is where as fans looking ahead of the season. Are we going to see the Broncos major in this kind of stuff? Or is this just something that they wanted to work on, wanted to have in their arsenal? I think, Mike, for me, it is...
It is pointing to we need to be better at running the football. We need to be better on the line of scrimmage at simplifying things so we don't make mistakes. And, you know, there's this kind of fascination with spread offense and getting everybody outside the numbers and doing all that stuff. And quarterbacks love it from a protection standpoint because it's easy when you spread everybody out for you to see the blitzers. But you know how I feel. I want to condense everything because, one, everything tightens up. Two, more fat people are on the field. Fat people don't run as fast as skinny people.
And so I want to play in heavy as much as I can because it slows down the defense in my estimation. And then the other thing is you get the exotic blitz stuff out of that spread, out of that nickel, out of that dime packages with guys who run 4-3 as opposed to guys who run 4-8. I'd rather block a guy that runs 4-8 and is 260 than I would a guy that's 4-3 and weighs 195 pounds. They're just hard to get your hands on. And so I think this goes back to what Davis Webb said to me. I want some North Star plays. North Star play, a play that we're going to run a bunch, was tight zone.
14-15 handoff. What did he do off of that? Hey, man, here's a 14 ISO bend. Right. And now all of a sudden we've hit him. Boom. Got him. Boom. Got him. Boom. 14. 14. 14. Boom. Iso bend. 25 yards out the gate. Now all of a sudden we develop a play action off that. So here comes that tight end. He short motions in there. He goes for that Mike Backer. Right. That Mike Backer settles down. He goes whoops. Slips him. And all of a sudden he's wide open down the middle of the football field. Like that's the kind of stuff you build. And that's how you get big plays in the NFL. All right. So maybe maybe the biggest thing to look for then with Davis Webb is that the thought would be, oh, here's a young guy. He's going to really bring a lot of innovative stuff. New stuff.
to the passing game, but maybe the biggest difference might just be he brings a little bit more of an old school approach to offense and running the ball and then all the things you can do off of it. I think one thing you have to understand in this league, I don't care who your quarterback is and I don't care what receivers you have or any of that stuff. I think one thing you have to understand is if you don't control the line of scrimmage, then you don't win football games. And I think one cool thing about Davis Webb's approach during the preseason was he gave his offensive lineman. every chance to be successful, not only running the ball, but in pass protection, because what it does for you in pass protection, it wears people down and people have to be, you know, people have to be aware that you can run it at any time. I think one of the, one of the things for me, Mike, with what I witnessed over the course of preseason was they're a team that wants to dictate in the running game. And that means, man, I got to have my bully plays. What I would refer to as a bully play is I got to have a play that I can run against any defense and you know, we're going to run it. The crowd knows we're going to run it. We know we're going to run it.
And it becomes like Global Gym. We're better than you and we know it. We've done this 10,000 times. You've defended 100 times. We're going to cram it up your ass. Your Super Bowl teams here basically ran six plays, right? Yeah. Six plays. That's it. Different window dressing, different formations out of different personnel groupings. But we ran. That's what we ran. And that's what I've seen, the biggest difference between a Davis Webb-led offense and Sean likes more variety, more of a menu, where I think Davis has really, really lived in tight and wide zone, ISO.
And, you know, in a few gap plays like, you know, counter or power. And so it really kind of pairs some things down. And hey, listen, man, if they can dictate, especially the red zone in the run game and they can do that, what it's going to do for Bo Nixon play action, what it's going to do to open up our tight ends, what it's going to do, you know, to get separation between the underneath coverage and the over the top coverage. Because when you flag that ball, all of a sudden you've been running down somebody's throat, you flag that ball, you turn your back to the defense as a quarterback and you pop out there. All those linebackers have stepped up or they've stopped their feet or the safety has. And all of a sudden you catch.
you know, Jalen Waddell on an in-cutting route and he catches it on, bam, gone, because he's got that kind of dynamic speed. You're going to see that from this Broncos offense. And all of a sudden, Bo Nix, the quarterback of the Denver Broncos, is going to get some national attention that nobody wants to give them because they're all worried about being wrong on their draft day predictions. Well, that'll put a cap on the Broncos preseason. Next week, it's Chiefs week. Oh my gosh. And we get set and we talk and we preview Broncos Chiefs at Arrowhead.
It's going to be great. I can't wait. Hey, for everybody involved in the Stink It Truth podcast, we thank you so much for watching the Broncos edition. Again, make sure you subscribe. Make sure you share it with your friends. Whether you watch us on Stink It Truth YouTube channel, whether you watch us or listen to us on Apple or Spotify, make sure you subscribe. Make sure you share it with your friends. We appreciate you guys so much. We'll be back with you with a whole lot more content later on this week as well as next week. Football season's here, guys. Excited.