Thread: Prognosticating vs Reality

Denver used to make the most mediocre Offenses come alive and look like world beaters. I'm happy thus far.

Originally Posted by Jrwiz

right now I see us losing in OAK while jamarcus is a lousy QB overall he can get hot and there D is not all that bad.. they looked pretty good against SAN today and they are supposed to be the class of the WEST..

I only got to see some of the SAN game but OAK was holding their own and KO is not a rivers type QB either..


I had us losing in CIN winning CLE and losing in OAK to start with..

1-2 after this OAK game

Oakland has a stingy defense and every dog has their day (Russell). I can't shake the feeling, either, of us playing the unusually sloppy game against Oakland. They have a knack for dragging us down to their level.

Good news: We're 2-0 and Orton manages the football. He knows how to win games. The running backs looked good and Chris Kuper coming back looks much better. Special teams contained and shut down Cribbs. If this is Shanahan's team he probably returns at least one TD on us. Game plan was excellent! Were it not for Hillis' fumble there's a good Chance the Browns don't have more than one field goal.

Bad News: We played an offense that hasn't scored a TD in almost a season's worth of games. We own the Browns. Those that say "well we stopped Cincy last week and they looked good," I would say that's true but they also dropped something like 11 balls when we played them so we had some bail outs.

Bottom line: Broncos 2-0 and the team is improving. Keep up the good work!

Originally Posted by Shazam!

Oh please. This defense is like the Super Broncos. Nobody could ask for more.

A new scheme alone can do wonders even without a change of personnel, and we all know the last scheme was a trainwreck.

Like playing Doom to his strengths, a more versatile LB than a straight up DE?

Even if the D was mediocre I'd have been happy, but after two games the Squad has exceeded all possible expectations.

If they can keep this up all year and play good if not great defense, Denver will beat teams that we all never would've dreamed they'd win this year, and that can take them into January.

Defense baby. Defense.

Defense is what it's all about but I like the fact that Orton doesn't turn the ball over and makes smart decisions with the ball. If Orton can find a rythm with the weapons he has around him and we establish a running game with this three headed monster we will put up more points.

But it's great to see our defense make a 180. If they continue playing at this level we could no doubt win our division and that means playoffs.

good points about the defense, i never had a problem with the moves we made on defense all off-season, and i think MCD was a genius hiring a legit D-cordinator....it also seems that his preparation and techniques for the D in practice and the off-season are paying off in a big way, this team wants to play smashmouth again, and its refreshing from the last 3 years of sit and wait for the play so you get steamrolled...lol

Originally Posted by Jrwiz

right now I see us losing in OAK while jamarcus is a lousy QB overall he can get hot and there D is not all that bad.. they looked pretty good against SAN today and they are supposed to be the class of the WEST..

I only got to see some of the SAN game but OAK was holding their own and KO is not a rivers type QB either..


I had us losing in CIN winning CLE and losing in OAK to start with..

1-2 after this OAK game

I had hoped for 2-0 at this point in the season......and then, figured 2-12 for the rest of the season...........

Now if we win next week.....the national media will start making a big deal about the new coach being 3-0.......etc........

but if the media look at the schedule the rest of the season......that will put things back in perspective.

Pleasantly surprised by the defense......and good to see Orton not putting the team in bad situations...

GO BRONCOS!!!

Mangini was HC of the Jets for a couple of years, after being on staff with the Pats. He's seen our kind of D before.
I'm not sitting here saying I have pennant fever after these 2 games, but I am VERY happy with the way our D played so far. I wonder if we would be the #1 D in scoring AND yards if we hadn't played "prevent" against Cincy's last drive.

Saying our defense is better than last year isn't enough. Our defense was nothing short of pathetic last year. We actually seem to have a good defense this year and a chance to compete against a lot of teams in the NFL this year. Hopefully our offense will get better and play more consistant football.

We don't know enough yet to REALLY know how good this team is on either side of the ball. If we were 0-2 instead of 2-0 I'd be saying the same thing (although probably not so many would agree with me in the former scenario).

So, what I am taking away from this week's game is that we are improving. Steadily improving on both sides of the ball. If we can continue that steady improvement, each and every week, this will be a team to be proud of.

So far, I am very impressed with how far McD has brought this team, what with all the controversy we had this off-season. Some of the problems certainly appear to be of his own making (I'm on his side more than Cutler's, but he bears some of the blame as well), but this was quite a test for him to bring the team through and start off 2-0, and leading the AFC West. A bad coach probably wouldn't have been able to pull that off.

It isn't a stretch to say the Defense is twice as good as last season, and that would mean it's a middle-of-the-pack unit. Even that would be saying a lot if it finished ranked 16-14 overall from 30.

I felt we would be better on defense I just didn't know how much better. I am surprised at just how stout we have been up the middle. Fields has been a journeyman nose tackle all of his career but from what I can tell Fields has played very well. In fact the trio of Fields, Davis, and D.J have been solid at clogging things up.

There is however one thing I think we need improvement on and its defending the edges against the run. It seems that the biggest gains that the Bengals and the Browns got in the running game was runs to the outside.

Originally Posted by TXBRONC

I felt we would be better on defense I just didn't know how much better. I am surprised at just how stout we have been up the middle. Fields has been a journeyman nose tackle all of his career but from what I can tell Fields has played very well. In fact the trio of Fields, Davis, and D.J have been solid at clogging things up.

There is however one thing I think we need improvement on and its defending the edges against the run. It seems that the biggest gains that the Bengals and the Browns got in the running game was runs to the outside.

Well,tx, I can see your not thinking much of Fields, since many others are in the same boat. But "journeyman"? Denver picked him up from the team he's been with since entering the league. That is far from being a journeyman.

My only worry, as of now, is the lack of depth. If Fields is doing the bulk of the good work, and gets hurt, who's gonna take his place?

I'd say luck is going to have to be with them this year. Then next year they can start upgrading and adding depth. Gerald McCoy hopefully, to start!

As for the big gains on the outside...I'd venture to say that's prolly true with most teams. Between the tackles isn't exactly easy going.

Originally Posted by NameUsedBefore

A lot of people had us going 3-0 to start out. The Bengals were strangely piss-poor and we totally lucked out on that game; and beating up on the Browns is just more tough love hailing back to the Elway-years. Hell, everyone should have seen those stats on their passing capabilities; last in every single category. Quickly followed by a shot of Derek Anderson treading the sideline...

Next we get Oakland and JaMarcus can't throw for shit Russell. I think we can beat Oakland if Russell keeps overthrowing screen passes and being all-around terrible.

After these three games comes the real schedule as far as I'm concerned. What we can see thus far is that we're not so bad as to lose to the Browns at home; the Bengals game still has me wondering, though, considering the win was like surviving a skydive in which your parachute failed.

I didn't make a prediction following TC/Preseason, but I did in the thread that was started around the start of training camp, or just a little in to it.

While I might have picked a little different after the preseason, because I came away fairly impressed with the defense (but also concerned about the offense), I also had us going 3-0, but finishing 7-9.

If we beat Oakland next week, it will be great, but still not tell us a whole lost. However, over the next two weeks, once we see how the team plays against Dallas and New England, we will have a much better feel for how good or bad this team is.

Originally Posted by TXBRONC

I felt we would be better on defense I just didn't know how much better. I am surprised at just how stout we have been up the middle. Fields has been a journeyman nose tackle all of his career but from what I can tell Fields has played very well. In fact the trio of Fields, Davis, and D.J have been solid at clogging things up.

There is however one thing I think we need improvement on and its defending the edges against the run. It seems that the biggest gains that the Bengals and the Browns got in the running game was runs to the outside.

Good call. Fields and Andra Davis have been the finds of the year so far IMO. The center of our run defense bears no resemblance to the squishy soft thing we watched in 2007-08, and those guys are a big part of it. I really liked the Davis signing when we made it, but had no idea Fields would perform as well as he has so far

Originally Posted by Dreadnought

Good call. Fields and Andra Davis have been the finds of the year so far IMO. The center of our run defense bears no resemblance to the squishy soft thing we watched in 2007-08, and those guys are a big part of it. I really liked the Davis signing when we made it, but had no idea Fields would perform as well as he has so far

Ahem. .. just would like to take this opportunity to note that I adopted Fields as my adopt-a-Bronco right after we picked him up.

Not that I'm a great judge of talent. .. it was more along the lines of "man, we really need this guy to step up, so here's hoping he does well."

He's not a top-tier NT, but he's done well enough so far. I'm pretty pleased with he performance, and like many other pieces of this team, he seems to be steadily improving as we move along.