If there is anybody out there that wants to illuminate me as to why a team that seldom throws deep was doing it so often to a guy that has pizza paddles at the end of his sleeves and has zero deep speed and against a team with a fine pass rush and excellent DBs, then I'd love to hear it.
That's a red herring. A giant one, to me.
That has nothing to do with any dumbed-down playbook, imo.
I haven't reviewed all the film, but didn't most of those plays happen when a TE or RB was outside one on one against a LB or Safety and not a CB?
That is, it was the matchup you wanted?
I've read a few bits around that said that was what McDaniel's game plan was, to force the Denver LB's to cover in space since that's not what they typically do and may not be able to do it well.
Von Miller certainly looked a little lost on the TD he gave up. Same thing with whoever was covering Bolden on his TD.
If you're going to try and exploit such a concept, you have to isolate the LB and run away from him to exploit the speed difference.
One obvious way to do that is go patterns
Chandler did get behind his defender multiple times, so although his speed may not be good, it was better than the guy covering him, and that's all that matters.
Would it have been better to use someone else to run those routes?
Who?
You had a total of three WR's and if you put one of them out there, they'd draw the CB in coverage.
So if you use two as decoys for the CB's, who else are you going to put out there that would draw a LB in coverage?
A TE or RB is the only real choice I can think of.
When Gronk was out there, he won't likely get one on one coverage from a LB. Well at least not after the first drive.
So Chandler's the best option you've got at TE.
