Awesome post and reccomended.
This team reminds me a lot of the Giants except with more offensive power.
On any given day, we can beat every team in the NFL….I have no doubt. No one will want to face the Broncos in the play offs.

AND REC’D. i have a feeling this team will be a force in the playoffs

Denver is ranked 12th in the NFL by tiebreak. We have beaten all of the teams ahead of us in the rankings (TB 5th, ATL 6th, NYJs 10th). We are inconsistent, but when we play well we beat the best the NFL has thrown at us.

Clever conclusion at the end of the post!

I like your point #6. When we play a second safety in coverage, Bly is able to do his thing. I also like point #1. The goal is to get to the playoffs, where a new season begins and anyone has a chance. I don’t see a deep playoff run, but I wouldn’t count this team out either.

Good stuff!

lichtenger(or whatever his name is) not to bash him but i have only seen him play as a FB in the goaline situations. Which i guess is contributing but rarely.

As much as I dislike Bly (college bias…), I have to give him credit – he played exceptionally well today. (You know he had a great game if I’m saying he played well – haha).

I like the comparison with the Giants, but they did one major thing we can’t do – get pressure with their front four. That is why they won the Super Bowl, and that is why I don’t think we will manage more than one playoff win, if any. There were several plays today where Favre had all day to throw… The D deserves credit because they had very good coverage on most of those plays, but if you allow a playoff-caliber team all day to throw the ball, eventually someone will get open…

I definitely agree, however, that the progress of the defense is very encouraging. We are definitely a “bend but don’t break” squad, and our offense will win a lot of games as long as we can prevent touchdowns.

The game today just shows you that we can beat anybody. Point #4 says it all. Also, weren’t the Jets supposed to be a good run defensive team? This shows that we have the talent ot hang with the top teams as long as we stay focused and play hard for 60 minutes. We did it in Atlanta two weeks ago.

All your points hit everything right on. All we need to do is bring this attitude to our home games.

Guru has stated he sees us in the 3rd year of a 5-year rebuilding program. Looking at that and the way we played today just shows you that with a couple of key spots filled we can without a doubt be a top contender in the years to come.

FOCUS…….Just stay focused.

It struck me this week that late in preseason I was talking to someone about the fact that I had great hopes for our young guys, and that with so many this young we would have some “Are you kidding? #@!*!!” moments, but that the young nucleus might also give us a fighting chance against anyone. I had no idea that the moment was prescient. We may lose some groaners, but we can be truly special very soon.

First off, I am totally agreed on NYJ as a .500 team, though I would specifically say it was closer to .540 or so. :) I will know specifically after i finish my evaluation for this week. It is definitely dropped from last week though… On to your points:

1. As HT has stated elsewhere, the real season is only a quarter of a season away. Strategy-wise, this isn’t “shock and awe” with its emphasis on cultivating the psychological soil of our opponents (resulting in “pre-soiling”, if you will ;)) but more of an “attrition strategy”, with its emphasis on, among other things, possession of critical strongholds, specifically the division lead. The AFC West divison lead may not mean much to the analysts or even most of the other teams in the league, but it sure as hell is a sound strategy for us. Any good season strategy will allow the team that practices it and executes it well, to be at the table talking turkey when the REAL negotiations about “winners” begins.

2. I agree, though I would like to point out that one of our biggest flaws has been and is still our tackling. Losing the players we did on defense allowed us to see Larsen and Woodyard, both of whom are excellent, fundamentally sound tacklers who make you feel it when you get hit. Webster and McCree are poor anglers and tacklers, and DJ plays poorly beside Nate. Today Bell played excellent as a coverage corner, but needed work in run support. Winborn is as fundamentally unsound as Webster, but like Webster, he seems to make key plays just when you are ready to get on his case. I really don’t like the feeling of the old guard getting back together with the exception of getting Camp and DJ back in the mix with the youngsters. But, to be fair, gap control will be an issue either way, and can only get fixed with focus. The tackling problems are deeper and, in my opinion, about 80% unfixable. (In other words, some guys are NEVER going to be good tacklers, if they haven’t got it figured out by now.)

3. Agree 100% on the preference, and I think it is a testament to improved Dline play, and an indication of where the talent gaps are, most noticeably at safety. We still owe it to the safety to put them in a position to do their job, but the number of big plays given up so far this year is a huge indictment of the talent at the position. They are not THAT far out of position…

4. Agreed. Some teams should fear our offense more than others, and PIT is a surprising occupant of that role. I think we match up well with a number of NFC teams as well, though that isn’t quite as important. Yet.

5. Hillis has the attitude and enthusiasm to go with that role, and above all he has the TALENT. What I like most about getting the rest of the backfield healthy around him is that we will be able to get back to playing him more like a halfback, and splitting him out into TE routes. He spent almost all of this game flaring out from a tailback spot, and rarely is Cutler going to settle for that lowly checkdown. Hillis needs to be showcased more in the seam and running routes. His hands are TOO GOOD to go to waste!

6. I think Bly has become a leader for this defense in many ways since Champ went out. I never considered it to be an adjustment for him, but it couldn’t have been easy going from the DB leader in Detroit to the second-cheese behind Champ, with the additional pressure of being constantly targeted out of attrition. I will look more for it specifically when I rewatch the game, but Bly really seemed to be able to track the ball against the Jets. He looked better going after the ball on defense than Marshall did on offense….

7. I am 50-50 on Barrett’s play, but 100% on how he looks out there. He seemed confident, and he really is a fast, strong specimen. He whiffed on a special teams tackle to go with his great play that you mentioned, and his angles weren’t quite right, but he is a good tackler, and right now, that is something. I don’t know if he has earned anything more than a specialist role on the defense right now, but I do know that he played well enough not to get sent packing.

8. If the return of DJ means that Woodyard has to move, I agree that it should be to SAM and not to the bench. Having said that, I am fully prepared to be patient. i think he willneed to earn that job in training camp next year, and I hope that he only has to beat out Winborn to get it. Hopefully they just restructure and cut Boss, because if they don’t, Woodyard will be on the bench waiting for Boss to get hurt. Which, come to think of it, isn’t necessarily the worst thing that could happen. Depth is nice.

Lasstly, you almost had me on the thought experiment. I was reading closely, wondering what you were getting at until I read the part about all the rookies contributing, at which point I knew what you were up to. The statement about the rookies has been practically synonymous with the Giants unexpected playoff run. If there is a significant difference, it may possibly be that we are relying more on rookies as starters, rather than much needed depth, but I am not sure about that…

Great post Ted!

I love opening analysis of Shanny. Gannon kept repeating, with near exasperation— they keep running the exact same plays out of different formations! That’s textbook Shanny. The offense did the same thing last week with all the deep balls. The game plan called for all the deep balls against OAK’s man defense. People went crazy calling for Bates’ head— what terrible playcalling!! If you want to question Bates’ call to run a gadget play on 4th and one, fine; however, the problems against the faiders were of the gameplan variety. Your fourth point along with the tremendous talent of #6 had a lot to do with that failed gameplan, i’m sure.

Yesterday the gameplan worked to perfection. They spread the defense out all day with at least 3 WRs. They ran to the outside with Scheff and Eddie swing passes, ran up the gut with Peyton, and Cutler tested the secondary down the field relentlessly. This offense lives off the pas, with elite protection, elite WRs, elite TEs, and a near-elite QB. In each win the passing numbers are huge.

I would love a balanced offense, but with our banged-up running backs and our inconsistent defense, we just can’t be that team right now. We must force the issue and stay aggressive in the passing game. We must live by the sword. If Jay plays well, we can beat anyone in the league. If Jay has a bad day, we will lose.

In the epic opening moments of one of the greatest albums of all time, a sample from an old kung-fu movie plays (a shogun speaking to his infant son), “Choose the sword and you will join me, choose the ball and you join your mother (in death). Now come boy, choose life or death…” Choose the sword!

I see Hillis as the starter in the backfield, though. Let the other guys compete for the change-of-pace back.

DJ plays poorly beside Nate.

Yes. I’m fairly concerned about that – we’re nearing the playoffs, will not have a 1st round bye (most likely). Returning to the unsound play of Webster, ditto Winborn (although he makes some incredible plays and I like him as a best available option) and then seeing DJ disappear next to Webster is a major flag. We need the tackling of Woodyard, and even Haggan outplayed what I’ve learned to expect from Nate. Larsen or Haggan would be a better way to go IMHO

I would love a balanced offense, but with our banged-up running backs and our inconsistent defense, we just can’t be that team right now.

BB, I rarely disagree with you, but for what it’s worth, one of the keys to Sunday was that we were a more balance offense. I believe that we’ve found our power back, and he’s a solid contributor. The Jets had a pretty good pass rush, which our front 5 nullified, and we kept them back with a solid running game. Hillis is tough, 1st and foremost. As firstfan said in another post, that’s BRONCOS football. Any time you get 129 yards from your tailback, your front 5 is getting the run blocking down (couldn’t believe how Weigmann nullified Kris Jenkins for much of the day) and your back is running over people.
(Note – love the WuTang reference, BB)

Let’s have a contest for the change of pace back and move forward with a much more balanced offense.

The giants had a 3-5 record at home last season

very well done. You get deep like sea shells and rock these bells….a little “liquid swordz” for ya.