Nathaniel Hackett hopes someday, maybe a couple of months down the line, he and his Broncos can look at what happened this September and October as something that was really valuable. Maybe they’ll be able to tell the story about how all the weird scheduling quirks, and concessions made for television, and losses brought together and hardened a team with new people everywhere, from the roster to the coaching staff to the owners’ box.
For now, though, this is the truth—it’s kind of sucked for those guys.
The coaches had to prepare for the Jets on a short week, coming off a Monday night trip to Los Angeles to face the Chargers, then turned around and went to London for the Jaguars, which cost them another day. That was while playing five of their first eight games in national standalone time slots, where every misstep and growing pain was magnified for social media and the mid-morning sports talk shows. Which could have made a 2–5 start feel like a 2–50 to dig out of.
Maybe that’s why, as Hackett prepared to leave England in early evening (U.K. time) Sunday, there was something cathartic about where he sat. The Broncos finally had the breaks go their way down the stretch to edge the Jaguars, 21–17. On the other end of the long flight, Hackett and his staff had a bye coming. And as for the rest of the season? The Broncos are scheduled for Sundays the rest of the way, with only one prime-time game (against the Chiefs) and one other national game (vs. the Panthers on Christmas) left.
“The amount of adversity that we’ve faced, I don’t care what anybody says, it’s more than anybody,” Hackett told me. “Through injuries, through schedules, and that doesn’t even count the games. So I think just seeing everybody battle through it, the defense playing at a high level, they’ve all played together for a long time. We’ve got an offense that hasn’t played well, but they haven’t played together a lot. They haven’t played as a group, so you gotta learn those ins and outs.
“And I gotta learn how to call plays for Russ, I gotta learn how to call plays for all the players. And we’ve been in the spotlight, all those things. And listen, we’ve got so much more that we have to do, so much more we have to correct. And there’s so much more room for being better.”
But Sunday did represent progress, despite it starting the way a lot of other games have for the Broncos—with Russell Wilson wobbly and the offense around him struggling to get in gear. The first quarter featured as many interceptions as it did first downs (and Wilson’s interception was poorly thrown and at a covered receiver), and that put Jacksonville up 7–0 going into the second quarter.
Which was when Hackett took something he figured out about Wilson the past few months and decided to do more than just experiment with it.
The offensive staff and Wilson had, to be sure, already discussed the idea of playing tempo more, because the quarterback liked going no-huddle, and because creating rhythm for the younger players stood to benefit them. The question was how much they’d do it. And once it jump-started a mid-second-quarter possession—creating an 11-play, 75-yard drive capped by a six-yard shovel pass to Jerry Jeudy to cut a 10–0 deficit to three—the answer was clear.
“We went up-tempo, no-huddle the whole time,” he said. “And we were just trying to get the rhythm and do the things that he felt comfortable with and that he felt good with and throw some runs in there that started popping. So I felt like just the whole staff made great adjustments.”
It wasn’t perfect, but it gave the Denver offense enough traction to put together a go-ahead drive in the third quarter, and set up the game-winning drive thereafter, and the two plays that defined it.
The first, with the Broncos just having fallen behind 21–17, was a 47-yard shot down the right sideline to KJ Hamler that moved the ball from the Broncos’ 20 to the Jaguars’ 33.
“One of their big adjustments was they started playing a lot more press-man in the second half; they’d played man, but they kind of amped it up some,” Hackett said. “So when we did that, we actually were planning on a different play. We switched, ended up getting the ball on the other hash, so it switched on the next play. And the idea was to get one-on-one with KJ. So all of us knew that we were going to him, if we got that.”
The second play was far less planned—a 10-yard scramble from the Jacksonville 28 by Wilson—to convert a third-and-5 three plays after the Hamler bomb.
“He’s been very beat up,” said Hackett of Wilson. “And he hasn’t b-----d, he hasn’t complained, he kept grinding and he was a war daddy today. Obviously, we know he’s got the hamstring, he was just like, ‘F--- it. I’m doing it.’ And I give him so much credit, his perseverance to be able to say, ‘F--- it’ and still do what he has to do to take off and get us a first down in that spot was huge.”
Hackett followed that with an end-around to Hamler for another nine yards, and two Latavius Murray runs later, one of two and the other of nine yards, and the Broncos were up for good.
And so a couple of hours later, Hackett could finally exhale, and let go of some of the frustration of the past few weeks. Finally, a close one went the Broncos’ way. Finally, the offense was keeping up with the defense. Finally, the Broncos will get a break, and then a stretch of games that look more like they’re on a conventional NFL schedule.
“Look at Green Bay—we were 13–3 every year and we lost in the playoffs,” Hackett said, pointing back to his old job as offensive coordinator. “You have to learn what it feels like to go through adversity. You have to feel that. You have to feel that whether it be hopelessness or guys wanting to make a play, you got to feel that and fight through that. Because that’s part of your game. And to be the best, you gotta beat the best. You want to be the best, you have to go through the hardest times. And that’s what makes teams great in my opinion.
“So, yeah, we’ve gone through a lot of adversity, a lot of people questioned every single thing, every single thing any of us have done since we’ve been here. More scrutiny than probably anybody. But fine, bring it on. And as long as we’re strong and together, then you get to learn from it and grow from it.”
At least for now, Hackett feels confident his group’s done just that.