Can Melvin Gordon ‘carry the load’?

Denver is relying on the veteran running back, who has fumbled four times in four games

Football is full of stories. About redemption. About villains. Heroes. Rises and falls.

Rarely, though, does one person end up at the center of all those arcs all at once.

Melvin Gordon just might when the Broncos host Indianapolis on Thursday night at Empower Field.

The embattled Denver running back is fumbling at an alarming rate. He first lost playing time due to his fumbling, and then, when he finally got into Sunday’s game at Las Vegas, he lost the ball the first time he touched it, resulting in a momentumswinging scoop-and-score for the Raiders in their 3223 victory.

That might have been the last straw for Gordon’s role in the offense, if not his spot on the roster, had starter Javonte Williams not been lost for the season to a knee injury a few minutes later. Now, mere days after Gordon walked out of his postgame news conference filled with emotion after fumbling for the fourth time in as many games, the Broncos need him. They have no other viable option as the starting running back Thursday night.

So, what will it be from No. 25? Hero? Villain? A redemptive tale or a fall further out of grace? Thursday’s game may not mark the end of the story, but it certainly figures to be a compelling next chapter.

“He knows we have to lean on him now,” offensive coordinator Justin Outten said. “… We’re not expecting perfection, but we need progress. You can’t be perfect. That’s when you freeze and that’s when things happen.

“Melvin, he’s going to carry the load, obviously.”

Sure, Denver has other running backs. Backup Mike Boone played nearly twice as many snaps as Gordon against the Raiders. The freshly signed Latavius Murray is a 10-year NFL veteran and will likely be counted on as the season progresses. Devine Ozigbo provides depth on the practice squad and could get playing time against the Colts.

The reality, though, is clear: For this game, Gordon must be the guy for the Broncos while simultaneously trying to climb out of the worst ball-security stretch of his eightyear career.

“I have all of the confidence in the world in him and same with this football team,” said quarterback Russell Wilson, friends with Gordon since their 2011 season together at the University of Wisconsin. “There’s no blink by him. He cares, that’s the great part about it. He genuinely cares about this team and cares about winning, cares about being successful and he wants to be great every day.”

There is reason for optimism among Broncos fans. Something about being a No. 2 option behind Williams weighed on Gordon but he’s now No. 1.

He lamented during training camp the fact that the Broncos staff wanted Williams to be the lead back, though Gordon likely knew that to be the case when he returned on a one-year contract after drawing little interest as a free agent. He acknowledged then he felt the need to prove his worth every time he touched the ball — a laudable approach until it goes too far and leads to fumbles.

“I want to put my best foot forward so when I do go out there, they be like, ‘OK, we need to get him out here more,’” Gordon said in mid-august.

More than a month later, after scoring Denver’s lone touchdown in an 11-10 primetime win against San Francisco, Gordon sounded like a player pressing even harder rather than one who had settled into a role.

“I’ve just got to be more calm,” said Gordon, who put the ball on the ground twice that night against the 49ers but didn’t lose either. “Just because, at this point, I’m just trying to show that I could do what I can do. I’ve just got to be more cautious, man.”

Ironically, this may now be the lightest competition Gordon’s had for carries in his Broncos tenure after Phillip Lindsay earned a workshare in 2020 and Williams proved worthy of an even split carrying the ball as a rookie last fall.

The biggest obstacle in Gordon’s way at this point might by psychological.

His four fumbles this year are already more than he had (three) on 231 touches in 2021. In three seasons with the Broncos, Gordon has fumbled nearly twice as frequently (every 47.5 touches) as he did in five years with the Chargers (every 91.6 touches). His 25 career fumbles are tied with Bills practice squad member Tavon Austin for the most among nonquarterbacks currently in the NFL. Perhaps most improbably, defenses have returned three Gordon fumbles for touchdowns in the past 12 games.

Numbers never tell the entire story — coach Nathaniel Hackett, for example, excused Gordon’s fumble Week 1 against Seattle because it came on fourthand-goal and extending the ball toward the goal line made sense. But it doesn’t take advanced analytics to know that putting the ball on the ground at this rate is unsustainable.

There is also little mystery about what goes wrong for Gordon. In traffic, mostly near the end of plays, he lets the ball get too far from his body.

“It’s about finishing the play with the ball tucked up,” Hackett said. “It’s that simple. Wrist above the elbow, all that kind of stuff. He just sometimes wants to get an extra yard and sometimes that’s not as important.”

Simple for some reason has not equated to an easy fix for Gordon, a man with 8,576 scrimmage yards and 68 career touchdowns. That production, his talent and a remarkable ability to stay healthy have allowed him to make it into Year 8 at a position notorious for having a short shelf life.

The biggest challenge for Gordon, then, is the one that seems like it should be the simplest: Tucking the ball away and helping carry a team with postseason aspirations forward.

Perhaps simply knowing that the offense needs him to take on a bigger role is itself enough to clear whatever clouds have accumulated. Perhaps the extra work at practice protecting the ball will pay off. Or, perhaps this ultimately is not a redemption story.

The Broncos certainly hope it is. The head coach and quarterback tried to will the arc of Gordon’s 2022 season in that direction Tuesday. Hackett said Gordon approached the day’s practice “with a vengeance.”

“He’s dedicated to his craft,” Wilson added. “That’s why it’s made him one of the best players to play this game in this league for such a long time and what makes him such a great threat. I think the thing for him, too, is he’s going to get a lot of reps and a lot of playing time.

“He’s one of those guys, too, once he gets into his groove, watch out.”