Who Needs English

So… that couldn’t have gone any worse, huh?

You are free to blame The Stable. Came in, presented a rather simple picture of the so-called battle against Oakland, made fun of JaMarcus for a few paragraphs, including a great YouTube clip proving the guy love Bill Cosby sweaters and clearly wasn’t majoring in English at LSU… let’s revisit…

… and then he comes out in the midst of a horrific performance by the Denver Broncos and, for all intents and purposes, wins the game.

In search of my own answers (it’s never one answer my friends… it’s always a culmination of events), I’ve watched the game three times. The live performance doesn’t count… the aggravation wouldn’t allow for an objective review of the game in real time. The second viewing didn’t help either. Thus I took a full day of rest, avoided football in full (even skipped the Monday night debacle as my BWW fantasy team moved into the championship round), and returned this afternoon for Round 3, and here are the earth-shattering tidbits I weaned from the experience.

- There are serious issues that continue to regress at the guard positions. The decision to bench Ben Hamilton in favor of Russ Hochstein has done nothing. To be fair, the Raiders planned to target and take advantage of those opportunities. They switched Tommy Kelly and Richard Seymour into the interior of that line, targeting Hochstein and often taking advantage of his struggles. Greg Ellis reaped the benefits from the other side of the line, but it was Seymour and Kelly creating pressure and flooding the pocket with regularity.

This has been an ongoing problem for Denver,  a problem we’ve discussed at length. For the Broncos it is especially concerning as the growing focus of the offense is the interior rushing game (and the problem growns when you don’t have Correll Buckhalter to pressure the edges and pull focus away from the interior of the line)… and at this point, I fail to understand how it could be resolved without drastic measures (and that’s not likely to happen at this point of the season).

- While we yearn to praise Mike Nolan (and many of us have – my hand is raised) and the work he has done with this defense, one undeniable failure has been the effort to instill discipline on the defensive line. We spoke about this not long ago, noting an insightful conversation heard between Alfred Williams and Scott Hastings on 104.3FM The Fan.

In the eight games since the bye week (also marking the end of the six-game win streak), the leading tackler of the day has been a linebacker just two times – DJ Williams in both, the first being the 7-30 loss against Baltimore, the second being the 44-13 trouncing of the downtrodden Chiefs. In the remaining six games either Brian Dawkins, Renaldo Hill, or Champ Bailey have registered as the leading tacklers of the game. Those are all backfielders, indicating the defensive line allows rushers to reach the second level and the linebackers are out of position and cannot make the play.

(Not that it is odd to see Dawkins at the top of the list… he’s a ball hawk, but over the first six games he earned the honor just once. DJ and Andra Davis ruled the roost in the others.)

If you watch these games… if you know these players… it is rare to find DJ or Andra out of position. As Alfred noted in that radio conversation several weeks ago (following the Pittsburgh loss), those two players are, more often than not, FORCED out of position due to mistakes made on the defensive line. Alfred suggested the overblown confidence of just one defensive lineman can create this scenario, and having watched these games with a frequency that would sicken most, I would assert that blame can be shared by the entire crew… including Kenny Peterson, Robert Ayers, Marcus Thomas, and at times, Elvis Dumervil (I am starting to think the pursuit of the quarterback is, at times, a problem… watch the tape my friends, and you will find Elvis moving well past the play on more than one occasion).

That is a lack of discipline and can be blamed on the players (for letting the early success, marked by discipline on defense, get in their heads) and coaching (for lacking the foresight to see it coming).

- There are three facts (love working in groups of three) I can’t push past in contemplating the Broncos we’ve witnessed thus far…

(a) The Broncos, in winning six straight to start the season, registered a give/take ratio of 5/12. Since then, they come in with a give/take at 14/13.

In other words, while they continue to display vast improvement in creating turnovers (when compared to the teams of Mike Shanahan), they are struggling to protect the football.

(b) In the Broncos’ eight wins the defense has allowed 78.6 rushing yards per game (3.4 yards per carry). In their losses the Broncos have surrendered 168 rushing yards per game (4.9 yards per carry).

In other words, teams discovered it would not only be best to run the football… they now understand early struggles to run will subside and thus are dedicated, over the course of the game, to run.

(c) Since the bye week (again, marking the end of the six-game win streak), Denver has surrendered 74 combined points in the fourth quarter. To counter, the Broncos have scored 32 combined points in the final set (20 coming in the two blowout wins over the Giants and Chiefs). I’d also note the Broncos have been faced with a deficit on the scoreboard moving into the second half eight times this season… and they have won two of those games.

In other words, this team struggles to come from behind and they have a nagging tendency to collapse in the fourth quarter… and in the battle to overcome adversity (a crucial element in teams that win Lombardi Trophies), this cannot happen.

And from there we move forward.

Thanks for stopping in.