FanPost

A Call for Optimism Against the Chiefs

Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports

For a time I was running my own little blog on Tumblr where I posted my thoughts about what was going on with the Broncos week to week. I've decided, this season, to just post here since I'm pretty sure I had all of three readers on Tumblr (and they were great readers to be sure)!

To get things started, I wanted to talk about why there's hope going into the Monday night game against the Chiefs. Normally I'm more inclined to be critical and point out flaws in the team, but I feel like we're all having a bit of "oh no not again" and need to recalibrate.

The Secondary Will Be Healthier

Let's face it, the secondary we are fielding this season is a pretty dramatic departure from what we've been used to in Broncos Country. For a few years, our third string cornerback was a first round draft pick in the form of Bradley Roby. He's now our second best corner and on many teams, he'd be the top cornerback on the team. So our depth at corner has suffered quite a bit.

We have five cornerbacks on the roster, and of those two were hurt, meaning we were playing with our #1, #2, and #5 cornerback against an experienced quarterback. Flacco isn't the best in the world, but it's pretty easy to scheme to expose that #5 CB and shred him. Hopefully Yiadom will develop as the season continues, but he's not good right now.

Don't get me wrong, I don't expect the Broncos secondary to shut down a hot Mahomes. If we get Jones and Brock back in the lineup, we can at least expect better performance than what we saw last week. Will they be 100%? Probably not. Will they be better than Yiadom? Certainly. Also we've got a full week to plan our scheme to the players we have.

Philip Lindsay Matters

Philip Lindsay is the MVP of this team right now, and without him on the field for most of the game that really hurt the team. As a runner I don't think he's a lot better than Royce Freeman, but his quickness and ability to get out into the open field makes him something opposing defenses must account for. He also brings a fire to the offense that is hard to measure. He's the heart of this offense and having him in the locker room instead of on the field against the Ravens hurt more than I've seen people mention.

We will have Philip Lindsay on Monday night. If we win this game against the Chiefs, he will be the reason why.

Trust Chiefs Fans: Their D is Garbage

A friend of mine is a die hard Chiefs fan, which is literally the only way you'd tolerate their long record of failure. He's really pleased with how Mahomes is working out, but every week he will talk about how miserably bad their defense is. The Broncos secondary may be the frequent flyer zone at the moment, but the Chiefs are bringing the Concord out of mothballs for opponents.

The Broncos defense is pretty much middle of the pack right now even after that warm turd of a game last week. The Chiefs? Last. Last last last last. DEAD last. We're the third best running team in the league even with Lindsay on the bench last week.

So can a Broncos team with a strong running game and feeling a need to make some adjustments keep up with Mahomes? Yeah, actually they can. Like I said above, expect Lindsay to have a big day on Monday.

The Referees Last Week Were Awful

My attitude generally is that good teams win in spite of bad referees, but let's get real for a moment. That was some of the worst officiating I've seen in a very long time. Key examples:

  1. Tossing Lindsay from the game. Yeah that deserved 15 yards, but ejection is pretty serious. If he started throwing punches in the open field, fine, but he was in a pile with other people getting rough with each other. That was a huge blow to this team (see above)
  2. The special teams made a big move with blocking the field goal and then recovering the ball for a touchdown. The play was called back because of an illegal block by Billy Turner on the play. BILLY TURNER WASN'T EVEN ON THE FIELD. Apparently they meant to flag Peko, but his block was totally legit too, and completely out of the play. In a game that ended up being 27-14, having an extra touchdown, especially before the half mattered a lot.
  3. I'm not normally one to complain about the way holding penalties are called against our defense, but holy shit was there obvious holds not being called. Like I see Von Miller running towards Flacco, with his jersey being pulled behind him. Penalty? Nope. But the Broncos were getting called for holding routinely.
Week to week the quality of the referees is just another variable, and sometimes it goes your way, and sometimes it doesn't. So next week, we can reasonably assume that the referees will probably not penalize players on the sideline for illegal blocks.

Even Manning Took a While to Sync Up

It's easy to forget that Keenum has only been with this team through three games. The first year Manning came to town it wasn't until game six that things started to click. We went into the game a 2-3 team and then turned it around for a playoff run. So if a legit GOAT candidate takes a few weeks to get up to speed, then we can give Keenum some room to maneuver here.

Also, in his defense, his line and the refs were not helping matters. In the 3rd quarter we had a drive that looked like this:

1st and 10 - 39 yard pass called back for holding
1st and 20 - Run for 3
2nd and 17 - Pass to DT for 22 yards
1st and 10 - Run for 4
2nd and 6 - Holding
2nd and 16 - Offside on defense
2nd and 11 - Pass for 9 yards
3rd and 2 - Unnecessary roughness on Leary for 15 (and pass was incomplete anyhow)

Keenum was doing his job there, dug us out of a hole and then got put back in the hole again.

Then we get to the fourth quarter and remember, the Broncos are down by 13 points instead of the legitimate 6 they should have been behind. So the Broncos are forced to press their luck a bit. Still, Broncos get into the red zone with a 1st & goal at the nine. A short pass makes it 2nd and 5.

So from there, we get another holding penalty on Bolles plus there was nobody open on the play. Keenum could have dumped to Freeman, but that was it. So now it's 2nd and 15. The next play was the pick and there is no way that Keenum should throw that pass. He was throwing off of his back foot into tight coverage. Does he make that mistake if the Broncos are down by 6 instead of 13? My guess is no.

So Keenum has been pretty "meh" so far, but he's still an upgrade over Siemian. We just don't know how much of one yet.

Home Field Advantage

Finally, it's worth remembering in all of this that we'll be playing at home on Monday night. It won't be our first road trip to an east coast city playing early in the morning. It will be playing in the thin mountain air with a team that hopefully feels a need to correct the mistakes made last week.

Yes, Mahomes has looked good. He's faced the 24th best, 29th best, and 22nd best defenses in the league. Will he look as good facing the best defense he's seen so far in the thin mountain air at Mile High? Maybe. My guess is now that teams are starting to get good tape on him, the story for him is going to begin to turn. Maybe it will be this week.

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