It hasn’t been pretty for Nathaniel Hackett, Russell Wilson and the rest of the Broncos. AlbertBreer on what Denver’s win over the Jaguars means moving forward
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.
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 that put Jacksonville up 7–0 going into the second quarter.
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. “He’s been very beat up,” said Hackett of Wilson. “And he hasn’t bitched, 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.”
“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.”Smith continues to flourish this season, going 23-of-34 for 212 yards and two scores on Sunday.
“I mean, he’s Tyler Lockett,” Smith said. “And that’s probably the first time I’ve seen him drop a pass like that, and he’ll probably drop another one in another 10 years. So he’s really good and we don’t blink when it comes to him. We know he’s going to make his plays, we know he’s going to give it his all, so I continue to have faith in him the same way he has faith in me.
“Obviously, [the Giants] are playing a lot of Cover 0, so that means there’s eight, nine people in the box,” Smith said. “It’s going to be hard to run against that and I think what Ken did a tremendous job of is not letting the earlier plays, where he was getting one and two yards or three yards, affect his reads or affect his confidence. He cut that thing back against the grain, I got a little bit of a block and he made two guys miss and got in the end zone.
. And one thing he’ll always keep with him is the moment when he saw four of his best friends in the stands. The Indianapolis native had gotten them tickets further up in the Lucas Oil Stadium stands, and they’d moved down behind the Washington bench, close enough so McLaurin could hear them from the field.“They came down to where the front row over our sideline is, and they were like,
Even better, by leaning on Heinicke in his return to the lineup, and McLaurin, as usual, the Commanders find themselves right back in the hunt at 4–4.
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