Lucky tip doesn't erase offensive issues

ENGLEWOOD • Sunday’s win was undoubtedly good for the Denver Broncos. They know that to keep winning, the offense needs to play much better.

Brandon Stokley’s 87-yard touchdown with 11 seconds left overshadowed a lot of issues in the season opener. In the first 59 minutes of Sunday’s game, the Broncos had nine first downs, no touchdowns and 215 yards of total offense.

Only four teams in the NFL had less than 215 yards in Week 1 and the Broncos were the only team with less than 11 first downs.

The struggles weren’t lost on the Broncos. Coach Josh McDaniels said there were plenty of bad signs: miscommunications, untimely penalties, dropped passes and bad throws. All of them bogged down the offense.

“We kind of took turns offensively being the reason why we couldn’t get into a good rhythm,” McDaniels said.

What McDaniels focused on after watching the film was the team’s poor play on first down. Of Denver’s 20 first-down plays, 12 gained fewer than 5 yards and 10 gained 2 or fewer.

“Starting the drive off, first down, we’ve got to get off to a good start,” receiver Jabar Gaffney said. “Not going backward, keep going forward.”

Denver also needs to get better play from its quarterback. Kyle Orton had only 19 yards passing in the first half before the final drive of the second quarter. McDaniels said Orton did some good things, but also made some mistakes he’ll need to correct.

“We can all do better,” McDaniels said.