It’s hard to believe a guy can throw for 350 yards, 4TDs and 1INT would be graded out at a B. He completed 36 passes out of 50..that my friends is 72% completion percentage. I understand the pick in the red zone, but maybe an A- or B+ might be worthy. That pick is really the only black mark on a rather amazing day for our young QB. The “fumble” didn’t count so we can ignore that. lol

Man, last year I despised the similar series you ran like this Guru…this year its fast becoming my favorite!! Let’s keep the dream alive against the Saints!

Offense “A”; how can you give anything else to a unit that scores 39 points? Even the best game has some clunker plays. Defense “D”; the best that can be said is that they didn’t lose it. Special teams “C”; the touchdown was a game changer that let them up off the mat but everything else was good.

Average everything out and my overall grade has to be a “C”.

Cutler – B+. 1 huge mistake and 1 that should have been. If not for “Early Whistle Ed” Cutler would have had 2 turnovers in the Red Zone late in the game. With the strides Cutler has taken in the off season, I expect these mistakes to happen every once in a while, but he will still have some growing pains every now and again. We won and otherwise Cutler had a great game, but those are 2 glaring mistakes that I can’t overlook.

WR – A+. Marshall and Royal might be the best WR combo in the league, they certainly have an argument to be up there. Stokely is back to his natural spot, so he shouldn’t wear down like last year. I don’t think I ever saw D-Jack on the field (that’s not a bad thing).

RBs – B. A pedestrian performance from the vaunted Denver running game. I would almost have Pittman #1 on the depth chart after the first 2 games, he just seems to want the tough yards more – we need 2 he gets 4. Selvin doesn’t look like he’s added any pounds from last year, maybe it will just show up in his durability over the season, but the way they are splitting carries, I’m not sure that it will make a difference. I think I saw Hillis only carry once, I don’t remember his blocking though.

TE – A+. Between blocking and catching we have the best TEs in the game.

OL – A. Passing protection is just awesome, especially with Clady and Harris as first year starting tackles. Run blocking needs some work, but it will come. I like seeing Lichensteiger as a blocking fullback and getting him some game experience.

Overall offensive grade – A. A couple of mistakes against a team that was in the AFCCG last year and a W.

Now we come to the Defense…

DL – D. A few holding flags should have been thrown on the SD OL, we got little pressure and just looked exactly like the cover your eyes defense last year.

LB – D. A bad angle taken by Nate Webster let Sproles get by him on that swing pass that went for a TD. I think I’d rather have Niko in there and be solid if slower to react. I see #58 chasing plays from behind way too much. I hope we spend our top pick on a Mike next year.

DB – B- Their jobs are made so much more difficult because of the play of the front 7. Bailey got beat on a perfectly thrown ball by Rivers, but made several good plays too. Didn’t really see Bly so that was good, but the Chargers went after Paymah big time, and it paid off. I’m wondering if Jack Williams will be seen by the end of the year as the nickel back.

Overall defense: D+ We need to get off the field on 3rd & long.

ST – C-. Prater needs to be booming kickoffs 8 yards deep at home like Kaeding was, but him nailing a 52 yarder was nice to see. Punting was solid. Kickoff coverage – UGH.

Coaching – A+. We’ve seen 2 weeks and can now say that “The Mastermind” has returned. Over the last 5 years, I was amazed at his coaching ability to get the most out of the offense with the players he had on the field. Now that he has all the weapons – look out league! I was nervous about the 2 point conversion only in the sense of the execution, not the call (not with the way our defense had been playing, we lose the coin toss, we lose the game).

Overall – B+ We beat a team that held us to 6 points over 2 games last year, while abusing our defense. Our team still has some work to do (namely on D and ST coverage), but we are light-years ahead of last year.

And why do people keep saying “we have one of the best special teams coaches in the league”? Because he’s been doing it for nineteen or twenty years? This guy needs to go…NOW!!!! Our special teams have been awful for years! This guy needs to be on the first train out of Denver. Having a good run defense means nothing if we are consistently burnt by wide open receivers. 2/3rds of this team looked flat out BAD on Sunday. We’re lucky to get a win and I’ll take it. But…

Yes Prater should be knocking them out of the end zone, but on the Sproles return it was in the endzone, I put that on the coverage team. I think most coverage teams are going to want the guy to bring it out of the end zone since they have a good shot at pinning them inside their 20 yd line. Sproles obviously had a monster day, but our coverage units looked poor in Oakland too.

I pretty much agree with it right down the line. I do think the run blocking will improve as our young players develop and the unit as a whole becomes better coordinated. Of course, I think you implied that, too.

We were fortunate.

Thats the bottom line. The defense had a rough game, but its early in the season. Lets see what happens down the road. Lets dont forget Denver was playing a real good offense also. A pre-season SB pick. So I think this was a great statement game, at least for the offense. The defense will get better

1) I’m in agreement with the B grade on Cutler; he played exceptionally well, except for the 2 (yes, 2) turnovers in the RZ. His grade would be a B- in my books, if only for that block he had to help spring Selvin for that long run. I loved that heads-up play perhaps more than the last couple of throws to Royal. That play was going in the complete opposite direction… most QBs would be chilling, eating a sandwich when Selvin cut it back.

2) The D… ugh, I was soooo frustrated by the beginning of the 4th quarter. It felt like 2007 all over again, with the unacceptable amount of 3rd and long’s our D allowed the Chargers to convert!

3) Finally, I’m not sure if someone’s already covered this but penalties was a bit on the high side. =/

But otherwise… just win baby!!! ;)

I think this is a solid evaluation. I would probably go with a B+ on QB due to the courage displayed by throwing the same pass on the 2 pt conversion as on the TD against the exact same defense. It was called by Coach Shanahan but it had to be executed by Cutler.

Was he inactive again??

Question for HT. What kind of allignment were we in when Paymah was getting toasted repeatedly? Were we in some kind of nickel or dime? Is this why Webster “disappeared” for stretches?

The offense earned a B+, the defense/Special teams get a D-. Too many points given up by the defense and no pressure on Phyllis gets them that grade. ST were not good. You can’t give up a return TD.

BZZZZZZZZ!!! Are you GREEN or what? (pitiful 5th element reference)

Buzz Buzz Buzz!

Yesterday on the Best in the West Post there were 10 BUZZes in 4 minutes and two comments. Guru is a popular guy!

Seriously, it seemed he was getting owned on every big play. He was an F-. There HAS to be someone on the team or practice squad better then him, right? This is why I was against giving up Foxworth. I’d take his bitching and actual coverage over Paymah’s complete incompetence.

our offense is stacked in the passing game. the only thing we are missing on offense is that STUD runningback. Mabye when Torian returns that could change. Also, where in the world was the defensive line pressure?!?! Rivers had all day to throw! I hope shanny activates jarvis moss. I wanna see what this kid can do when we need pressure on a 3rd and 10 or a 3rd and 12. Or maybe shanny should make a trade for another d-lineman. i dont care how slowik does it, but the broncos need to get more pressure on the qb!

get real. one bad call. and if you can’t overcome one bad call then you didn’t have your team in a position to win. Chargers put up a great effort to almost comeback. Maybe the call was “unfair”, but its like my father always says “Life isn’t fair”. And EVERY commentator breaking down the game has mentioned the call. Now maybe they didn’t harp on it to your satisfaction but that ain’t our fault.

I agree with TSG’s grading of the Broncos although I refuse to participate in many of the polls on this site because we’re not allowed to use pluses and minuses. Giving us that option, when it becomes available, would make a lot of sense.

I’d have to agree with many here that Cutler deserves a slightly higher grade, say ~ B+/ A-. He’s a big part of why this is the #1 offense, so if he doesn’t deserve a higher grade then who would?

We can credit a poor Raider team for some of our success but probably not the Chargers, so our ranking is good no matter how you look at it. By the same token we’re probably a little better than the defensive ranking shows but that still puts us in the same neighborhood as the cellar dwellers. I do see some reason for concern, and I didn’t have particularly high expectations for this unit. I did expect them to show some improvement just because they junked the run contain scheme, but I’m beginning to wonder if we’re in for another dismal defensive season.

Offense (Rank)
Yards: 927 (1)
Passing Yards: 641 (1)
Rushing Yards: 286 (9)
Points per game: 40.0 (1)
Yards per game: 463.5 (3)
Touchdowns: 10 (1)
Field Goals: 3 (14)

Defense (Rank)
Yards: 763 (27)
Passing Yards: 533 (29)
Rushing Yards: 230 (22)
Points per game: 26.0 (26)
Yards per game: 381.5 (27)
Touchdowns: 5 (25)
Field Goals: 3 (15)

Here’s why: Defense needs work, as do Special Teams, and offense(Cutler) made key mistakes that almost cost the game. Here’s my unit breakdown

Defense:D+ Wow, 377 and 3 to Rivers? Shut down run though.
Special Teams:D, Prater saved them from an F
Offense: A-: Turnovers(well, one INT and one "fumble"), awesome other than that.

Our offense has finally arrived so there isn’t really anything else to explain except for that fact that “it is about time”

While our defense needs to step up becuse I don’t want to have to rely on outscoring the top teams in the league they did hold SD to two FGs in the second half instead of TDs.

The performance in itself was probably a B-C range but a win against the Chargers makes me inclined to vote an A.

The offense was awesome (again), but when we needed to put the game away, we couldn’t. The ground game really needs to get going or other teams are just going to start bringing the heat and JC’s going to get hurt (and we really can’t afford that – unless Royal with Cheese steps into the backup QB role). #1 offense in the league (yards, scoring, passing). Hard to argue with that.

Defense was horrible. No pressure up front, Webster over-pursuing and missing tackles, Paymah covering Chambers (wtf?) and getting smoked. Great, we stopped LDT with his stubbed toe, but didn’t have much of an answer for Sproles and Hester/Tolbert (don’t remember which) about took it to the house on a screen (Webster redeemed himself a little by making the stop at the 5).

Special teams were again special (as in short bus special). I couldn’t believe that Kaeding was kicking deeper into the end zone than Prater (nice job on the 52-yarder, though) and kickoff coverage was its usual horrible self, relying on Champ (once again) to save the day on at least on return. Kern did his job of pinning them deep.

did someone take your ba-ba? you’re in the wrong place to discuss bad calls. we’ve had a dozen game-deciding wtf calls in the recent past. while i feel your pain, i also think we are owed about 10 more to even things up. it’s about time 1 of these went our way. sorry, but if you’re looking for pity, try another site.
btw, the instant replay equipment is not run by denver, but the nfl and it’s officiating crew. if you are correct in your assumption of foul play, then an even greater anti-charger conspiracy is at hand. better you this time than us, i guess