Great Post!

I especially agree about the defense. For so many weeks were were talking about our defense playing horribly and not having an identity etc. Now the focus has shifted to the ineptitude of the offense protecting the ball but something happened in the background that has gone un-noticed.

The defense played well! I still didn’t see an identity on the defense but who knows; maybe that is the identity. Shanny called for a more unpredictible defense and if even the players don’t know what they are doing, that’s pretty dang unpredictible.

I still saw a mix of 3-4, 4-3, and show blitz with 8 in the box but there was something that I was so used to seeing and I didn’t see against MIA. The defense was in position on all but one play. That one play was the 30 yard run by Ronnie Brown and I’m sure as he lined up in the back field he was licking his chops. If you go back and watch replay of that run, you’ll see a DT lined up in the 1 gap, and a DE playing outside the the tackle. I was screaming at the TV hoping Webster would hear me to tell the DE or DT to shift but alas – the FB and G got through to block LB’s and you had a long run.

Other than that, the Broncos played great run defense. They completely shut down the Wildcat, players maintained their gap discipline and did not over pursuit and we held the running game in check.

You summerized everything that I felt about the defense:

Denver’s defense is starting to gell.

I had the Browns beating us this Thursday. Then Crennel switched quarterbacks and guaranteed victory. Oh hell no! Shanny is gonna have our team come out and bust some dudes in the mouth. Broncos 37, Browns 27(a generous 27 if I might add).

But other than that. Agree 100%. I thought the defense played admirably last Sunday.

completely agree, and mentioned before, he should be getting some carries, especially now with pittman out. we need some sort of power running game to take the heat off the pass offense. the defense appears to have abandoned the 3-man rush, or perhaps it is the fact we are trailing all the time now. either way, it is reason to celebrate, and improvement came immediately. the players don’t like it, and it was surely killing us. someone woke up, thank god. st’s are definitely improving, and now, even with the injuries to the defense, it is the offense that needs to stop beating us. OUR offense.

well, here we are at 4-4, with a 1 game lead in the division race. the only race, as there will not be a wild-card team from the afc west, obviously. shanny has guaranteed the playoffs, and that is still within reach. this is the softer part of our schedule, even though we are banged up, making mistakes, and on the road for the most part. so what. we have many winnable games in the second half, and hopefully we get some players back for the home stretch, which will be huge heading into the playoffs. playoffs? playoffs? yes, i still believe we can take this sorry division, and turn things around. we have half of a season to do it, and we still control our own fate. this browns game is pretty much as close to a must-win as you can get at this point in the season, not only for the standings, but for the mental health of our young, struggling players. to me, it is as simple as this: IF we can turn the ball over 2 times or less, or have less than a -2 in the turnover department, we win the game. we have still been in games at that point, but the 3rd one is too much to overcome. also, anything close to 10 penalties cannot happen again. but we even overcame back-back penalties to throw a long td pass, but you all know what happened there. if we don’t attack on defense in this game, with quinn’s first nfl start, then we never will. i’m afraid we won’t, and we’ll keep him in a comfort zone all game long. but with the injuries we now have on defense, i don’t see another option but to try and force the issue. we simply don’t have the time to let our backups get beat repeatedly by their starters. it is time to see what kind of intestinal fortitude this team has, and if they come to play, we have a good chance of a one-and-done playoff appearance. i believe that is a reasonable goal, and a good experience for a team that has been through what they’ve been through. if we are a penalty-driven, sulking, turnover machine again, you can kiss this season goodbye. i’m hoping for the former, so let’s bring it, already

over new england, jacksonville, new orleans, and tampa bay. raiders and chiefs at home, as opposed to the road, and the bills are fading. atlanta and the jets are beatable, although we could get “favred” again, as you pointed out. the only games i see as definite losses are the panthers and chargers on the road. we should be in every other game if we can stop beating ourselves(debatable). tougher schedule than it appeared at the beginning of the season, but we have an opportunity to get 6 out of 8, maybe 5. hopefully, that’s enough to take the division, and we do get back champ, dj, and mccree for the stretch run. young and scheff are almost back, too, so we just have to hang in there and things should improve

One aspect of the game I have grown to enjoy is watching our young O-Line compete each week against the opposing defensive front seven. Many thanks to you HT for the MHR University articles and the weekly Chalk-Talks for explaining so much. On to this week’s look at Cleveland.

It looks to me like Cleveland’s front seven is exactly where the Broncos want to be in two or three years. They run a 3-4 anchored by Sean Rogers. The Detroit game last year still makes me want to throw a brick at the TV. We gave a hard look at Mr. Rogers (who never has a wonderful day in the neighborhood) but he landed with Cleveland. He is 6’4" 350 lbs. and quick. He is in his eighth year and in the middle of his prime. He plays the two gap 0 technique as well as anyone in pro football. If he could only maintain a high intesity level each week he would be a force for all teams to fear. Fortunatey for Denver, he does not seem to be able to bring that intensity week in and week out and he had a monster game last Sunday. He is sporting some tender ribs this week and did not practice yesterday. He is flanked on the right by Shawn Smith who is 6’2" and 325. Smith is in his fifth year and also very quick and experienced. If Mr. Rogers cannot go due to the ribs Smith will slide over to NT with very litle drop off in performance. The third NT on this very deep front seven is Ahtyba Rubin who many on the MHR coveted as a high value player in last spring’s draft. Rubin is 6’2" and 330. If Smith does indeed move over to NT he would likely be replaced by # 97 Thomas who is a pass-rushing specialist at 6’4" and 305 and the smallest man on the entire front three. At left Defensive End Cleveland starts Cory Williams who is 6’4", 320 lbs. and is in his fifth year and came to Cleveland via Green Bay. In summary, Cleveland has a strong, fast, large Defensive front three with outstanding depth all across the line.

Cleveland’s Linebacking core is equally impressive. On the outside they have Willie McGinnist and Kamerion Wembly. Even though he is a little long in the tooth (15 years in the league from NE) at 6’5" and 270 lbs. McGinnist is a monster LB. Even though he has slowed a bit, he is still cat-quick and very effective against the run. Wimbley is 6’3" and 255 and in his third year. They are both backed up by rookie Alex Hall who is 6’5" and 255 lbs. Do you see a pattern here? Big, fast, tough Linebackers are the strength of the Cleveland front seven. On the inside they have D’Qwell Jackson, a third year player, at 6’4’ and 240 and Andra Davis at 6’0" and 250 who is a seven year veteran.

I am not smart enough to tell for sure, but I think they run a Phillips 3-4. This seems like the fourth time in the last five games we have faced a 3-4. Even though opponents have not had success in getting to Cutler, the bump and run in blitz packages seems to contribute somehow to Jay’s tendancy to lock on to a reciever and I would bet my old sweaty socks we see more of the same this Thursday.

Things to look for this week will be how our zone block does against #92 Sean Rogers and #55 Willie McGinnist. Even though this is a pretty physically impressive front seven, if we can really learn from our mistkes against NE and MIA I think we can give these guys a game. GO BRONCOS!!!

I really appreciate the well thought out comments from Dave, Desert, and nick.

…in explaining the why’s. That’s a failure in my football savvy. But I’ve been saying for several games now that I’m not as worried about the defense as I was. They really are getting better with each game. I recall many of you saying as much earlier in the season, that it would take the defense time to gell, that the goal would be to put at least a middling defense on the field by the middle of the year. It sure seems like they’re getting there.

And I don’t think there’s any doubt that special teams has come a long way. They were my major concern at the begining of the year, but now they’re begining to bite back.

So that leaves the offense. I’m going to predict that this part of the team is about to turn things around. Remember at the begining of the season when everyone outside the organization (and the MHR faithful) was saying that the Broncos were thin at receiver and nobody was impressed with our tight ends? Everybody expected a big drop off from the o-line. Well, they were surprised by the level of talent and the Bronco offense blew their defenses away.

But other teams learned quickly and made adjustments, taking advantage of the very young Broncos offense. But now those players have seen some of the tricks the old pros employ. I like to think Cutler and Marshall will not be surprised the next time around. I especially think Cutler is going to sneak a peek at inside coverage from now on. I also think the offensive coaches have a few counter measures they can teach Cutler to exploit those tendencies in the future. I really believe we’ll see some real offensive improvement this week and watch it steadily grow from this point forward.

I also think it wouldn’t be a bad time for Shanahan to start complaining loudly about the officiating. Yes it’ll probably draw a fine but it might be worth it. Somebody needs to say, “Enough already! We’ve paid for our sins. How many bad calls to we need to suffer to make up for one bad call that went our way!” Not that it really is happening. I don’t know, but I bet it’ll make some of them think twice when they’re trying to decide whether to reach for the flag or not.

I am going to have to disagree about your analysis on Cleveland QBs.

Yes, plenty of Browns fans are too impatient/unintelligent/bloodthirsty and attempt to run coaches, GMs, and QBs out of town way too soon and way too often.

But, a lot of them have a decent point.

Honestly, have the QBs we have had since the expansion really shown you anything to make you think a team could win with them? Especially early on? Couch never had a shot because of his line. By the time fans were calling for his head, he was too damaged to be good. He doesn’t count. The people in the front office then were just dumb.

Holcomb?
Dilfer?
You can make a case for Garcia. But he is only a good QB in the West Coast Offense. No one on our coaching staff knew the West Coast at the time. It was a bad fit, and he shouldn’t have been playing for us.

Before we drafted Joe Thomas, you might argue that none of those QBs had a shot and that placing the blame on them was wrong. Fair. But do you really see any of them being so talented or good that they were irreplaceable? I don’t.

Maybe DA is a good NFL QB. Only time will tell. Maybe anyone blaming him for our losses after the Giants game is wrong. But I think we are in a situation now where we HAVE to find out what we have in Brady. How do you make a decision at QB with half of the equation unknown? I also don’t know if we are totally selling out to Quinn right now, I still think there is room to go back to Anderson.

Also: You underrate our offensive line. They aren’t healthy right now, and maybe being healthy is a part of being good, but Tucker, Steinbach, and Thomas are all great linemen when they are healthy.

Also: If Broncos fans are talking about firing the coach at 4-4 that is crazy. Do you know how many seasons Browns fans would have killed to go 8-8?