SB Nation User Blog: Sakysak

Broncos are a sleeper team?

Sakysak — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:42:21 -0000

Broncos are a sleeper team?

A sportswriter actually isn't drinking the Broncos Haterade.

John Elway on Rick Reilly's Homecoming

Sakysak — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:12:40 -0000

John Elway on Rick Reilly's Homecoming

We should seriously coax him to come back. I doubt any of our quarterbacks can do what he can still do.

Denver Broncos 34 - New Orleans Saints 32 - Look at the Bright Side, We're 3-0

Sakysak — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:30:11 -0000

Category	Broncos	Saints
Score	34	32
Rushing Yards	105	88
Passing Yards	264	414
Total Yards	369	502
T.O.P	27:12	32:48

I was going to do a quick breakdown, but why re-invent the wheel??? Solid job, Sakysak!! - TSG

The Broncos-Saints game today bore an eerie similarity to last week's Broncos-Chargers game. Again, not only did the Broncos come out of the gates with a huge lead then blow it, but the scales of victory tipped in the Broncos favor only after several very lucky developments - none of which was larger than Grammatica's missed field goal. So what you ask? We won the game. The Broncos are undefeated. Buy them playoff tickets immediately... Yes, the Broncos are undefeated, but they are a good call from Ed Hochili and a made field goal away from a 1-2 start to their season. What's readily apparent is that if the Broncos have any hopes of advancing far into the playoffs, they have a long long way to go. But I get the feeling that Broncos fans, no matter how optimistic, already know that.

Before we move on to discuss the blatant weakness on the Broncos team, let me briefly touch on the offensive and special teams performances. Though the Broncos offense still managed to put up 27 points, they certainly were not as sharp as they were the past two games. Cutler had several errant passes that missed open receivers, and a costly momentum-changing interception. Marshall and Royal both had drops. Scheffler had a fumble(probably both his fault and Cutler's). Give the Saints credit for putting more pressure on Cutler than was seen in previous weeks. But at the end of the day, the Broncos offensive line protected Cutler, gave him enough time to find open receivers, and opened sizable running lanes. Cutler made the throws when it counted, and probably did a better job of finding different targets than he did last week (this will prove valuable once defenses scheme to stop Marshall). I think most Broncos fans can live with a 4-to-1 Td-to-Int. ratio, and Brandon Marshall proved that last week was no fluke, and he had another 150+ yard game.

The most improved aspect of the Broncos performance this week was their special teams play. Prater consistently produced touchbacks on kickoffs. The Broncos punt team did a good job of containing Reggie Bush, maintaining their assigned lanes, and preventing the big plays. On the other side of the ball, Andre Hall, Hillis and Royal all did fairly well returning kickoffs and punts. On his only punt return, Royal gave the Broncos great field position for their opening drive. Special teams probably deserve the game ball.

At the risk of sounding redundant, I'll move on to discussing the deficiencies of the defense. Although the Broncos defense performed very well against the run again, the Broncos gave up a colossal 400+ passing yards against the Saints. It's not a defensive victory to go from a team that was the worst in rush defense one year to being the team that is the worst in pass defense the next year. Once again, the front four (often front three), got dominated by the Saints pass-blockers. Drew Brees had all day to pick apart the Denver secondary. Tell me how this makes any sense: the Broncos put fewer pass-rushers on the line so that they could have additional cover guys, but the Saints still moved the ball at will? It appears as if the Broncos are playing an extremely risk-averse brand of defense, that eschews blitzes for safety in coverage numbers. The only problem is that this brand of defense fails to achieve what should be the goal of any defense: to get the hell off the field. The Broncos defensive schemes were meant to keep everything in front of them, but the Saints just took what the Broncos D gave them, moved the ball and ate up the clock. And at the end of the day the Saints put up 32 points. All that the Broncos defensive scheme achieved today was to let the opposing team score on sustained drives, and keep our explosive offense off the field. As of right now, it seems as if powerful offenses such as the Chargers and Saints can pretty much keep pace in a shootout with the Broncos. If they're going to score anyway without blitzes, then why don't the Broncos employ more blitzes. Sure, sometime those blitzes will result in big plays by opposing offenses, but big play or not, opponents are racking up the points anyway. At least with blitzes, our corners, safeties and speedy linebacking corp will have more opportunities to make plays on the ball. With a less conservative defensive scheme, the Broncos stand a better chance to create turnovers and sacks. It's not like the Broncos have anything to lose, because they're already giving up the points.

As bad as the defense looked the last two weeks, critics, like myself, have to remember that the Broncos played two very explosive offensive teams with elite quarterbacks at the helm. Today in the NFL, it appears as if a match-up between an elite offense and an elite defense, will undoubtedly be won by the offense (look at the Eagles/Cowboys game last week, and look at both teams' stellar defensive performance this week). The bright side of the Broncos defensive performance the last two weeks is that they managed to hold powerful opposing offenses to scores that were just enough for the Broncos to eke out a victory. And to their credit, the Broncos D did show mettle in stopping the Saints in a key third and one at the end of the game, forcing the Saints into the long field goal. Also, the Broncos held on a fourth and goal attempt by the Saints, saving a touchdown.Those are the types of plays that can initiate and shape the identity for defenses. Lets hope that's the case for the Broncos.

Although the defense continued to struggle this week, it showed improvement over last week. Not only could they come up with major stops, but they also limited big plays (save the Meachem catch). They improved their tackling and were quick to the ball on short dump-off plays. Broncos fans frustrated with the defensive performances can find some solace in the fact that the Broncos defense is young and making improvements week-by-week. Maybe Slowik's current, seemingly conservative, approach to defense will prove to be much better once the players become more accustomed to the system and solidify their collective identity. Maybe the defense will look much better once they face weaker offenses (they looked pretty good against the Raiders). Maybe they would be much better employing more blitz packages. My feeling is that as the season goes on, we will witness a confluence of all those things. Realistically, they can only get better, and hopefully by the playoffs, they're good enough to take some pressure off of the offense.

So where does that leave the Broncos going into the Kansas City game next week? Most people have already penciled the Broncos in as being 4-0 after next Sunday. I even talked to a Chiefs fan who sees no possibility of a Chiefs victory. At the risk of being hubristic, I think if the Broncos prepared as they usually would, there should be no excuse for them not being 4-0. Looking beyond next week, the Broncos aren't facing any teams that have explosive offenses like the Chargers and Saints, other than the second meeting with the Chargers. They're also facing only a few vaunted quarterbacks, in the form of Griese and Anderson (both may be considered vaunted), Favre, Delhomme and Rivers again. As such, it stands to reason that if the Broncos can stay healthy, they should easily make the playoffs, given how many points they've been able to put up. If their defense can take advantage of their favorable schedule to gain experience and improve, then the Broncos could emerge as the playoffs begin as a legitimate Super Bowl contender.

Some final thoughts:

1) Dre Bly has never impressed me. He can't tackle, and is beat way too often for a self-proclaimed elite corner. He always seems to fall and is getting picked on by opposing teams. Maybe the Broncos should just cede the fact that he isn't an elite cover guy and give him help.

2) Paymah needs to start making plays or get benched. He clearly lacks a nose for the ball.

3) The Broncos need John Lynch back to lay the wood. We're not any better without him anyway. At least he can hit and make opposing WRs think twice about laying out in the middle of the field, which the Saints receivers did about ten times in that game.

4) Yes the Bills are 3-0, but two of those wins came over the Seahawks and Raiders, and against an injury-riddened Jacksonville team. Their first real test will not be until week seven against the Chargers. I wouldn't worry about the Bills until they win that game.

5) The Jaguars are one of the grittiest teams in the league. They may not have the top talent, but they play physical football and are always competitive. That might be our toughest game aside from the last one against the Chargers.

5) The Colts are still the team to beat on the road to the Super Bowl. Once they get healthy, watch out. And I hate the Colts.

6) Brett Favre will dominate in MNF and will help the Broncos to a 3 game lead in the AFC West. I used to hate Favre when Elway played, but he's the only one STILL playing who could even be mentioned in a sentence with Elway. And his love of the game is undeniable.

6) The Eagles are for real and made Big Ben look like Derek Anderson, the 2008 version. Why can't the Broncos defense be like the Eagles?!? Eagles D-coordinator Jim Johnson blitzed all day, rang up nearly 10 sacks, and hit HARD. Most importantly, they disguised their defensive packages. Watching the Denver game on TV, it didn't look like the Broncos D were on the right side of the confusion. It didn't even look like the Broncos D tried to disguise anything. If this is want Slowik means by simplifying the defense, and allowing guys to play, then I don't think it's any better than the one last year. (Yes, I know the one obvious blitz the Broncos sent resulted in a long pass to Meachem, but that Marquand Manuel can shoulder the blame for that.) The worst thing is that the strength of our defense is supposed to be our speed, which is the strength of the Eagles defense, but we're not taking advantage of our speed and the Eagles are.

7) DJ Williams might be giving Champ a run for his money for being the most valuable player on the Broncos defense. He did everything today.

Stating the Obvious - Denver's Defense Still Struggling?

Sakysak — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 06:38:36 -0000

No one can blame Broncos fans for being excited for their last minute victory over the hated Chargers on Sunday, and nearly all of the media stories (local & national), as well as fan posts, rave about the sheer scoring machine that the Broncos offense has become. However, most of those stories completely ignore the fact that the Denver defense and special team allowed the Chargers to come back from what at one point was an 18 point deficit to nearly win the game.

What is so obvious is that this year's defense is the same defense that became the laughingstock of the NFL last year. In fact, some of the defensive stats even suggest that the Broncos have become a worst overall defensive team than they were last year. The table below shows that in all but one of the major defensive statistics for the Denver Broncos, the defense on Sunday fared worst than the average of the previous four losses to the Chargers.

Denver Broncos Defense vs. Chargers
	2006-2007 Season (avg/game)	Sunday, September 14 2008
Points Allowed	36.75	38
SD Rushing Yards	157.25	80
SD Passing Yards	237.5	376
SD Total Yards	394.75	456

And lets remember that many fans gave the Broncos a break with regards to the woeful performances last year due to injuries. In Sunday's game, the defense fielded its first team defensive starters and the Chargers managed to improve it's overall offensive output against the Broncos. Still want to ignore the problem?

While the Broncos defense allowed nearly 80 less rushing yards on Sunday than they did in previous games, they allowed nearly 130 MORE passing yards on Sunday, which translates to an increase in total yards allowed. It is painfully obvious that the Broncos failed to generate any sort of a pass rush, so the Chargers didn't have to run the ball. Phillip Rivers looked good on Sunday, but he had all day to throw the ball. It wouldn't surprise me to see that the average time Phillip Rivers had to stand in the pocket and deliver was somewhere around four or five seconds. That's an eternity for an NFL quarterback. It allowed him to find Chambers and Jackson downfield. I don't care how good of cover corners an NFL team has, it is just impossible to stay with receivers when quarterbacks have all day to throw. What that time also allowed Rivers to do is to go through his progressions and check down to his last options, Sproles and Tolbert, who respectively took it to the house and nearly took it to the house when that happened. To be fair, those accounted for only four or five plays, but they proved to be costly and made our defense look like Ohio State's vs. USC.

The Broncos failed to frustrate Rivers on Sunday and forced one turnover that shouldn't have been ruled one. It's no accident that the teams with the highest takeaway/giveaway differential last year were all playoff contenders (San Diego, Indy, New England, Tampa, Seattle, Green Bay and Jacksonville). What's also common between those teams is that they play physical, hard-hitting styles of defense. They make those receivers coming across the middle reconsider the prudence of doing so with huge hits. They make quarterbacks uncomfortable with constant pressure. I didn't see any of that on Sunday.Finally, the Broncos let Sproles run back a kickoff for a TD. Anyone remember the Broncos/Bears game last year where special teams cost us the game? How can Scott O'Brien possibly be considered "one of the league's top special team's coach", when our punt and kickoff coverage is as bad as it is. This wasn't just a problem against the Chargers, but it was also a blackmark on an otherwise flawless victory over the Raiders.Also, Champ got burnt by Jackson for a costly momentum-changing touchdown. No sane NFL commentator or analyst will deny Champ's effectiveness at shutting down top receivers, but the Broncos desperately need him to return to his double digit interception form. And he desperately needs the offensive line to get to the quarterback.

All of this should be a cause of concern for the Broncos, especially for a team that is so confident and set on being a playoff contender. There is no doubt that with the Bronco's relatively easy schedule and their offensive fire power, the team should be able to win the games against mediocre and poor teams (2-Chiefs, Browns, Dolphins, 2-Raiders, Falcons, and Jets). Including the win this weekend, that would make them at the very least a nine win team. The remaining games the Broncos play are against what looks to be contenders, and if they could win two or three of those games, they look to be a lock for at least the wild-card, if not a division title.

However, the Broncos want a playoff WIN, and in order to do that in the AFC, the Broncos must absolutely field a defense that can stop a drive every once in a while. They must field a team that can disrupt dangerous passers, like Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger and Brett Favre. These quarterbacks are all elite players but they have all struggled, as any quarterback does, under pressure. The pressure allows Champ and Dre to earn their money. The pressure forces frustration, bad decisions, turnovers, and bad field position. As of right now, the Broncos do not appear as if they are capable of mounting such pressure.

Now there is a bright side to the Bronco's woeful defensive performance. First, they played against a very talented San Diego Charger's offense who managed to keep up with our own talented offense. The Chargers have one of the best offensive lines in the league, so sacks will be hard to come by for any defense. The Broncos may not have been ready for Sproles this time around, but they will be next time. Second, it is only the second week of the season, which gives the defense plenty of time to improve. Recall that when the Colts won the Super Bowl, their defense didn't become stout until the playoffs. Maybe our defense just needs to get more comfortable with the schemes and with each other?

Regardless, if the Broncos are to improve on defense, it appears as if they must have a shift in attitude. They must play a more physical type of defense that will force the occasional turnover. If they can successfully implement a bend and not break offense, and force field goals instead of touchdowns, I'll consider that a victory for our defense. Because on the other side of the ball, the Broncos offense should have no problems running up the score on opponents' defenses.