Sean Payton eyeing ways to fix Broncos' clock-management issues - ESPN

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Just two games into his first season as Denver Broncos head coach, Sean Payton suddenly finds himself wrestling with some of the same clock-management and penalty issues Nathaniel Hackett had in an ill-fated 15-game run as the team's coach last season.

After a 35-33 loss to the Washington Commanders on Sunday — a game the Broncos had led 21-3 in the second quarter — Denver is now one of the league's eight 0-2 teams.

On Monday, Payton said after the Broncos' alignment and clock issues that he and the coaches will look at ways to decrease verbiage in some of their playcalls.

The Broncos had to use multiple timeouts Sunday to avoid delay of game penalties and had multiple occasions on both sides of the ball when players seemed unsure of where to be in the formation before the snap.

Payton said they can make progress by shortening the playcalls or «getting to the line of scrimmage spontaneously,'' or giving quarterback Russell Wilson a wristband to cover some of the plays with longer playcalls.

»I think, No. 1, the first thing that we always try to look at — but we have to do a better job of as coaches — is reduce the verbiage,'' Payton said. «If we have a longer play, then we can easily get to a wristband. We have to reduce the variables. I just finished saying this in the team meeting — if we're making [mental errors] defensively and offensively, we're having trouble breaking the huddle and getting lined up, then we have to look at if we have too much in [the game plan]. Then, how do we reduce the verbiage at the line of scrimmage, or in the huddle, quite frankly?… That's going to improve.''

Clock management on offense was one of the issues Payton had criticized most during the offseason when he