The rhetoric after the Atlanta Falcons loss on Sunday was that the Denver Broncos were missing three key starters on offense.
Fortunately for the Broncos, tight end Virgil Green, right tackle Donald Stephenson and undefeated quarterback Trevor Siemian were all back for Thursday night’s game against the San Diego Chargers.
Unfortunately, all three were underwhelming in their first game back from injury, contributing to the Broncos’ 21-13 loss to the Chargers.
After missing three games Stephenson and Green were viewed as the saving grace in revamping the Broncos pass protection, as well their run blocking, after giving up six sacks and only rushing for 3.5 yards per carry against the Falcons.
Aside from the fourth quarter when the San Diego defense allowed the Broncos to move the ball down the field in short increments, the offense wasn’t able to get anything going on the ground or through the air. Stephenson and Green were no help.
Not only did the offensive line play poorly as a unit, collecting six penalties within the group, but Stephenson accounted for two of those with false starts.
Green, who was supposed to be both a threat in run blocking and as a pass catcher, was nearly nonexistent in the game hauling in three passes for 21 yards. While these numbers aren’t terrible, Green’s longest catch of nine yards came with 1:15 left in the game when the Chargers were allowing the Broncos to pass short.
Although the offense as a whole was disappointing, no player will be talked about more than Siemian. After Paxton Lynch turned in a mediocre performance against the Falcons on Sunday, Broncos Country had embraced Siemian as the starter for the rest of the season.
On Thursday night Siemian did little to convince people of this.
Whether it was play calling, Siemian’s shoulder injury or the play of the rest of the offense, Siemian was reluctant to throw the ball further than 10 yards down the field, even when the Broncos were down 21-3 in the fourth quarter and desperately needed yards.
Siemian ended the day throwing for a career high 50 times, completing 30 of those, adding one touchdown to no interceptions, again with most of those yards coming in the fourth quarter.
The Broncos offense was only able to account for three points of offense on their own, the other 10 were off of San Diego turnovers, against a Chargers defense that had allowed 28.4 points per game in the first five games.
While Siemian, Stephenson and Green certainly weren’t the only reasons the Broncos offense was stagnant against San Diego, they did not provide the spark that was expected of them in their return.
