Aye yai yai...where to start....

A lot of us have already moved on from "Battle Red Thursday" where we watched our beloved Broncos come up way too short, way too many times.  And time she flies, so we are getting ready to turn our thoughts to SanDiego, with plans of putting a crimp in San Diego's momentum as they malinger into the playoffs.  Not so fast.

I will jump to a conclusion for the first time in NPLB history:  We have little hope of winning this next game.  Let this Scoring Report be a warning to you all, that as Broncos fans, you will enjoy the SanDiego game most if you have your priorities in the right place, and I hope this weeks report will prove to you that those priorities shouldn't be with a win, blowout or otherwise.

On to the Report!!

This week saw a a strikingly similar breakdown of time of possession and number of drives between the Broncos and their opponents, with both teams getting ten chances with the ball, and both teams within a 1:30 of eachother in TOP.  And yet one team had 13 points to show for it while the other had 31.  To succeed in the nearterm future (i.e. our final two games) we may have to flip our thinking if we want to flip that score...

Denver had 7 non-scoring drives and three scoring drives, an easy-to-calculate 70%.  But this does not begin to address our offensive woes of Thursday night.  EVERY drive seemed like a non-scoring drive by the criteria of the NPLB, with no significant differences surfacing from one to the next as the game progressed.  And yet some scored and some didn't.  The good news?  We have left more points on the field in at least two other games.  The bad news?  This was the worst we have looked offensively all season.

Non-Scoring Drives
1-Punt
4-Punt
5-Half
6-Downs
7-Downs
9-Punt
10-Downs

What can be said about these nonscoring drives?  Not much except that we had two "good" drives in this game, and one was the first drive of the game, a 7 play 45 yard drive that ended in a punt from a FG formation.  I didn't say this report would be pretty...  A third of our running yards for the game came on this drive, and it featured balanced playcalling.  From that point forward the running game dwindled into nonexistence, totalling 72 yards total, as we found out the importance of Daniel Graham to an O-line missing two starters and featuring several young players.  It is noted that this first non-scoring drive was held up after a good start by a false start penalty on Kuper followed by a pass to Brandon Marshall which hit his hands, though credit is given to the defender for a perfect use of his hands.
3 POINTS LEFT BEHIND

It is also noted that we suffered from fewer four and outs than we have seen from most games this season.  A promising sign?  Not when you figure that at least two drives were extended by HOU penalties, including a facemask and a defensive holding call.  Other than these points, I would only point out the 5 sacks given up and the constant pressure on Cutler.

Now, the three scoring drives.

2-FG
3-FG
8-TD

It is easy to be upset with the 4 drive layoff between scores, but that really isn't our concern here.  Firstly, we only take issue with one of the scoring drives, the first one for a FG.  Regarding the other two, we would say the following:  The 3rd drive, an 8 play, 48 yard drive for a FG was given help by a HOU penalty, and consisted of several large gains to Marshall, who was breaking tackles left and right.  And for a drive consisting of only two players (marshall and Cutler), it ended about how you would suspect.  Two incompletions to Scheffler and Walker arrested the early momentum, and it was too late to return to Marshall who drew a triple coverage on the next play, which was also incomplete.  The NPLB officially rules that 3 points is pretty good for a one-trick pony.  Obviously we wouldn't have a problem with the eighth drive, a 3 play, 27 yard drive starting in HOU territory after a turnover, where Scheffler showed exceptional awareness to break the plane of the goal for a TD.  I could write a whole diary on how awesome that play is, but I will let it speak for itself.  I will say that just like the short field we had against KC last week, only 7 points would have sufficed in the eyes of the NPLB on that particular drive.

Drive 2:  This drive was all that we could have reasonably asked for at the time it happened, even if we would have preferred different results.  It was a TOP behemoth, taking over 9 minutes of the clock over 17 plays, and it covered 70 yards, starting at the Denver 7 yard line.  It started strong, with powerful running by Henry, and Cutler's accuracy looked to be there at the start of the drive.  Even the one play that went for -1` yard was a beauty, as Marshall refused to go down, even PLANTING the HOU DB that came up for the tackle.  Brandon's smile was all the evidence you needed that the play was not a total loss.  But as soon as we crossed into HOU territory, the foundation began to crumble.  The HOU D-line started to get the pressure on Cutler, sacking him once and disrupting him on three consecutive plays.  The drive was a dead duck once Denver entered the HOU red zone only to find themselves pushed out by their own inefficiency (delay of game penalty) and misexecution (pass for a 5 yard loss).  One FG later we have...
4 POINTS LEFT BEHIND

Official Ruling:  Only 7 points left on the field indicates that we really didn't have much of a shot in this game, but the NPLB officially rules that the loss of Graham effectively removed what little glue was holding our running game together on the offensive line.  We only gained 26 yards rushing after the first two drives, obviously the amount of time it required the Texans to adjust to Graham's obvious absence.  Broncos fans looking to our offensive future need look no further than the development of our offensive line, and our starting cast over the next two games, as well as into the offseason will be watched with great interest by the NPLB.

Kudos are due to two offensive standouts for the week, Brandon Marshall and Tony Scheffler, who found ways to contribute amongst a poor offensive showing by their teamates, both posting  100 yard games.  Marshall is explicitly recognized for being the biggest YAC monster in the NFL, and Scheffler is officially recognized for his heads up awareness around the goalline, which scores him so many brownie points with the NPLB that it isn't even funny.