FanPost

Be Aggressive! Points and Possessions!

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via cdn2.sbnation.com

There is a lot of talk about how one of the most important keys for the Broncos to win this Sunday is to get the Chargers’ offense off the field on 3rd down. Let’s make it simpler, shall we? The Broncos need to get the Chargers’ offense off the field, period.

To keep it simple, there are 3 ways that possession can change:
  1. Turnover. This is the best case scenario for our team.
  2. Touchdown. This may seem like the worst case, but it may not be for this team.
  3. Kick (including punts and FG). This may be the worst case scenario for our team. Drives that end in a kick, can be time consuming, especially against our defense.
Given my hypothesis, a Charger TD drive of 2 minutes is better than a FG drive of 8 minutes. That may seem a bit odd on the surface, but we can recover points, we can’t recover time.

Why is this important? Here are a few reasons:
  1. We all know that Peyton’s offense is based on rhythm. More possessions generally equals more rhythm, which generally leads to more points. More points generally leads to wins (especially for this team). I would rather give up 35 points in a 12-possession game than 24 in an 8-possession game.
  2. We don’t like being pinned down in our own end. In the two losses against Indy and SD, it seemed as though we started multiple, consecutive drives inside our own 15. That doesn’t generally happen following turnovers or kickoffs, but does following time-consuming drives that end in a punt.
How do we do it? Be aggressive and sell out against the run. Stack the box and make Rivers beat us, and he is capable of doing that from time to time, and I’m OK with that. Being aggressive and pressuring the QB with blitzes can be boom or bust. Some people might argue for a "bend but don’t break" defense, but as discussed, "boom" and "bust" are our 2 best scenarios for creating more possessions.

There are no guarantees, but this is about increasing the probability of victory. I did some quick and dirty math on scores from all 16 regular season games and San Diego’s games averaged 46.5 points, while ours averaged 63 points. Denver would have to play a game that is one full standard deviation less than the average to get down to San Diego’s average. Conversely, San Diego would have to play a game that is one full standard deviation greater than its average to get to Denver’s average game. Who’s game would we rather be playing?

I think that the chances of a Bronco victory are slightly better than 50/50 if the point total is less than 50. Those chances increase dramatically if we can get the point total to 60 or 70.

Do Fox and Del Rio have the guts to play "boom" and "bust" defense? I sure hope so.

Go Broncos!

This is a Fan-Created Comment on MileHighReport.com. The opinion here is not necessarily shared by the editorial staff of MHR.