Page 10 of 53 FirstFirst ... 8 9 10 11 12 20 ... LastLast
Results 136 to 150 of 785

Thread: Super Bowl XLVIII: Denver Broncos vs. Seattle Seahawks

  1. #136

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by OrangeHoof View Post
    This is the NFL. NOBODY wins "from now on", not the Steelers, not the Cowboys, not the Patriots, not the 49ers, not the Packers and certainly not the Broncos. All of them have up and down cycles.

    Ask the Jets and Vikings if it was worth mortgaging their futures for a couple of years of Brett Favre. Manning was a similar situation. Nobody was sure if he could come back from his neck surgery after sitting out a year. In retrospect, it was a great deal to sign him *because* we got to the Super Bowl but if we had the Favre outcome, everyone but Tebow haters like you would be asking themselves why we went down this road.
    Yeah, I made the Favre comparison a lot at the time, too; it's quite apt (especially when people talk about Manning playing "5+ more years.") I'm a pessimist by nature, because I prefer pleasant surprises and prepared for disasters to unpleastand unprepared surprises. Even were I not though, the vivid recent memories of Favres epic flameout were hard to forget, and from the moment we signed Manning I couldn't stop thinking about what this place would be like if it went the same way.

    Well, we're in the Super Bowl, which at the very least gives us encouragement and something to build on and finish the job with next year if we don't win (though we REALLY need to win; last years lesson, like '96s, is that SB chances too rare and costly to afford missing ANY: You may not get another for a looong time, if ever; ask Minnesota and Buffalo.) As you say, in RETROSPECT it was great deal BECAUSE we reached the SB; had we gone out like the Vikes (or the poor freakin' JETS, remember, Favre went there a year, then split for Minnesota)....

    Let's just say that in that case I wouldn't have hung around much saying, "I told ya so." More often than I'd like, I end up hoping I'm wrong, but hope for the best and plan for the worst.
    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

  2. #137
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Adopted Bronco:
    Pat Bowlen
    Posts
    97,306

    Default

    It sure is a damn shame Denver didn't even make the playoffs this season, eh Joel?
    *The statements above are my opinions, unless they are links, because then they are links, which wouldn't make them my opinions, and I suppose stats aren't necessarily opinion, but they are certainly presented to support an opinion. Proceed accordingly.

    Quote Originally Posted by Buff View Post
    What is this, amateur hour? It's TNF against the Jets and you didn't think you'd need extra booze?

  3. #138
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Adopted Bronco:
    Mister Cobble
    Posts
    53,562

    Default

    Out of Knowshon Moreno, Montee Ball, and Marshawn Lynch can any of you guess who had the fewest YPC in 2013? I will give you a hint: It's the one whose ballsack the media loves to swing from the most out of the three.

  4. The Following 2 Users High Fived BroncoWave For This Post:


  5. #139
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    22,211

    Default

    Well.. as of right now it's apparent that Marshawn is the most talented RB of the three, no questions asked. Ours had the benefit of having the most prolific passing season in NFL history to soften up the defense.
    (the previous comment was not directed at any particular individual and was not intended to slander,disrespect or offend any reader of said statement)

  6. The Following 2 Users High Fived Ravage!!! For This Post:


  7. #140
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    colorado
    Posts
    26,922

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by BroncoWave View Post
    Out of Knowshon Moreno, Montee Ball, and Marshawn Lynch can any of you guess who had the fewest YPC in 2013? I will give you a hint: It's the one whose ballsack the media loves to swing from the most out of the three.


    Tom Brady does not play Runningback.
    The Plan at the moment:

    Draft: Trade a 3rd and 6th this year to a team to move up and get a 2nd next year (this will happen).

    Players I want:
    Jake Ferguson (Jake Butt) or Jelani Woods or Jeremy Ruckert or Cade Otten (owen daniels) at TE- All 4th rd or later.
    Troy Anderson LB 3rd/4th rd (yay Timmy!)
    Neil Farrell, JR DL- run stuffer- bye purcell

  8. The Following 3 Users High Fived underrated29 For This Post:


  9. #141

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by BroncoWave View Post
    Wow. You really just out-dumbassed yourself with that one. Just stop, Joel. Just stop.
    Hyperbole, remember? Nothing wrong with it unless used literally: I assume you knew I wasn't literally putting us on par with the Browns/Lions, but saying I expect us to act better.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nomad View Post
    Look for the Seahawks oline to cut block quite often.
    Well, if they do, we really can't bitch about, all things considered.
    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

  10. #142
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    22,211

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by OrangeHoof View Post
    This is the NFL. NOBODY wins "from now on", not the Steelers, not the Cowboys, not the Patriots, not the 49ers, not the Packers and certainly not the Broncos. All of them have up and down cycles.

    Ask the Jets and Vikings if it was worth mortgaging their futures for a couple of years of Brett Favre. Manning was a similar situation. Nobody was sure if he could come back from his neck surgery after sitting out a year. In retrospect, it was a great deal to sign him *because* we got to the Super Bowl but if we had the Favre outcome, everyone but Tebow haters like you would be asking themselves why we went down this road.
    I don 't think so. I think that Elway saw the workout tapes and had long serious talks with Manning before making the decisions. BECAUSE of the injury to Manning, the in-depth analysis of whether he could come back, and if he was healthy enough to come back, was looked into MUCH deeply than had he been purely a FA on the free market.

    But the "risk" of taking a shot at Manning, and his health, was WAyyyyyyyyy better than trying to continue the risk with Tebow behind center. Their literally was NOTHING to lose and EVERYTHING to gain by giving the best FA EVER to hit the market a shot. Had we not made it to the SUper Bowl, we were/are STILL much much better off for had taken that chance than to let it pass us by. Even if we lost in the playoffs this season, the signing of Manning has absolutelyl MORE than proved to be the right decision.
    (the previous comment was not directed at any particular individual and was not intended to slander,disrespect or offend any reader of said statement)

  11. The Following User High Fived Ravage!!! For This Post:


  12. #143

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by VonDoom View Post
    I went back and read the post I was thinking about again, and you were talking about the fourth quarter. My mistake. Though the first line of the below quote says "we hadn't moved the ball well all day either." It was the "all day" part that made me think you were referring to any given drive, not just one from the first half. Still, these two quotes (one from this thread, one from another) that I was responding to were as follows:
    No, I said, "all day," specifically to be clear I meant the whole game, not any one drive. And we HADN'T moved it well all day; the two TD drives were (very) nice and the kind of thing I've been wanting to see more of all year. BOTH surpassed a drive last week for our longest of the year. Yet if you'd told me before the season we'd make the playoffs without ANY drives >7:00, and make the SB with only 3 JUST >7:00, I wouldn't have given us much chance.

    Quote Originally Posted by VonDoom View Post
    Your implication seems to be that we only moved the ball due to big plays and if you took those away, we would have done nothing. My contention was simply that a) we lived on big plays all year, so there would be no reason to stop now and b) we had two drives in this game that were the opposite of the "big play" drive.
    Take away the big plays and we WOULD have done nothing; we had big plays on the TD drive, too: We just had MORE than big plays, and multiple big plays. Not

    1st and 10 at DEN 25 (Shotgun) P.Manning pass incomplete short right to D.Thomas.
    2nd and 10 at DEN 25 (Shotgun) P.Manning pass deep left to J.Thomas to NE 38 for 37 yards (J.Collins).
    1st and 10 at NE 38 (No Huddle, Shotgun) K.Moreno left tackle to NE 37 for 1 yard (Chr. Jones).
    2nd and 9 at NE 37 (No Huddle, Shotgun) K.Moreno left tackle to NE 36 for 1 yard (J.Collins).
    3rd and 8 at NE 36 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass incomplete deep left to D.Thomas.
    4th and 8 at NE 36 M.Prater 54 yard field goal is GOOD, Center-A.Brewer, Holder-B.Colquitt. 10 26
    M.Prater kicks 65 yards from DEN 35 to end zone, Touchback.
    DRIVE TOTALS: NE 10, DEN 26, 6 plays, 39 yards, 2:26 elapsed
    Well, hooray for us; we got a FG. Now, we only ran FIVE plays, and all but ONE managed just TWO yards COMBINED (0.5 yds/play) but ONE picked up 37 and got us in range for a score. Which is a darned good thing since we didn't gain ANYTHING on the 2 plays before that and only gained 2 yds more on the 2 plays after that. And to top it all off, we burned just 2:26 off the clock, then kicked off with 7:00 left and the same 3 score lead as when we started.

    I PROMISE I didn't deliberately grab this drive because it supports points (textbook example, really.) It probably stuck in my mind because I'd been thinking about the issue for a few months, and throughout that game where we leapt into FG range on one or two plays no less than FOUR times, and few others where the big play was short of FG range, so we punted. The problem is, I didn't NEED to look hard for supporting evidence.

    There were exceptions; there've been more in each of our playoff games, and that's encouraging. The two TD drives were each an example, and our two longest drives all year: We MUST do that a LOT in the SB, or are patchwork, soft and fast-but-small D will either wear down, get hurt or both. I'm not saying we need a TD everytime either; the drive before the one above, we also settled for a FG—from the NE 1, no less—but took 5:33 and 11 plays doing it, even though we STARTED on our 39.

    That was the drive after Knighton sacked Brady on 4th down, which is to say, only our SECOND drive of the half, but combined with our first 7:00 drive, and NE helpfully burning off 5:27 when they were down 3 scores and STILL getting NOTHING (plus giving us good field position,) well, those three drives got us to a 20 pt lead with 12:00 left in the fourth quarter; the rest was just mopping up with Prevent, and as badly as we played Prevent, it was still enough.

    That 5 play, 2:26 drive that got 35 of its 37 yds in just a single play, then sputtered out into a FG? Didn't do a darned thing to help us. Maybe NE needs 3 TDs instead of 2 TD and a FG, but our win probability already hit 100% after the LONG FG drive. If it HADN'T, NE did more to ice our win when they spent 4:00 SCORING A TD ON US than we did spending 2:26 scoring a FG on them.

    The underappreciated downside of fast quick-strike offenses and fast small Ds vs. power running and smashmouth is that if the power running team protects the ball (which the run does well) and that fast small D never stops it, you end up trading 2:00 drives for 8:00 drives. Guess which D wears out first? The team missing HALF its starting front seven; you think Mitch Unrein will keep Marshawn Lynch from running up the gut for a TD any better than he did against Brady? Oh, and when trading 2:00 drives for 8:00 drives, guess who probably has the ball last?

    We MUST sustain our drives. A pair of 10 play drives that eat 6-7 minutes but end in FGs would be a LOT better than a 3 play 1:30 TD drive. Of course, a pair of 10 play 7 minute drives that end in TDs would be best; if we do that a couple times Seattle's not built to come back, our D stays fresh (and safe from injury) and our hurry up wears their hulks down till they collapse.

    If our D was better, or at least deeper, I'd say light those big-talkers up—it's not. Even in the '70s—the Golden Age of the deep ball—the Mad Bomber never won a Super Bowl, and neither did Fouts with Air Coryell. Stabler needed the thugs in his secondary to put him over the top, and the Chargers never had that, so: Too bad.
    Last edited by Joel; 01-22-2014 at 01:29 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

  13. #144

    Default

    Seriously, guys, the Seahawks D is as good as advertised: 1st in passing yds/att and 7th in rushing yds/att. Their safeties are great, their starting CBs are great (though I'm less impressed with their nickel and dimebacks,) their pass rush is great, their LBs are great in coverage, run stopping and blitzing. We're not going to just bowl them over like we did a lot of teams (and looking over the regular season, it really wasn't as many as it seemed like during the record runs; most of those game were close until very late, and we trailed too often against too many weak teams.)

    This game will most likely be decided by our mediocre D vs. their mediocre offense, and perhaps the most ominous stat there is that, though they seldom WANTED or NEEDED to throw, they averaged MORE yds/att than us when they did. Think about that for a second: We're facing a team that had more passing yds/att than the 2013 Denver Broncos. The place their most vulnerable is, ironically, considered one of their greatest strengths: As BroncoWave alluded to, Beast Mode finished just 12th in rushing yds/att.

    Our D will probably win or lose this game for us. Our run D's 10th in rushing yds/att; not great, but pretty good. Our pass rush is thin, but so's their offensive line, a vulnerability running AND passing. If we can get any pressure at all on a second year QB in his first SB, well, you saw what happened on the first scrimmage play of the NFCCG. Meanwhile, OUR line must win the battle in the other trench, protecting Manning as well as they ever have, and opening at least enough holes for Moreno and Ball to slow the blitz and thin the secondary by drawing down the safety.

    These are both very good teams, with lots of moving parts that all mesh (or grind) on their counterparts as if designed for it. We must do our job across the board, because the game may come down to who's most prepared for the grandest stage. That also favors us, but we must keep our heads and not loose containment, take our shots and avoid turnovers. It's fascinating matchup; it'll either be a beatdown or incredibly close, but for my part I can't tell which one or which way right now.
    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

  14. #145

    Default

    The team missing HALF its starting front seven; you think Mitch Unrein will keep Marshawn Lynch from running up the gut for a TD any better than he did against Brady? Oh, and when trading 2:00 drives for 8:00 drives, guess who probably has the ball last?
    No, I expect Terrance Knighton and Sylvester Williams to do that, and they will.

    If our D was better, or at least deeper, I'd say light those big-talkers up—it's not. Even in the '70s—the Golden Age of the deep ball—the Mad Bomber never won a Super Bowl, and neither did Fouts with Air Coryell. Stabler needed the thugs in his secondary to put him over the top, and the Chargers never had that, so: Too bad.
    Our defense is solid. It's the coordinator that sucks. And, Stabler didn't go to the SB because of the thugs in his secondary. He went because of a bad call in the Patriot game, and Franco and Rocky being out the next week.

  15. #146
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Little Elm, TX
    Adopted Bronco:
    #58
    Posts
    26,171

    Default

    I would also argue that outside of New Orleans and Atlanta (no Julio Jones)...the best passing offense they faced all year was Arizona. And even in the NO and ATL games, they went up early and forced two teams with bad run games to leave the run altogether.

    So...it's easier to profile them as the BEST pass defense in the NFL when the toughest competition they are facing is Carson Palmer, Mike Glennon (who took them to OT), Kellen Clemens, Ryan Fitzpatrick, etc., etc.

    I'm not saying we'll light them up...but they havent exactly been tested this year either.

  16. The Following 7 Users High Fived CoachChaz For This Post:


  17. #147

    Default

    If Manning gets pass protection like he's had all post season...

    ...and if it's not blowing 3279845346 miles an hour, I think Denver wins.

    (stop Lynch too of course)

  18. The Following 2 Users High Fived Broncolingus For This Post:


  19. #148
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Alberta, Canada
    Posts
    18,735

    Default

    Only a couple things worry me a about this game.

    1. The Seattle secondary is very opportunistic and Manning has had some lame duck throws recently that could have easily been picked off and weren't.

    2. Wilson's ability to scramble around and make a play out of nothing. The Broncos aren't the worst pass rushing team in the league but it's not like they get to the QB at a steady clip. If Wilson can scramble around back there with the amount of time he had last week, he is going to have receivers open against our secondary. I will say that the times that the rush gets to Wilson, he is way too free with the ball and we could get a turnover there.

    I do feel that if Denver doesn't turn the ball over, it's a win.


    Quote Originally Posted by Timmy! View Post
    Effing school zones suck. It's only a matter of time before I get nailed in one.
    Quote Originally Posted by Valar Morghulis View Post
    I take the fat out of the pan once no longer hot, smear it all over my genitals, then enter consenting people with my tumescent member.

  20. The Following User High Fived weazel For This Post:


  21. #149
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Phoenix, AZ
    Adopted Bronco:
    Phillip "TD" Lindsay
    Posts
    11,300

    Default

    Joel, it would make it a lot easier to respond to responces if you didn't respond to so many different members' posts in the same post.

    TIA

    Quote Originally Posted by FanInAZ View Post
    Joel & Orangehoof, I know that Elway & Fox had the audacity to have difference of opinion with the 2 of you, but we're in the SB.

    You 2 believe that the only way to build a winning team is slowly, rather than with big name FA signings.

    1) How did the work out for the Texans & Falcons.

    Quote Originally Posted by Joel View Post
    Dunno yet; they each had ONE very bad season thanks to many key injuries and FA hits, but we don't know what the next season or two will bring. The nice thing about building a strong core team is having more than 2-3 years to win a SB before the whole thing scatters to the four winds. In Houstons case, the big (or moderate) FA signing was PRECISELY THE PROBLEM; especially two years ago, that was a championship roster at every position EXCEPT SCHAUBS.

    I love it; when Elway took over and said he'd build through the draft everyone was all, "Hooray, build through the draft! That's what the Pats, Pack and Steelers do, and look at them. Elway's a genius!" Then he pounced on Manning, dumped Tebow and everyone smoothly pivoted; "Hooray, new sheriff's in town! The draft's a crap shoot for suckers. Elway's a genius!" Meanwhile, ya'll have done a good job of reminding me what Jonestown did with people who refused to drink the Kool Aid.
    My fault for not elaborating on my point. For all the work those 2 teams put into building their respective teams, it all came crashing down in one season do to an epidemic of injuries to their key player. Will they be able to return to what they were the previous seasons? We don't know. The point that I was making was in response to your assertion that building a winner always takes time & is through the draft. You may be right most of the time, but sometimes you just get lucky & have a once in a lifetime opportunity drop right in your lap. When that opportunity comes along, you just take it and enjoy the results.
    Quote Originally Posted by FanInAZ View Post
    2) The Bengals have also been building into a solid team, but they can't win a playoff game. King believes that they never will until the get a new HC & QB. If that happens, then much of what they've built will be torn down.

    Quote Originally Posted by Joel View Post
    Why? Did Gruden tear down the Bucs D? Did Dungy tear down the Colts offense? Only a (Mc)dumbass would do something that stupid.
    1) No they didn't. Did the Bengals hire Gruden as their DC or Dungy as their OC? No, so what's your point? The Bengals hire Hue Jackson as their OC & I've no idea who they have, if they have at all, hired as their DC. Will they be a good fit with the players they will have once the 2014 season start? The answer is supposed to be yes, but things don't always work out like they're supposed to.

    2) Many owners have a tendency to get impatient with mediocrity. The Bengals can win the NFCN both of the next 2 years, but if they don't win a playoff game, then there's a good chance that HC & QB will be kicked to the curb & the O will be rebuilt from scratch.
    Quote Originally Posted by FanInAZ View Post
    3) Up to that point, many on this site were ripping Elway for being cheep because he didn't even try to sign any of the big name FAs until they signed Manning. Instead, Elway & Fox looked at FAs that were the right fit for what they wanted to do. Manning was such a player & that's why they signed him.

    Quote Originally Posted by Joel View Post
    Losers should use their very high draft picks to build a core team based on key HoFers; draft picks like that are (hopefully) rare and painfully earned, so make them count with guys who'll anchor the franchise for a decade and will have an immediate impact REGARDLESS of position, because crap teams don't HAVE anyone good for draft picks to replace. Unfortunately, after 2-3 seasons like that they're not getting top draft picks anymore, and THAT'S when they must go for the top FAs who provide the key pieces still missing. Separate discussion though.
    Nothing in your response has anything to do with my post that your responding to.
    Quote Originally Posted by FanInAZ View Post
    4) What's Manning done over the past 2 season that suggest that there's no chance of him playing for another 5+.

    Quote Originally Posted by Joel View Post
    Seriously? Manning's gonna play till he's AT LEAST 42?! He's already the second oldest SB starter in history, and it only took arguably the greatest QB since Jim Thorpe to set the record. Manning would tie it with a SB appearance next year; are you seriously suggesting he's going to be a title contender 3 (or MORE) years later?
    Actually, I find it highly doubtful that he will. It more likely that he'll do what Elway did, win a couple SBs & go out on top. The was the most I hoped for when we signed him. However, things don't always go according to plan. Sometimes that good & sometimes that's bad. In either case, you adapt to what's actually happening rather than what you though would happen. So if someone you thought was the future of your franchise isn't working out, like Tebow, do you not let them go? If someone that you thought would be with you for just 2 or 3 years is tearing up the league, & he decides he wants to play longer, do you kick him to the curb just to remain inflexibly enslaved to your original plan?

    So what if he decided to be like Favre & play as long as he could. Favre played until he was 41 while leading the Vikings to a 12-4 record & within 3 points of a SB at age 40. So lets compare their respective 15th & 16th seasons. To make Favre look better, I'll extend his stats into his 19th season.

    Favre
    2005: 4-12 record (with the Packers), 372-607 for 3881 yards, 20 TDs & 27 Ints
    2006: 8-8 record (with the Packers), 343-613 for 3885 yards, 18 TDs & 18 Ints
    2007: 13-3 record (with the Packers), 356-535 for 4155 yards, 28 TDs & 15 Ints
    2008: 9-7 record (with the Jets), 343-522 for 3472 yards, 22 TDs & 22 Ints
    2009: 12-4 record (with the Vikings), 363-531 for 4202 yards, 33 TDs & 7 Ints

    Manning
    2012: 13-3 record (with Broncos), 400-583 for 4659 yards, 37 TDs & 11 Ints
    2013: 13-3 record (with Broncos), 450-659 for 5477 yards, 55 TDs & 10 Ints

    So if Manning is putting up superior numbers to Favre at this stage of their respective careers, & Favre played until he's 41, why couldn't Manning play until he's 42 if he felt like it? I'm not saying he will, I'm saying that you need to stop enslaving yourself to inflexible ways of doing things.
    I’m an Autistic Self-Advocate. If you have any questions about Autism/Asperger’s, feel free to ask. I’m not offended by any question asked by anyone who has a genuine desire to understand us better.

    https://aacphoenix.com/

  22. #150
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Adopted Bronco:
    Pat Bowlen
    Posts
    97,306

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Joel View Post
    No, I said, "all day," specifically to be clear I meant the whole game, not any one drive. And we HADN'T moved it well all day; the two TD drives were (very) nice and the kind of thing I've been wanting to see more of all year. BOTH surpassed a drive last week for our longest of the year. Yet if you'd told me before the season we'd make the playoffs without ANY drives >7:00, and make the SB with only 3 JUST >7:00, I wouldn't have given us much chance.


    Take away the big plays and we WOULD have done nothing; we had big plays on the TD drive, too: We just had MORE than big plays, and multiple big plays. Not

    1st and 10 at DEN 25 (Shotgun) P.Manning pass incomplete short right to D.Thomas.
    2nd and 10 at DEN 25 (Shotgun) P.Manning pass deep left to J.Thomas to NE 38 for 37 yards (J.Collins).
    1st and 10 at NE 38 (No Huddle, Shotgun) K.Moreno left tackle to NE 37 for 1 yard (Chr. Jones).
    2nd and 9 at NE 37 (No Huddle, Shotgun) K.Moreno left tackle to NE 36 for 1 yard (J.Collins).
    3rd and 8 at NE 36 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass incomplete deep left to D.Thomas.
    4th and 8 at NE 36 M.Prater 54 yard field goal is GOOD, Center-A.Brewer, Holder-B.Colquitt. 10 26
    M.Prater kicks 65 yards from DEN 35 to end zone, Touchback.
    DRIVE TOTALS: NE 10, DEN 26, 6 plays, 39 yards, 2:26 elapsed
    Well, hooray for us; we got a FG. Now, we only ran FIVE plays, and all but ONE managed just TWO yards COMBINED (0.5 yds/play) but ONE picked up 37 and got us in range for a score. Which is a darned good thing since we didn't gain ANYTHING on the 2 plays before that and only gained 2 yds more on the 2 plays after that. And to top it all off, we burned just 2:26 off the clock, then kicked off with 7:00 left and the same 3 score lead as when we started.

    I PROMISE I didn't deliberately grab this drive because it supports points (textbook example, really.) It probably stuck in my mind because I'd been thinking about the issue for a few months, and throughout that game where we leapt into FG range on one or two plays no less than FOUR times, and had a few drives peter out just short of FG range when we couldn't muster a second big play to get there. The problem is, I didn't NEED to look hard for supporting evidence.

    There were exceptions; there've been more in each of our playoff games, and that's encouraging. The two TD drives were each an example, and our two longest drives all year: We MUST do that a LOT in the SB, or are patchwork, soft and fast-but-small D will either wear down, get hurt or both. I'm not saying we need a TD everytime either; the drive before the one above, we also settled for a FG—from the NE 1, no less—but took 5:33 and 11 plays doing it, even though we STARTED on our 39.

    That was the drive after Knighton sacked Brady on 4th down, which is to say, only our SECOND drive of the half, but combined with our first 7:00 drive, and NE helpfully burning off 5:27 when they were down 3 scores and STILL getting NOTHING (plus giving us good field position,) well, those three drives got us to a 20 pt lead with 12:00 left in the fourth quarter; the rest was just mopping up with Prevent, and as badly as we played Prevent, it was still enough.

    That 5 play, 2:26 drive that got 35 of its 37 yds in just a single play, then sputtered out into a FG? Didn't do a darned thing to help us. Maybe NE needs 3 TDs instead of 2 TD and a FG, but our win probability already hit 100% after the LONG FG drive. If it HADN'T, NE did more to ice our win when they spent 4:00 SCORING A TD ON US than we did spending 2:26 scoring a FG on them.

    The underappreciated downside of fast quick-strike offenses and fast small Ds vs. power running and smashmouth is that if the power running team protects the ball (which the run does well) and that fast small D never stops it, you end up trading 2:00 drives for 8:00 drives. Guess which D wears out first? The team missing HALF its starting front seven; you think Mitch Unrein will keep Marshawn Lynch from running up the gut for a TD any better than he did against Brady? Oh, and when trading 2:00 drives for 8:00 drives, guess who probably has the ball last?

    We MUST sustain our drives. A pair of 10 play drives that eat 6-7 minutes but end in FGs would be a LOT better than a 3 play 1:30 TD drive. Of course, a pair of 10 play 7 minute drives that end in TDs would be best; if we do that a couple times Seattle's not built to come back, our D stays fresh (and safe from injury) and our hurry up wears their hulks down till they collapse.

    If our D was better, or at least deeper, I'd say light those big-talkers up—it's not. Even in the '70s—the Golden Age of the deep ball—the Mad Bomber never won a Super Bowl, and neither did Fouts with Air Coryell. Stabler needed the thugs in his secondary to put him over the top, and the Chargers never had that, so: Too bad.
    Every ounce of this is hogwash.

    Of COURSE if they didn't have the 37 yard play they wouldn't have had the field goal. How do we know this? Because the 37 yard pass play ACTUALLY HAPPENED. It wasn't a figurative play, it HAPPENED. It can't be undone, no matter how hard you try for that play to be undone, it can't happen, because the PLAY ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

    One of the absolute dumbest analysis in football is "if they hadn't have had the big play, they wouldn't have..." That is the dumbest ******* statement in football. Why? Because the big play HAPPENED. It can't be undone. Unless they call a penalty, of course. But in this case, we have the beautiful option of hindsight, and they didn't call a penalty.

    Quote Originally Posted by Joel View Post
    We MUST sustain our drives. A pair of 10 play drives that eat 6-7 minutes but end in FGs would be a LOT better than a 3 play 1:30 TD drive.
    And then the team coached by Joel loses by a point, because they settled for six points instead of 7. Hilarious.
    *The statements above are my opinions, unless they are links, because then they are links, which wouldn't make them my opinions, and I suppose stats aren't necessarily opinion, but they are certainly presented to support an opinion. Proceed accordingly.

    Quote Originally Posted by Buff View Post
    What is this, amateur hour? It's TNF against the Jets and you didn't think you'd need extra booze?

  23. The Following User High Fived MOtorboat For This Post:


Go
Shop AFC Champions and Super Bowl gear at the official online Pro Shop of the Denver Broncos!

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
status.broncosforums.com - BroncosForums status updates
Partner with the USA Today Sports Media Group