Horse Tracks 8/23/09 - Broncos lose to Seahawks 27-13; Orton performs well

That drop by Gaffney was painful to watch :(

and I hope your Laptop gets well soon. ;-)

This is one article everyone needs to read. It puts this offseason in the best perspective and put accountability where it should be.

Yes, Cutler has a cannon arm and put up hellacious stats under the past regime. Yes, Marshall racked up more than 100 receptions in each of the past two seasons. But where did those performances take the team? To couches placed in front of wall-sized plasma televisions to watch other bands of NFL brothers compete for football’s highest honor.

So, if you ask me, I’ll take the coach who demands the best from his players, the guy who is making the difficult decisions, the man who actually expects others to honor their commitments. You can have the arm strength, the crying, the public traitors, the self-worshipping, the Pro Bowl invites, the century-mark receptions and the integrity of a 2-year-old. Just don’t be surprised when this sport proves for the thousandth time that chains are only as strong as their weakest link

You always to a great job.

The way he carries himself is so refreshing. He’s not the flashiest QB in the league (far from it) but our team is taking on more of a “Spurs” feeling each day (to use a basketball analogy).

Legwold’s article on each unit’s performance made me think more about the game. He said that we gave up 20 rushing yards to the Seattle starting running-backs, but they only rushed seven times…which is a 2.9 average. That sounds pretty good to me. He made it sound like our defense played bad…I thought they did pretty good.

Just like with San Fran, I came away feeling the better team lost. The turnovers are really annoying and by that I mean we need to create some too.

Nice to see Orton do some good stuff…

Inglourious Basterds and then Tivoing the game. ;-)
Fun movie, maybe not the most fun game ever. Watched it about half fast-forwarding… But saw some good stuff. Still rust on the offense side but when first team OL is in their blocking is superb. Looks like there’s still stuff to learn for players involved in the passing game but some good moments. Lovely TD pass. Second (and 3rd?) string OL not as effective, clearly. The defense had its moments, particularly again the 1st string. The secondary contributed to those sacks with terrific coverage at times. They looked worse later but I think that was more the backups.

Clearly they could use Knowshon and yep, Brandon, but since the defense is more what I was worried about coming into the season, their starting D looks a lot better at the basics, tackling and coverage than last year so that’s a good sign. Overall I’d give the O a B- and the D a B+ (again just talking first units here).

And I give Basterds a B+/A-.

I want to pick a bone with you though about Special Teams. I thought the 1st team ST did very well. I will agree, however, that the 2d half ST with the 2nd & 3rd stringers did not perform well. BTW, I was shocked to see Colquitt kick a field goal.

I had hoped the time management and substitution problems from the first game would have been resolved. They were not.

If Ocho Cinco can do it. Why not Coloquitt?

they had a helmet on the ball almost every time. our defense needs could learn a thing or two from them

I thought we looked pretty good, defensively still a major work in progress but there is progress already.
Was looking forward to more of Simms as Orton IS NOT the star I’d like to see guiding our team. He will never be more than a ‘managing’ type. Of course this might do quite well for us with Josh’s (so far) excellent play calling.

Just now said very little of interest about the Broncos game, which apparently he was at (or at least watched), but it was good to hear him say Orton seems like he’ll be efficient in the offense, looked better than last week other than that dumb interception (he of course didn’t mention the TD that was dropped by Gaffney). Said the Defense still looks suspect so it’s on Orton to keep the offense on the field (of course the first team defense did have its lapses yesterday but overall looked good to me; maybe he thinks their third string defense and bubble players looked suspect). Anyway, for Clayton his comments should be counted as high praise given his CutlerLove.

The only one needing a reality check is Dave Krieger. He is a poor pompous excuse of a writer.

Gives only his negative never supported by any facts.

having only seen the highlights, box score and read these reports – its odd but not suprising how few times that anyone mentions that the interception was on a 4th down and was pretty much a throw to nothing.

Arizona….I think they will be the biggest offensive test for this D in the preseason…

Chicago may show us how good the run D is but for overal test…I think Arizona will provide the best litmus.

needs to be put in context. The punt block, for instance, was due mainly to Colquitt’s long-striding, big wind-up, three-step delivery. He was very slow in getting the punt away and will have to fix that if he hopes to beat out Kern. The punter can’t afford to be that deliberate that close to the goal line. The other breakdowns were also fixable individual mistakes. What was important to me was that the coverage units covered well for the second straight game, and the return units blocked well for the second straight game. On several occasions we stopped the returner inside the 20, something that just didn’t happen last year. And on several occasions the returner, due to good blocking at the point of attack, broke through the first wave of tacklers and got out beyond the 30, which again didn’t happen much last year. What I see are signs that, for the first time in a long time, our special teams are going to be competitive.

Last night, at least, he made Andra Davis look like a burner. Also took some very bad angles in pursuit. I know…he’s learning…but I’m not seeing the tools.

I just noticed the Broncos aren’t on SNF on NBC this season. :-( No Al and John for us.