Broncos get no passing grade in QB-less game
SAINTS 31 BRONCOS 3
Poor Kendall Hinton was tossed into the lineup on a day’s notice with zero practices because every quarterback on the Broncos either has coronavirus or took his mask off for a meeting with someone who did. He couldn’t really throw; the Broncos struggled with all of the other stuff that goes into quarterbacking, too, in a 31-3 loss to the Saints.
Hinton was 1-for-9 for 13 yards and two interceptions, and it was somehow worse than that. The
Saints dropped two interceptions on his first three attempts.
The Broncos tried to use Hinton in run-pass options; he fell down after one snap and was hanging onto the ball too long before deciding not to hand off. He was called for a false start in the third quarter. The only thing that the Broncos got any traction with was a wildcat formation, but presumably because they weren’t used to practicing the exact package they used, they sailed a snap over running back Phillip Lindsay’s head.
None of this is the fault of Hinton, a rookie practice squad receiver who was working a sales job as recently as October. It’s mostly the fault of the other Broncos quarterbacks, who were sidelined because they, as Drew Lock put it, “let our masking slip.” Broncos coach Vic Fangio blamed Lock, Brett Rypien and Blake Bortles on Sunday.
“I was disappointed on several levels, that our QBs put us in that position, that our QBs put the league in that position,” Fangio said. “We count on them to be the leaders of our team, the leaders of our offense, and those guys made a mistake.”
Fangio added that the NFL determined that the quarterbacks had their masks off in a meeting with COVID-positive Jeff Driskel on Tuesday.
And it’s the fault of the Broncos’ coaching staff, who called plays that had Hinton dropping back and slinging it way downfield into windows that were supposed to
be tight. Although how could you possibly design packages in a few hours for a player that some Broncos hadn’t even met?
It’s not quite like Hinton was a random position player, either. He was a star quarterback recruit out of high school and a full-time starter for a year at Wake Forest in 2015. Still, though, the Broncos’ top two preferences before going with Hinton were to have the NFL postpone the game or have the league let them use assistant coach Rob Calabrese as a quarterback.
Hinton was good-spirited about the surreal situation after the game.
“This is not how I planned it out in my dreams,” he said. “It usually doesn’t work out how you want it, but getting this experience has been amazing.”
The one completion came on a short screen to tight end Noah Fant; he was picked off on the next play. The Saints only needed Taysom Hill to throw for 78 yards.
At least Hinton didn’t doink an interception off a lineman’s helmet like Tom Brady did on on Sunday.