Lancane for President
Lancane for President
No championship team can live off big plays: They need drives, or their D will wear out while their opponents stay fresh. That's especially true when the opposing D is the NFLs best and ours is one of the worst, plus missing half its starters. We can't afford for them to get tired out and/or have their few remaining good players hurt. We're not going to bomb the Seahawks secondary into submission or turn 7 yd receptions into 30 yarders because we break (or they miss) lots of tackles. We must line up and play pro football, not a sandlot game, all day long.
Would it be any better with a dozen 2:00 drives getting points on less than half of them? Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but I maintain the only way we beat Seattle is with long drives keeping our weak patchwork D fresh and healthy while tiring theirs. If we go into the 4th sucking wind with Unrein, Fua and Mincey taking lots of snaps against Lynch and Wilson, it will be ugly.
Oh, valid point. I thought you meant all starters, you should take the time to be more descriptive, don't be shy. —Jaded
Never confuse frustrated candor and disloyal malice.
Love can't be coerced. —Me
A thousand times this, with much concern about 'roid rage for good measure. All season, our guys have been reluctant to fight through jams yet drew as many OFFENSIVE PI flags as defensive, even with every DB we faced mugging them because we'd always win clean matchups. So now we face a bunch of doped up guys brazenly calling themselves "Legion of Boom" despite an NFL that's practically outlawed defense, ESPECIALLY in the secondary, and Belicheat bitches about our 5'9" 185. double-concussed WR making illegal contact, so SI urges refs to watch US.
Yeah, this is gonna be a blast....
That's been my take ever since that Indy game. Looking at our offense before and after is like night and day; after that, EVERY DB mugged our WRs, because Indy gave us our first loss doing it. Now, there was more to it than that (i.e. Mathis and Redding running amok against a line that couldn't protect Manning or open holes for Ball, leading to 2 of our 4 turnovers.) Yet Indy put the breaks on us when no one could, playing coverage the way Seattle plays EVERY game.
Meanwhile, Seattle DID play every game that way, as if it were still 1970 and PI didn't exist. With all 31 other teams forced to play under CURRENT rules outlawing pass coverage and sacks, naturally Seattle outperformed. Much depends on whether the NFL's willing to tolerate a team winning a SB doing exactly what they don't want ANY team doing in ANY game.
I personally think there's a lot to that as well, just like when the Ravens got some hinky calls against Indy in last years wildcard game and a BUNCH of hinky ones against us: The League Office clearly had a hard on for giving Stabby McGee another SB Ring as some kind of gold watch, and before the playoffs ever started I wondered about the timing of his retirement announcement (what team leader tells his fellows, "I ain't comin' back, ya'll" going INTO the playoffs?!) After they beat us, their SB win was a foregone conclusion and I just quit watching.
Oh, valid point. I thought you meant all starters, you should take the time to be more descriptive, don't be shy. —Jaded
Never confuse frustrated candor and disloyal malice.
Love can't be coerced. —Me
I think we've done a good job in the playoffs of having long, soul crushing drives. I know you disagree with this assessment, and still say that we live only off the big play. So let's say you're right. In that case, I can't agree with your point here that "no championship team can live off big plays." If that's how we've lived for 18 games, why change what we're doing now? It got us this far, right? Is Seattle SOOOO much better than everyone else that we have to drastically change our approach? I say we'll play how we'll play and they'll play how they'll play and we'll truly see who's better. I hope the Bronco offense isn't as scared of Seattle as you are.
Denver had a higher time of possession percentage than Seattle this season. The idea that you need these long drives to win is just absolute hogwash. It's not true. At all.
You need points.
You know what no one talks about with Seattle? They were tied for eighth in points. Points are what matter, not time of possession.
You're right, we have done a much better job of producing long championship drives in the playoffs; a drive against SD was our first >7 minutes all year, and thus our longest all year—until we bettered it twice against NE the following week. Also, while injury decimation made NEs D statistically weak in nearly every category this season, one big exception was their 10th best scoring D: Teams gained lots of yards against NE (especially on the ground,) but the Pats toughened up in the red zone against everyone else just as they did against us, so it's hard to punch it on them.
That said, Seattles D IS that much better than anyone we've played. The Chiefs looked like they might be in the same ballpark the first half of the season, when they were creating turnovers that accounted for about a third of all the teams points, but playing us was pretty much the beginning of the end for them: It was their first loss, and they were pretty flat for most of the rest of the season. Even at their best though, I don't think the Chiefs secondary or pass rush was on par with Seattles; they just don't have the same secondary depth.
It's not a matter of being scared of Seattle, but of realizing their strengths/weaknesses and ours. Except at DT, our D is built for speed at the expense of size, and is missing half its starters: It can't afford to stay on the field long, because that will tire it out and each snap increases the risk of yet another key injury that forces to scrape MORE off the bottom of the barrel. If ToP is lopsided in Seattles favor going into the fourth quarter they could well go Beast Mode on us and only give us the ball once.
Realistically, we'll probably face the same gameplan as we did against NE and SD, but if the opposing QB isn't as good, he's also not as vital to that game plan: The opposing RB and D are both much better. We need to make each of our drives count, because we won't get many and our fast-but-small patchwork D can't hold up if THEY sustain many drives. In both our playoff games, we were much better at all the things we must do in NYC: Protect Manning, get positive runs even if we don't break any, and get off the field fast on D.
Those weren't SB teams though; we must raise our game again, one last time.
Oh, valid point. I thought you meant all starters, you should take the time to be more descriptive, don't be shy. —Jaded
Never confuse frustrated candor and disloyal malice.
Love can't be coerced. —Me
Meet the 1999 Denver Broncos.
Up 9-3, and moving the ball poorly, and facing the No. 4 ranked defense featuring All-Pro cornerback Ray Buchanan, John Elway hits Rod Smith for an 80-yard, 1 play drive to go up 15-3.
Still up, but now 15-6, going into the 4th quarter, still struggling to put up more than fields goals cornerback Darrien Gordon intercepts Chris Chandler and runs it back 58 yards to the Falcon 24-yard line, five plays later 21-6.
Now, for the nail in the coffin. Darrien Gordon intercepts Chris Chandler in the endzone on the ensuing drive (just four plays after Howard Griffith's TD run), returns the ball 50 yards and sets up a 39-yard Terrell Davis run down to the Falcon 9 yardline. Two plays later John Elway scores for a 27-6 lead, Mark Schlereth and Elway get their picture taken for posterity and Denver cruises to a Super Bowl win.
Now...about those big plays not happening for a Championship team...
Gameplans must fit teams, and quick plays that let them dominate ToP play right into their hands.
Our D isn't as good as it was 15 years ago, while Seattles offense AND defense are better than Atlantas was 15 years ago. There's a reason Atlanta only scored 6 points through 3 quarters and, as you've just helpfully demonstrated, it wasn't because our offense kept theirs off the field. Wilson ain't Chandler, but if he throws DRC or Champ a couple picks, sure, we can win with a few similarly big plays by our offense. I doubt that'll happen, if only because he can throw at Carter or Webster if we manage to shutdown Lynch as well as the '98 Broncos did Anderson.
Let's be clear though: I said one-play TD drives are dangerous because they don't keep a fast-but-small weak D running out of players off the field, and that's true. HOWEVER, the other key part of having more than ONE big play in a drive is that if it DOESN'T reach the end zone we settle for a FG—maybe not even that if a 40 yd pass play just takes us from our 20 to their 40 so we can go 4 yd run, 2 yd run, incomplete, punt. Living on one-play drives is dangerous even when they're scoring TDs, and long FG drives are better if a team can produce them consistently.
But a one-play drive that doesn't rest/protect our D or tire theirs AND only gets a FG—or nothing—because we can't muster MULTIPLE big plays on the same drive, that's lethal.
WE MUST SUSTAIN DRIVES. I could write a book on all the reasons why, but the bottom line is we must do it.
Last edited by Joel; 01-22-2014 at 07:56 PM.
Oh, valid point. I thought you meant all starters, you should take the time to be more descriptive, don't be shy. —Jaded
Never confuse frustrated candor and disloyal malice.
Love can't be coerced. —Me
Go Broncos!! I think when Peyton unleashes his precision passes, his targets other than Welker will have the advantage in a capacity to catch his passes in coverage - they're all big and strong more so than fine receivers like Crabtree. Sherman can stay with them, but Peyton's spot-on accuracy and their sizes should preclude he and the rest of the Seahawks' secondary from breaking them up more so than not. The alleged 'cheating' their defense perpetrates will be more difficult for Sherman & Co. against the likes of Thomas, Thomas and Decker. Optimistically speaking, we may very we'll see a series of scenarios reflective of Peyton's virtuoso performances (against Baltimore, Philadelphia, 1st half at NE, etc.). Peyton doesn't rely on his guys creating substantial separation, IMO. Seahawks fans are regurgitating that we are over-confident (we know who Richard Sherman is, you dummies who proclaimed such otherwise nonsense!), yet express their confidence across the board with connotative 'truths' as to why they will win. Ignorance overtly appears bliss for many of them on the 12th Man forums. A valid point made earlier - they are away from their substantial home stadium, so brilliantly cantilevered to encapsulate the crowd noise. I thought Kaepernick & Co. hung in there pretty well for a while. It's low percentage to expect Lynch to run for 40 yd TD runs. 31-17 Broncos!
Go Broncos! James
Last edited by Spartan; 01-22-2014 at 09:51 PM. Reason: Grammar
"A ship is safe in the harbor; but that's not why ships were built"
Nobody with an once of common sense is wondering why Denver went down this road, regardless of making this SB or Favre outcome. If Manning never played a down it would have been a great deal and a gamble worth taking, the Broncos had absolutely nothing to lose. Absolutely Nada!
As for the "win from now on", take it up with John Elway, his words not mine.
Btw, the Vikings and Jets didn't mortgage shit to sign Favre, they also had nothing to lose.
"Tuning ... into each other ... lift all higher”
“I’m just different!”
Sign Garbage Minshew.
Draft
1st round— Cooper Dejean CB
2nd round— Jack Sawyer OLB
3rd round— Will Shipley RB
4th round— Ricky Pearsall WR
5th round— Ladd McKonkey WR
6th round— Cash Jones RB
7th round— Carson Steele RB
"Tuning ... into each other ... lift all higher”
“I’m just different!”
Sign Garbage Minshew.
Draft
1st round— Cooper Dejean CB
2nd round— Jack Sawyer OLB
3rd round— Will Shipley RB
4th round— Ricky Pearsall WR
5th round— Ladd McKonkey WR
6th round— Cash Jones RB
7th round— Carson Steele RB
I'm saying they will be coached. I think the league huddled with the refs the week of the 2006 game in Detroit and said "Look, guys, this is Jerome Bettis' big retirement party so we want it to be a good game but if there's a toss-up call, let's see the edge go to the Steelers. It's a better story here."
Then you look at all the replays and all the flags that went for the Steelers, it was ridiculous. The league doesn't tell them to actually throw the game but the message got across and they did a terrible job hiding which side they were for.
Don't think it doesn't happen because it happens in the NBA.
I miss the old Mile High Stadium.
So you are saying I'm a WWF fan but I'm in the dark about it?
Originally Posted by Sting
Joel's just mad because he thinks that we are mortgaging the future because of the Manning signing. Never mind that the Broncos had complete drafts the last two years, and drafted a potential replacement for Peyton two years ago. Since Elway signed Manning, he is now like George Allen (lol).
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