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View Full Version : Why can't Denver get both an offense and defense?



LoyalSoldier
10-16-2008, 01:37 AM
This was an snippet from an article in the local paper. They did a spot on all the teams. I typed this out so sorry for spelling errors.



Denver over the last eight to nine years has been quite the enigma. Back in 2003 to the earlier parts of 2006 Denver had one of the better defenses in the league when they played anyone not based out of Indianapolis. They averaged 19 points a game in 2004, 16.6 points a game in 2005, and started the 2006 without giving up a meaningful touchdown till their game against the Colts. The problem was that during 2004 the offense was turnover prone and in 2006 the offense was lucky to get 17 points in the early part of the season. Their best year was 2005 when both units were clicking. Now all of a sudden the team with one of the better defenses in the NFL can make a third string undrafted free-agent from North West Central Florida University Tech A&M look like the second coming of Emmit Smith. On the flip side the offense has exploded under the third year quarterback Jay Cutler. It is puzzling how every time the offense takes a step forward the defense seems to take a step back.

dogfish
10-16-2008, 05:27 AM
because we suck, or something. . . . ?


:noidea:



nah, that's not it. . . . okay, i give up-- why can't we?

gobroncsnv
10-16-2008, 07:10 AM
In my opinion, it's because the offense has ran pretty much the same scheme while Shanny's been here... ZBS, moving or rolling pockets, mis-direction, and scripted series to get the defense's tendencies to know what to counter with, and when. No question, our players on the o side of the ball have improved, with perhaps RB at least holding their own.
Now, the d... How many coordinators do you go through before you start looking at the talent? We got rid of the guy who had the best defense in the Shanny years (Coyer), but he was forced to do what he did without a good pass rush. Our LB's now as a group are not as good as who we had back then. We've not yet replaced Al, DJ was no worse than Boss at SAM, maybe better, and Gold was really pretty good on his first go-round here. Safety is still an issue, and we are still struggling for a good nickel CB. JW will hopefully improve.
We've taken care of the LOS on the offense's side of the ball, and look at the way we can (or should) score now. Can anyone tell me that Slowik has one of the better dlines in the game now? Our CB blitzes work, but I don't want to do that very often. When it's a "standard blitz", using LB's, we don't get there very much at all. Now we're about 7th or 8th best in the league in sacks right now, but we don't have ANY consistency there. Guess it's time to get another DC...

MHCBill
10-16-2008, 07:16 AM
Good defense starts with the Dline... without that you will not have a good defense. In '05 we had a good Dline... Brown, Myers, Price, and Ekuban. They could stop the run which lead to second and long, or third and long. When Coyer got teams into second or third in long he would vary his blitzes and attack the QB, which lead to incomplete passes or turnovers.

Until we can get a front four that can at least keep it second and seven or longer or third and seven or longer we will not be successful. We don't have "good" blitzers imo from the linebacking corps or the secondary. That hurts when you have to be a defense that relies on blitzing to sustain QB pressure.

Medford Bronco
10-16-2008, 08:21 AM
The defense really has not been dominating since the 1977 unit.

We have had some "good" defenses in the 80s 97,98 and 2005 but
never a Baltimore Ravens/ Tampa Bay Bucs type defense that can win
games on it own.

The offense has been dominating more often then not. 96-98, 2000
when Gus Ferotte (and Griese before injury) put up a boatload of points for us.

silkamilkamonico
10-16-2008, 09:05 AM
The defense really has not been dominating since the 1977 unit.

We have had some "good" defenses in the 80s 97,98 and 2005 but
never a Baltimore Ravens/ Tampa Bay Bucs type defense that can win
games on it own.

The offense has been dominating more often then not. 96-98, 2000
when Gus Ferotte (and Griese before injury) put up a boatload of points for us.

I agree. Our defense, regardless of how strong they were, have alway had holes to fill, and didn't come up big when it mattered most.

The year Cutler took over, when the defense didn't give up a meaningful TD until the Colts, broke halfway through the year, and we lost a couple crucial games because our defense played well all game and then gave up the last minute TD. Not necessarily the defenses fault, as they didn't have much help from the offense, but I never recall Denver winning games because their defense was stout when it mattered most.

Denver doesn't need a dominate defense. And there are very very few teams in the NFL that have both a dominant offense and defense(in fact there are none this year IMHO). Too bad we can't get that defense back from 2006 with this offense.

Lonestar
10-16-2008, 09:33 AM
Mikey has NEVER placed a priority on D players.. Other than LB's Until 2007 draft he drafted POORLY at best on day one for defensive players..

O is his bag and with all of his teams even if we score a boatload of points early we often allowed the other teams to close in the later quarters because he'd rather offensively blitz them early and then go into prevent play it conservative and hope the D could slow the other team down and coast to a win..

If Y'all will remember many of those games in the 96-99 years became close at the end of the game and John made quite a few of those come from behind wins because of it during mikeys years..

Until mikey puts a priority on day one for D players O will always dominate his personnel decisions.. Which IMHO means Pat is going to have to become more active in decision making on draft day..

LRtagger
10-16-2008, 09:36 AM
Defensive coaching and defensive scouting have been our downfall IMO. Even when we were good in 2005, I think we all can agree we could have been BETTER with a DC that could adjust to the opposition at the half. If we had that, we would have been SB champs in 05.

But now we have a DC that cant adjust to the opposition after the opening drive. It is not a coincidence that we are one of the top defenses in the league in the first quarter and the worst from there on out. It takes all of 2 or 3 series for the opposing OC and QB to figure us out.

Superchop 7
10-17-2008, 12:55 AM
We need a front four and a MLB.

More aggressive play calling.

The primary goal is to rattle the QB.

Instead of giving him all day to throw.

We need to contain the A gap.

And blitz them to death.

gobroncsnv
10-17-2008, 06:58 AM
Until mikey puts a priority on day one for D players O will always dominate his personnel decisions.. Which IMHO means Pat is going to have to become more active in decision making on draft day..


Well, we did that 2 years ago, but the jury's still out as to whether we got the RIGHT first day guys for our D... The guy we got on the second day (Thomas) is the one showing the most flash in his pan. But I hope Bowlen continues his stance of realizing he doesn't know enough to get his nose into his own business... That's one of the best parts about the Broncos, we don't have an Al Davis or a Jerry Jones type owner. But after this much time, it's pretty clear that the guys who scout for the defense side of the draft need better vitamins.

tomjonesrocks
10-17-2008, 07:22 AM
We got rid of the guy who had the best defense in the Shanny years (Coyer), but he was forced to do what he did without a good pass rush.

I never really understand when people suggest that the anemic pass rush at that time wasn't on Coyer. It wasn't just the players--Coyer's *scheme* did not prioritize a pass rush. Pryce talked about this frequently after he left and how great it was to get back to a attacking defense.

Coyer had some success with what he did, but he did not attack the QB. I agree that time and having to watch the schemes implemented post-Coyer have made me miss the guy somewhat (not to mention that the guy was *devastated* when he was fired and for a time after his termination convincingly argued he could have/would have turned things around with minor personnel changes)--but at the time he was shown the door, I was thrilled as I'd hoped we'd bring back some aggressiveness and finally get after the QB. Whoops--wrong.

jrelway
10-17-2008, 01:50 PM
I never really understand when people suggest that the anemic pass rush at that time wasn't on Coyer. It wasn't just the players--Coyer's *scheme* did not prioritize a pass rush. Pryce talked about this frequently after he left and how great it was to get back to a attacking defense.

Coyer had some success with what he did, but he did not attack the QB. I agree that time and having to watch the schemes implemented post-Coyer have made me miss the guy somewhat (not to mention that the guy was *devastated* when he was fired and for a time after his termination convincingly argued he could have/would have turned things around with minor personnel changes)--but at the time he was shown the door, I was thrilled as I'd hoped we'd bring back some aggressiveness and finally get after the QB. Whoops--wrong.

when coyer was there in 05, thats all we did was bring the heat with our LB'ers..remember the philly game?

lex
10-19-2008, 10:47 AM
In my opinion, it's because the offense has ran pretty much the same scheme while Shanny's been here... ZBS, moving or rolling pockets, mis-direction, and scripted series to get the defense's tendencies to know what to counter with, and when. No question, our players on the o side of the ball have improved, with perhaps RB at least holding their own.
Now, the d... How many coordinators do you go through before you start looking at the talent? We got rid of the guy who had the best defense in the Shanny years (Coyer), but he was forced to do what he did without a good pass rush. Our LB's now as a group are not as good as who we had back then. We've not yet replaced Al, DJ was no worse than Boss at SAM, maybe better, and Gold was really pretty good on his first go-round here. Safety is still an issue, and we are still struggling for a good nickel CB. JW will hopefully improve.
We've taken care of the LOS on the offense's side of the ball, and look at the way we can (or should) score now. Can anyone tell me that Slowik has one of the better dlines in the game now? Our CB blitzes work, but I don't want to do that very often. When it's a "standard blitz", using LB's, we don't get there very much at all. Now we're about 7th or 8th best in the league in sacks right now, but we don't have ANY consistency there. Guess it's time to get another DC...

Slowiks horrible. He's so bad its hard to tell which position we need worse on defense. It would be great to have all pro players at each position on defense but the notion that Slowik has nothing to work with is hooey. On the defensive line he has a DE that averaged 10.5 sacks his first two years. This year he has one. Robertson has been solid and Thomas seems to be progressing.

DJ Williams is a quality LB. Websters not great...he has his bad moments but he also has some good ones.

And at the next level, we have allegedly one of the top CB tandems in the NFL.

Theres quality at every level. Thats hardly nothing to work with. We may not be top 5 in terms of talent on defense but we're also not bottom 5 either.

We've often had discussions here about how Shanahan and Kubiak made the offense work with smoke and mirrors while Plummer was here. Thats another way of saying we hid our weaknesses and emphasized our strengths. Thats what quality coaches can do. Not only has Slowik not done that but some players have also been made to look worse than what they are.

At our current pace, our CBs will have 3 INTs this season. Our DT is tied for the team lead in INTs. When Slowik was in Green Bay he set the franchise record low for 8 INTs in the only season he was DC for them. The old record was 13. The year before he was their DC, GB was a top 10 defense. With him, they were horrible.

Slowik is a DB coach, not a DC. I realize many are wanting continuity but Slowiks isnt the guy to stick with.

lex
10-19-2008, 10:52 AM
when coyer was there in 05, thats all we did was bring the heat with our LB'ers..remember the philly game?

Yeah, and that was a big part of beating NE in the playoffs. Eventually it got to Brady and caused turnovers. And then came the Pittsburgh game after which they stopped blitzing. Coyers problem was reacting on the fly and in games. He just wasnt flexible enough to react to what the other teams did. But his blitzes were very effective against a lot of teams. Which is better than what we have seen from Slowik.

Broncolingus
10-19-2008, 11:52 AM
Why can't Denver get both an offense and defense?

Actually, Denver has both, it's just one is usually (unfortunately) much better than the other...