The Denver Broncos have an issue on their hands.
In particular, they have an issue with center Alex Forsyth. He spent Weeks 6 through 9 as the team’s starter in place of an injured Luke Wattenberg. With Wattenberg returning to the lineup from injured reserve and a four-week absence, Forsyth was limited to special teams duties.
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However, that is where the issue in question showed up in Week 10 versus the Kansas City Chiefs. Hall-of-Fame-bound head coach Bill Belichick notes it has been a problem for weeks.
“This started a while ago. This here, here we are Week 8 against Carolina. This is the same end, Forsyth, playing on the left side. And [you] can see he doesn’t have a very good base and gets knocked over. And here comes – now, look with a ball in the middle of the field … the defense can really pick which side they want to rush. Normally, they rush from the wide side. Which side do they pick? They pick this [Forsyth’s] side,” Belichick said on “Inside The NFL” on November 14.
“So you’re the guy they’re picking out to rush over. So if you don’t fix the problem, then it’s not going to go away. Well, here it is against the Ravens a week later. And again, this is a blowout win for the Ravens. This is really kind of a nothing play. But it’s not for coach [Dave] Toub in Kansas City. They see this and there’s the 2-on-1 there on Forsyth, and they almost get this. They almost get this on the extra point. But again, with the ball in the middle of the field, … there’s the clearance right there. Just a little bit shy of getting it.
Broncos quarterback Bo Nix was among the teammates that came out in Forsyth’s defense.
Chiefs linebacker Leo Chenal, who blocked the kick, was forthcoming about noticing Forsyth’s inability to anchor at the point of attack.
Chiefs Leo Chenal: Alex Forsyth ‘Light on His Toes’
Chenal said it was less about film study and more about “feel” for his opponent after so many reps during the game.
“We were getting a lot of reps on field-goal block, extra point,” Chenal said, per Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio on November 10. “Enough reps where you kind of get a feel like they’re light here, they’re reaching here, so you get a better and better chance as the game goes on and I kind of knew the guy who I was rushing [Forsyth], he was kind of light on his toes a little bit and I was kind of getting a bit [of a] bull rush in so it was just trying to take advantage of it.”
Belichick, whose legendary NFC coaching career has spanned 38 seasons and includes six Super Bowl wins, painted it as a matter of commitment to the team.
“I used to call it, ‘You’re taking one for the team,’” Belichick said. “If you don’t want to take one for the team, then we can’t play you an end on the field goal team because that’s the guy that gets double-teamed.”
Forsyth was Nix’s teammate in college at Oregon.
A seventh-round pick in the 2023 draft, he got his first regular-season action this season in Wattenberg’s place. His inexperience is only one of Forsyth’s flaws.
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“That’s why I always liked to center the ball in the middle of the field, is to take out the edge rush – or try to take it out. Well, in this case with the ball here on the hash mark, it brings this rush just a little bit closer to the line of flight, and it’s the same issue, alright? Poor base, not set, they catch him just as he’s going back, Chenal runs over him, and ball game,” Belichick said.
“A lot of times a kicker has a preference between whether he wants to be on the left on the right or in the middle, and wind could factor into that or just going to be a personal preference for him. But in terms of the rush, … when you’re on the hash mark that outside rush is a lot closer to the flight of the ball than it is when you’re kicking right down the middle. And so, if you want to take a good rush out, then I put the ball in the middle.”
Belichick said that if it is a matter of kicker preference, that is what matters most. But his sentiments align with Broncos head coach Sean Payton’s.
“We’re constantly, each week making corrections making – not just with the field goal unit, with the offense, with a certain protection, with a certain coverage,” Payton told reporters on November 11. “It’s pretty common for the team that had success with it to say, ‘Hey, we saw –.’ And credit them for that. They exploited an area that we, obviously, felt was fixed and stronger and yet, not not fixed enough.
“It’s tough to lose a game that way. And this isn’t on the player. This is on all of us. This is on us as coaches. We’ve got to continue to look at, ‘Hey, are we big enough stature-wise there for that and understanding how the rush was coming.’ So it’s disappointing. And yet, it’s not something that’s new when a big play is made at the end of a game.”
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