Except for the injuries, I thought it was a good game for a pre-season opener. Sure, some sloppy play (Harris’ FOUR penalties, e.g.), but: the O line was very makeshift with Hamilton the only starter with much game experience with the Broncos, and they didn’t allow a sack. The run game went no where in the first quarter, but got moving after that. Clady got schooled by Williams the first couple plays, but got better after that (kid’s a quick study – remember how Dumervil pushed him around at first, but not for long).
Cutler was tremendous. Selvin Young was stopped on runs, but had two great pass plays out wide. Ware and Alridge were good on the run. Marshall didn’t play much, but looked like the Brandon we loved in 07. Royal and Scheffler looked good. The O was very vanilla, with almost no passes downfield – Hackney did make a play when he was chased to the left, and kind of flung it up there, and it looked like a floater and I thought INT but Scheffler was ahead of everyone and caught it for a big gain.
Royal looked good on returns – he takes off up field like a rocket, no hesitation.
Marcu Thomas looks like he’s ready to do some damage this year. Woodyard played big.

some highlights are here

i noticed from watching the 2nd half. offensively, we used a lot of quick passes to get our players in space to use their speed. i wonder if this will be a plan to get our backs the ball out of the backfield. all of them can catch, including hillis. it also takes the rush off jay a bit, and may be useful until the tackles get it together and nalen heals. we might see a lot more of this, at least in the early going.
defensively, we were putting 9 guys in the box(show blitz?) alot, even on early running downs. houston used play-action to counter, and it worked well. most of the time we only rushed 4, and they didn’t generate enough pass pressure. risky way to fly, and we seem to be very vulnerable to the deep ball if this keeps up, especially against a better qb than sage. other plays however, when we sent everybody, it seemed to work well. i’m just concerned with rushing only 4 on passing plays, and play-action/rollouts look like it will be effective against this defense. we loooked better against the run, though, and i guess that is the main point to work on. any thoughts?

but isn’t the show blitz designed to send noone or everyone, from what i understand? i still would have liked to see someone provide some pressure, especially from the dt spot. i guess you can’t have it all, though. eck looked good, and i heard thomas looked good earlier. d-rob was also out, but i don’t have high hopes for him. or nalen, for that matter. niko looked like he was getting swallowed up out there. i think webster wins the job. woodyard looked excellent, hall looked good, scheff. harris at rt better get it together, soon. god it’s good to see football again, i can’t wait for the first season for me at mhr!

It’s not a good sign that Boss had to leave with an injury. I think most peoples biggest concern with him was his ability to stay healthy. Hopefully it’s not serious or a sign of things to come.

At Kentucky I only got to watch Woodyard a few times, but every time the announcers talked about him as if he was one of the best(if not the best) players on their defense. He looked like a beast at Kentucky but fell into the “tweener” trap coming into the pros. If he can continue to build of performances like this, I find it hard to believe he will not make the team and have a chance to contribute.

I was really concerned when Prater missed that first field goal – I could picture a year of horrible kicks. Even though it was just a Pre-Season game, it seemed that the field jitters were simply that as he pulled through solid the rest of the game.

how was the run d?

I was preoccupied during the game so I didn’t get focus on the action; I’ll be re-watching it tonight at 11 MDT on NFL TV though.

It was hard not to notice Woodyard’s performance, and it certainly looks like they’ll have a hard time keeping him off the team. Many of us have focused on Woodyard, so the fact that he performed well doesn’t come as that big a surprise. Considering that I was hoping the Broncos would draft him, his availability as a FA came as an extremely pleasant surprise. We’ll have to see how he performs in the rest of the pre-season games, and the real question is how they could find playing time for him since he’s behind D.J. Williams.

Another player who caught my eye is Alridge. He was another player I found extremely intriguing in the remarkable group of CFAs, which we signed on top of what was a remarkable draft class. I could be accused of viewing the situation through rose colored glasses but I’m still convinced that the Broncos will a keep an unusual amount of this year’s draft/CFA class.

RED ZONE

Alridge offers some added speed that gives the Broncos some new options on offense but it merely raises the question of the red zone offense. Pittman seemed to perform reasonably well as a power back, so he dispelled some of my doubts, but the Broncos still need to find some way of improving their red zone efficiency. They may have to alter their strategy and use the short passing game rather than power running - and there was some indication of this - but they still appear to be deficient in this area. A big part of the solution will be in the performance of the OL I wouldn’t want focus solely on the backs. The TE position is also important in this area.

PRESSURING THE QB

First of all, the run defense looked better (although it’s hard to draw too many conclusions given the limited playing time), but I’m still waiting to see some pressure on the QB. Sacks are important but it’s ‘pressures’ (i.e., hurries, collapsed pockets, etc.) that I’m looking for. I didn’t see a collapsed pocket very often, which tells me that the DL is still losing the war at the line of scrimmage. I expect we’ll see some sacks this year, often coming from blitzes (I noticed the QB sack from a CB blitz) but the real question is whether the DL be able to disrupt the opponent’s offense. Thomas showed me some penetration early on, and given the greater emphasis on penetration this year it would be nice to see the DLs shoot the gap. On this point, however, I did notice some of the DBs/LBs in Houston’s backfield, like Foxworth. I’d at least be satisfied if I knew that the DL was tying up the OL and letting LBs & DBs make plays.

RE: kicker/punter concerns. I have no real concerns here. Prater is actually an improvement over Elam for long kicks, and I love his leg on KOs, which gives us an added player rather than a second kicker. Both punters look good, too, and either would please me. The coaching staff made a comment about “consistency” being important, which is something everyone should read. The emphasis on distance or hang time tends to lead to a distorted picture. I’m much more concerned with coverage, and hope the punter helps in this area. Paulescu’s directional ability and ability to ‘kill’ the ball inside the ten yd. line are in his favor. Kern looked very good, he showed the greater distance and height (hang time) of the two.

Thomas showed something in his brief appearance. Complaints about Moss seem justified but he wasn’t alone.