Ask BTSC - Playoff Edition

I haven’t been following the Broncos this season so I am hoping to learn more about the team. I have heard your D is pretty good.

Thank you for posting. In response to your questions.

1) I think Tim can be a long term answer. He needs to hire a personal trainer to work on throws such as the out routes and the like.

2) I think it will be pretty big. Hopefully there will not be much of a drop off.

3) I think Tebow is one of the main reasons. Since he is like a 2nd running back that the defense has to account for. Hopefully the Steelers defense is concerned to to point that they do not make quick decisions.

4) The true chop-blocks would be called by the refs. They will run something similar to the zone blocking the Broncos have been running for awhile now.

5) The amount of pressure the defense can give to Ben will be a deciding factor. If the Broncos can bring the pressure it will be a low scoring game 17-14. It would be within 7 point. It will be a long day if there isn’t sufficient pressure.

1. Tebow doesn’t have the NFL passing game down. I hope he gets there this offseason.
2. Kuper was our best OL this year. He will be missed, yeah.
3. It pretty much only works with McGahee.
4. No worse than any other team. You’re thinking of the old days when we had a bad rep for it.
5. A win.

1) Tebow had his absolute worst game as a professional today in a game we should have won. He’s playing scared right now——he’s afraid of making mistakes and in consequence, he is compounding his already well known issues. I like the guy personally, but he has a lot of improvement to make—-simply put games like he had today just don’t cut it for me. The bright side is everyone has bad games, the downside is that he had a bad game trying not to lose the game, not trying to win it.

2) Kuper is probably the most consistent guy blocking on our O-line. He has played well against guys like Suh. Running to his side in tandem with Orlando Franklin has been where we have had the most success. Losing a guy that is a leader like that will hurt greatly. I expect the Steelers D to do a lot of A gap blitzes (Kuper is RG) and stunts to exploit our backups, hopefully our guys step up their game.

3) It’s a bit of both. Some of our longest runs have come from the “zone read” plays and Tebow’s ability to run definitely gives our RB’s more lanes to run through. However, McGahee is a tough back that often breaks tackles and gains some more yards on plays where he should be stuffed. He doesn’t have breakaway speed, but he’s tough and if he’s in the open field he can make people miss. Lance Ball is a rotational guy that also runs well, though he also gets stuffed for losses more running sideline to sideline. Jeremiah Johnson, another rotational guy had two touches today and shows flashes of speed and sideline to sideline running that can give over-aggressive defenses fits—-he just isn’t used that often.

4) Our scheme mixes it up, but yes we use the zone blocking as well as a lot of guard pulls and things that are more tailored for lateral movement. Our line has shown the ability to push lesser D-lines around, but struggles with better D-lines, Detroit, NYJ games come to mind, those teams played us very stout. We do utilize power running schemes, but like I said, it isn’t one of our strengths.

5) Going into this scenario, I wanted Pittsburgh the most for fan reasons——I have had it in for you guys ever since the 2005 AFC Championship and the fact that a home game here a few years ago had WAY too many Pittsburgh fans. But I don’t know that we match up well with Pittsburgh. Our secondary, even with the solid play of Champ Bailey and UFA rookie Chris Harris as our nickleback is vulnerable mainly because we have a rookie safety in Quinton Carter playing, and David Bruton who has mostly been a special teamer (Both had solid games today though and made plays). Andre Goodman played well today, but does get burned badly sometimes. Your WR’s are fantastic and I think they can give us some problems. We play the run well, so defensively its on your WR’s and Ben to make plays. That worries me as well because Ben can scramble and make plays—-we’ve given up a lot of big QB scrambles this year. Offensively, we simply aren’t consistent enough to move the ball on a regular basis, and besides Tebow’s bad play lately, we have suspect playcalling and WR’s that have had issues with drops.

Ben is hobbled and so is Mendenhall. Our defense played very well today so all I’ll say is if we keep it close we got a shot. Best case scenario (forgive me I’m still stinging from the loss earlier playoffs aside) Broncos 14 Steelers 13

What’s up my friend?

We gonna do another 7 round mock over at MTD this year?

1. I think that a lot of fans here are still in a wait and see attitude, a “Give it another year and we’ll see,” kind of thing.
2. Kuper’s injury will have the O-line trying some new looks (maybe)
3. Some of both
4. zone for the most part
5. successful> revenge!

a little worried with the DoomerMill coming at Big Ben?

did you know that John Fox’s first Pro Coaching gig was for the Steelers, and that for some reason, they keep sending him the updated version of your playbook every year?

1. Tebow is young and makes rookie mistakes. I’m fine with where he’s at at this point in his career. He’s never had an offseason as a starting quarterback and I expect that to do worlds for him, especially with Elway helping him along. If he fails to improve in the next year or two though, I’ll be ready to move on. But until it comes to that point, I have full faith, belief and support in him and don’t expect him to fail.

2. I dropped to my knees when Kuper got injured. The guy is the epitome of an offensive lineman: Unrecognized by most yet very key to our victories. We seemed to do ok after he went out, but I’m afraid what a team can do when they have a week to plan for that chink in our armor.

3. It’s a good mix, but I’d lean more to scheme. You always have to watch the edge with us even when we push it down the middle a vast majority of the time. It wears down great defenses and we’ll switch it up when you’re tired and getting lazy.

4. We’re back to the good old zone blocking. One of the biggest improvements since McD left.

5. I see us coming into this game with a fire that the Steelers won’t expect. We have a lot to prove and nothing to lose. With your injuries and the passion I’m expecting, I’m thinking a lot of your fans will walk away shaking their heads wondering where it came from. Of course, if we continue this attitude of playing not to lose that we’ve had the past few games, it could get ugly fast.

Who is the player that everyone in Denver knows and loves but is unknown outside of Colorado? hint… our version is Issac Redman although people are starting to get to know him (maybe we will have to switch to Weslye Saunders).

I looked for an ask a Steelers post and somehow missed this one. Another fine post you made here and I sure didn’t mean to step on your toes with the Bronco Busters post I made.

If you were John Fox, our head coach, gameplaning to beat the Steelers… how would you do it on both sides of the ball?