As bad as our pass rush has been, I really think that to blame our defensive woes exclusively on the impotence of the d-line misses the point that our linebacker play and defensive backfield have both been sub-par as well. Against New Orleans and again this week, on many of the occasions when we rushed three, the QB was still able to find WIDE OPEN receivers within just a few seconds. That’s just flat unacceptable, and I really think that even if we improve the pass rush our lack of cover skills is going to kill us all year. We could have had much better pressure against Drew Brees last week and it just wouldn’t have made that much difference as quickly as he was consistently able to find open receivers on his first or second read. I’m afraid we’re just a pretty bad defense right now, with no promising signs that this unit will be able to improve very much without some new personnel.

1. The 3-4 look is garbage, and I was glad to see it scrapped early.

2. I don’t know why we always say some variation of “if you take away the 49 yard run by Selvin Young, we didn’t run the ball well.” The good runs do count. If you take away the 4 biggest runs by LJ yesterday (which totaled 132 yards,) we held him pretty well in check for the other 24 carries, where he only got 66 yards, for a 2.75 yard average. Nobody is saying KC didn’t run the ball well, though, because it isn’t true.

3. There is reason to believe that the defense can improve organically, as the season wears on, like the Packers running game improved in the second half of last season. On most plays, our guys play well, then they get killed by a big play. By being sounder, and cutting out these big plays, the overall performance will improve in a huge way.

4. Sometimes you play badly, and the other team plays well. Yesterday, the bear ate us. Let’s hope it serves as a lesson and a growth opportunity.

Too many times he was looking for Brandon Marshall exclusively. The worst example was the roll out to the left. He could have either ran for some yards or hit Scheffler in the middle of the field. There was no one within 5 yards of him. Its all well and good to look for Marshall, but logic says you look for a more wide open receiver. Perhaps going to a TE a little more often will soften up the D for a big play.

One major item that is glaring with this team and Guru mentioned it last night was this team does not have a feature RB. I sure hope Torain is the real deal. We need someone that can handle more of the load running the ball. Selvin Young is NOT the answer.

Defensively, there needs to be some major upgrades. It may take a draft of a MLB and a DT before any changes happen.

Guru you might have numbers but it seems to me that the Shannahan era has been one of defensive special teams futility. Maybe it’s just recent history I’m remembering but every season seems to come with poor kickoff & punt coverage. Even including the big runs, the run game was not effective. KC never had to respect the Denver RBs and stayed in their nickle package for most of the game in order to take away the long throw. Ripping off 36 yards on two big carries just doesn’t scare an NFL team but 136 yards on four carries with Bronco defenders hanging off shoulder pads and getting run over in the process, that’s intimidation. You must to have a running game that bruises bodies, especially on the road with a lead; Denver does not have this. My opinion is the Defense actually did okay for what they were called on to do. Terrible ST coverage and a lack of offensive production will wear down any defense. Add a RB that is basically a plow and you’re defense will eventually whither and die. Not saying the D is off the hook but the offense and ST are probably more to blame here. Don’t know why Arrowhead Stadium gets Shannahan so bumfuzzled?

I think Boss Bailey has been a good addition for our defense. He’s flying around and making good open field tackles. Although the TD to Tony G hurt, that was an extremely well thrown ball, and Tony G has been making good players look bad for his entire career. Let’s hope Boss stays on the field and out of the Greek’s office this year.

a friggin F. It was abysmal. When he tried to force the ball to Royal instrad of hitting a WIDE OPEN Graham, just showed me that while he is a great QB, he trusts his cannon too much. I want to really complain on how bad they played, and they did. But it was a road game against a rival. I am still taking it all in. I am tired of the bitching about the running game. If anyone here thinks it was gonna be like past years to start the season out with, while forgetting the Broncos are starting 2 new tackles and a center are kidding themselves. While I am not ecstatic about it, the good runs do show there is promise. However when will the Broncos EVER GET ST"S THAT DONT SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would have graded a few differently (mainly Cutler), but it’s not anything to argue over. The one area I wanted to highlight was the coaching, specifically:

Too often the Broncos seemed content on “trickeration” than straight-up football

I was noticing that yesterday too. It’s happened a lot over the last few years, especially noticeable when we play inferior teams. For instance, that stupid 3rd & 1 call for the WR run instead of telling our team to line up in I formation and knock them on their backside.

Part of the coaching calls seem to say to the team, “I don’t think you can beat them straight up, so we’re going to get cute.” I’d rather the coach tell his team that he believes they can line up with anyone and get a yard or 2 when we need it.

You did not mention over-all team effort. I am curious, did we play hard? Why did we essentially get beat in the fourth quarter? I missed the game again this week and may have to look for a new profession. This preaching on Sundays is really starting to interfere with my Bronco watching.

I think a C is fair for JC, but unfortunately, I think this game shows us where the Broncos would be this season with anything less than an outstanding QB. The O-Line continues to pass block extremely well. On coaching, two gimmick plays absolutely killed offensive momentum and I’m not sure why either was called. One resulted in the fumble by Marshall setting the Chefs up on the one. The other resulted in a 6-yard loss on the backward pass to fricken Sheffler, of all people, that ended up going out of bounds. Straight up the Broncos should have been able to move the ball at will against the Chefs. Not sure what was up with the weird play calling.

I agree – good breakdown. I was one of the ones who felt pretty certain the run game would improve enough to at least compliment what the Broncos were doing in the air but judging by what we saw yesterday this may be wishful thinking. It might have been a one week aberration but it is clear that the combination of growing pains in the run block department, questionable play calling and lack of a single credible feature back is a serious liability. With a credible running attack the Broncos should easily have been able to slow things down and take back the tempo of the game. Right now, our running game could generously be described as ‘average’ at best.

I don’t know what else to say about the DL. As a fan I am at my wits end with it and to say there is no excuse for giving up 33 points and over 300 yards of offense to Kansas City is an embarrassment isn’t even scratching the surface.

It’s true that every team has games like this on occasion but teams with championship aspirations win the games they’re supposed to win. The Broncos are a young team with some glaring weaknesses but also an undeniable level of talent in many areas. This will be their biggest test of the season – can they learn, grow and improve from something like this?

They really don’t have any other choice.

At this point we might as well just start playing every young player that the Broncos think might have a future with the Broncos. That way we can spend the rest of the season evaluating those players and see where we need to focus on in the upcoming drafts while getting the young guys much needed experience. Honestly, I don’t see how this defense could get any worse. At least young guys fighting for their NFL futures will play inspired football. I haven’t seen a full quarter of inspired football from the Broncos defense in four games.

We can talk about bad play calling, bad decision making, whatever, but pro football is a game of inches. Many big pass plays are almost picks, many picks are almost big pass plays, ditto for all other areas of the game. There are so many plays within each play where a tiny difference can have a huge impact, the almost tackle, the almost block or the barely got him block, and so on. The Broncos are very young at key positions. What young players have to learn is that a big gap in intensity almost always trumps a big gap in talent. The coaches can exhort them not to overlook a horrendous team because any team, no matter how bad, can beat you if they’re way more intense that you are, but the young players have to experience it before they they know it in their gut. Until then they’ll be “inconsistent”. The almost plays, the almost tackle at the line of scrimmage on a 66 yard run, the almost big run that was barely tripped up – the great majority of these fall for the team that wants it more. There are so many tiny almosts on almost every play, all over the field, and they cumulatively add up to a bad teaming soundly beating a good one, usually in a “can’t lose” game.

How you lose is almost irrelevant. When you’re flat your strengths are negated and your weaknesses exaggerated. The Giants didn’t win the Super Bowl because of their superior pass rush. They won because they were more up for the game, and that being the case the best part of their game was the most visible. If the Patriots hadn’t been flat the Giants’ pass rush still would have been the best part of their game, but it wouldn’t have been good enough. Instead, in play after play, it would have been almost good enough. Our running game will get better as our o-line matures, and we can only hope for a similar improvement, as the year goes on, in the d-line, which is still by far our most glaring weakness. If Doom can get his mojo back, if Thomas (and hopefully Moss and Crowder) can show improvement, and if the line as a whole can become better coordinated, Denver will be solid by playoff time. By then, if our young players mature enough, our weaknesses and negated strengths will almost beat us if we’re not quite on.