Jeff Legwold
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- Jeff Legwold covers the Denver Broncos at ESPN. He has coated the Broncos for greater than 20 years and likewise assists with NFL draft protection, becoming a member of ESPN in 2013. He has been a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Board of Selectors since 1999, too. Jeff beforehand coated the Pittsburgh Steelers, Buffalo Bills and Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans at earlier stops previous to ESPN.
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The Denver Broncos fired offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi on Tuesday, simply two days after head coach Sean Payton mentioned the group’s offense “didn’t do enough” to earn a Super Bowl trip.
Wide receivers coach Keary Colbert and cornerbacks coach Addison Lynch also were fired.
“I need to thank these coaches for taking part in an essential function in elevating our program during the last three seasons,” Payton said in a prepared statement. “I’ve been lucky to work with Joe Lombardi for 15 years and am significantly grateful for his many contributions to our success as offensive coordinator. We sincerely admire Joe, Keary and Addison’s laborious work and need all of them the very best sooner or later.”
With backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham in the lineup for an injured Bo Nix, the Broncos gained just 32 yards in the second half of Sunday’s 10-7 loss to the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, had only one first down after halftime and didn’t have a possession in the third or fourth quarters longer than 17 yards.
After the loss, Payton was asked what he would be most critical of in the aftermath, and he said he would start with himself, adding: “I feel the large factor, that first half, momentum and subject place did not yield what it wanted to yield, we would have liked greater than that. It’ll begin there.”
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Lombardi spent 12 years, over two totally different stints, on Payton’s workers with the New Orleans Saints and had been the Broncos’ offensive coordinator since Payton was employed in 2023. Payton, nonetheless, is the group’s playcaller on recreation days. As the Broncos’ offensive coordinator, Lombardi was within the coaches’ sales space and amongst these on the headset with Payton throughout video games, however Payton was the voice in Nix’s helmet.
The Broncos sported one of the league’s finest defenses this season — No. 1 in sacks and within the crimson zone within the common season, second on third down and third in scoring protection and finest in yards surrendered per play general (4.46). Fueled by that protection, the Broncos additionally went 11-2 in one-score video games within the common season, essentially the most one-score wins in NFL historical past, earlier than profitable one other one-score recreation, in extra time, over the Buffalo Bills within the divisional spherical.
But Payton had expressed his frustrations concerning the offense at numerous occasions this season, together with Sunday evening following the loss to the Patriots when the Broncos, because the snow swirled within the second half, made it into Patriots territory simply as soon as after halftime solely to have a possible tying subject objective blocked.
The Broncos have been 14th within the common season in scoring — 23.6 factors per recreation — tenth in offensive EPA and twelfth in QBR, however they completed twenty ninth in three-and-outs (25% of drives). In his end-of-season information convention Tuesday, Payton expressed specific frustration with the group’s run recreation and mentioned he had already met Monday with run recreation coordinator/assistant head coach Zach Strief, who additionally coaches the offensive line, a few plan for enchancment.
“That’ll be an important study and with urgency,” Payton said in Denver. “I need to play from the gun, however I additionally will all the time need to play with a two-back or multiple-tight finish mindset [and] have that flexibility. … I feel it is one of the important thing issues that we’ve got to do that offseason.”
J.Okay. Dobbins suffered what turned out to be a season-ending foot harm within the Broncos’ Nov. 6 win over the Las Vegas Raiders, but he nonetheless completed because the group’s main rusher — by 232 yards — and had the group’s most runs of 10 yards or extra (21), seven greater than the following working again (rookie RJ Harvey).
Internally, the 2 most certainly candidates to fill the OC job could be Strief, whom Payton promoted to assistant head coach final offseason, and quarterbacks coach Davis Webb, who remains to be a candidate within the Raiders’ seek for a head coach. Broncos senior offensive assistant Pete Carmichael was additionally the Saints’ offensive coordinator for a lot of Payton’s tenure.
However, Payton has constantly mentioned he won’t give up playcalling duties, so until he has a significant change of coronary heart in that regard, the Broncos’ offensive coordinator can be a outstanding voice within the weekly planning in addition to in Payton’s ear on recreation day, however Payton will nonetheless name performs. Many contained in the Broncos’ complicated imagine that can make it troublesome to maintain Webb long run even when he does not get a head teaching job on this hiring cycle.
