GDT: Denver Broncos @ Arizona Cardinals

[Broncofan]

4 minutes ago, broncofan48 said:

If this year keeps up Rosen is gonna be a shell. Like David Carr.  

I saw nothing that impressed me about Rosen. 

I could be wrong but Elway wanted Darnold or nothing and to me he’s looking 100% right.

 

I'm never going to argue Darnold, I had him top QB & Rosen behind him (and Mayfield 3, and uncertain that he was worth 1.5, for full disclosure).   The Q we will ask is Rosen/Chubb.   Tonight, it looks like Chubb - but that's almost always the case in Year 1, since we all know QB rookies are throwaways for 1 year.    Next year, if Rosen doesn't look the guy, then yeah, right call.  But remember, guys like Matt Ryan, Jameis Winston, Jared Goff, and even Wentz - raised Q's on being busts because they looked bad Year 1, and had games that were just plain ugly - and frankly, on much better teams than the 2018 Cards (who do look odds-on favorites to be picking 1.1). 

I mean, the Cards signed Sam Bradford basically to take all the lumps for 1 year at 20M to let the rookie QB they'd draft learn.  THAT is a huge signal how bad they realized they were going to be.   But yeah, fixing the OL is a huge priority, to avoid a young QB regressing badly (Marcus Mariota is THAT guy right now, he's seeing ghosts, the @BAL game was OMG terrible - which in year 4, is a HUGE problem).    But first things first - get rid of McCoy.  That won't fix their OL woes, but it's a huge start to helping them lol.

 

[BroncoBruin]

1 hour ago, Broncofan said:

We get it, just more that it's hard to take complete enjoyment out of this, realizing this only delays the inevitable, and we need to get moving into rebuild mode ASAP.  Teams that do that sooner improve faster than those who simply wait until they're eliminated, and then think rebuild.  All good.

What is this delaying? Vance is 100% gone when the season is over, doesn't matter if it's tomorrow or in December. They were never going to just bench all the veterans, with injuries the young guys will sprinkle into the lineups no matter what happens. The only downside of this is the effect on draft order. 

[AKRNA]

My issue with Rosen has always been his build. I don't think he can take the beatings and still produce.

No body can survive very long getting hit like he was tonight. He'll be hearing footsteps soon if he hasn't already.

[Broncofan]

5 minutes ago, BroncoBruin said:

What is this delaying? Vance is 100% gone when the season is over, doesn't matter if it's tomorrow or in December. They were never going to just bench all the veterans, with injuries the young guys will sprinkle into the lineups no matter what happens. The only downside of this is the effect on draft order. 

The sooner Vance is gone, the sooner bringing in Kelly gets justified.  And yes, bringing in Kelly likely lowers our chances of winning games - but frankly, draft order matters.   If we had not beaten IND, we'd have been the #3 pick to get Darnold.  Now, I don't think it's going to matter as much this year in terms of getting to Herbert (we're clearly not a bottom 5 team).  It's more of a bonus to the real issue (seeing what we have in Kelly).   But I would much prefer we get 7-8 games of Kelly to really evaluate him, than just 3-4.   

The sooner we get rid of Vance, the more likely we can justify that move.   I don't see the other decisions as nearly as crucial, like you said, the other guys are going to get their PT gradually increase, which is fine.  But our decision on Kelly as QBOTF is our biggest decision we can make this year.   It can't be justified if there's any semblance of 2018 hope, and this W will no doubt foster that for the FO.   Even if we know it's a total mirage.

[BroncoBruin]

Just now, Broncofan said:

The sooner Vance is gone, the sooner bringing in Kelly gets justified.  And yes, bringing in Kelly likely lowers our chances of winning games - but frankly, draft order matters.   If we had not beaten IND, we'd have been the #3 pick to get Darnold.  Now, I don't think it's going to matter as much this year in terms of getting to Herbert (we're clearly not a bottom 5 team).  But I would much prefer we get 7-8 games of Kelly to really evaluate him, than just 3-4.   The sooner we get rid of Vance, the more likely we can justify that move. 

I'm not getting your math here. One win against the worst team in the NFL is not going to amount to a 3-4 game difference. If the team and Case are as bad as we think, Chad will get plenty of time. 

[Broncofan]

8 minutes ago, BroncoBruin said:

I'm not getting your math here. One win against the worst team in the NFL is not going to amount to a 3-4 game difference. If the team and Case are as bad as we think, Chad will get plenty of time. 

I was referring to last year in terms of 1 game making a difference in draft order.  The bigger issue this year is that if we want to see Kelly earlier than December,  VJ likely can't be the HC.  At 2-5, with @KC and 10 days to prepare, this could have been a shot to make the HC change - and bring us 1 step closer to getting  Kelly in there (I know he's not ready yet to help win-now, but it's not about win-now).  Now, no chance for a while, barring injury.

With this W, being 3-4 means that VJ lives for at least 2-3 more games.   We'd have to get blown out @KC and lose badly at home to HOU for the ax to come now, after this W (and HOU's biggest weakness is a horrible OL - so that's a winnable game for us given our pass rush can mask our other problems, with HFA).    Win 1 of next 2 games, VJ likely survives to late Nov/early December at earliest, and more & more likely we just play out the HC string.  

The sooner we are really bad W-L wise, the sooner VJ is gone.  And we will see Kelly much sooner without VJ there, than with VJ still hanging around.   I don't think we'll see Kelly as starter before December if VJ is the HC and lasts through the season.  I'd much rather see Kelly play 7-8 games, than just 3-4.    It's probably the most important decision we'll face this offseason, the more real game data we have to use, the better.  It's not like Kelly is a lock, or even a 50-50 prop to be our QBOTF - so we should try and get as much data on that decision for 2019+ as we can.

[BroncoBruin]

2 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

I was referring to last year in terms of 1 game making a difference in draft order.  The bigger issue this year is that if we want to see Kelly earlier than December,  VJ likely can't be the HC.

With this W, being 3-4 means that VJ lives for at least 2-3 more games.   We'd have to get blown out @KC and lose badly at home to HOU for the ax to come now, after this W (and HOU's biggest weakness is a horrible OL - so that's a winnable game for us given our pass rush can mask our other problems, with HFA).    Win 1 of next 2 games, VJ likely survives to late Nov/early December.  

The sooner we are really bad W-L wise, the sooner VJ is gone.  And we will see Kelly much sooner without VJ there, than with VJ still hanging around.   I don't think we'll see Kelly as starter before December if VJ is the HC and lasts through the season.  I'd much rather see Kelly play 7-8 games, than just 3-4.    It's probably the most important decision we'll face this offseason, the more real game data we have to use, the better.

Whole lot of speculating about hypothetical timelines nobody can actually account for. No offense, but this is a level of such relatively insignificant macro analysis that you should be questioning why you are watching games at all. And this is coming from someone who is pro-tanking. 

[Broncofan]

4 minutes ago, BroncoBruin said:

Whole lot of speculating about hypothetical timelines nobody can actually account for. No offense, but this is a level of such relatively insignificant macro analysis that you should be questioning why you are watching games at all. And this is coming from someone who is pro-tanking. 

We all have our ways of coping.   Some drink, some kick the dog, some just think out loud.  But if you think that whether VJ is around or not doesn't influence Kelly's ETA, we'll just agree to disagree.    The sooner VJ is gone, the better.   Whether Kelly is our guy or not in 2019 is the most important Q we can answer this year.  This was a missed chance to get closer to the next step to finding out, that's all.   But, life goes on.  All good.

[Scoundrel]

46 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

 

It's his rookie year, and ARI was outmatched on OL and OC-scheme wise.  Pretty much every rookie QB has these games, esp. on bad teams...why GM's like Elway don't want to sacrifice a year to let them learn.  Patience b4 calling the rookie QB awful overall in week 4 of his rookie year (but yeah, tonight was ugggly). 

Never said it was right or wrong. I said how fitting. 

[Broncofan]

1 minute ago, Counselor said:

Never said it was right or wrong. I said how fitting. 

I hear you, just that's the Q coming out (Rosen was awful tonight, I don't know if he's going to work out...sheesh).   If we were this impatient in Elway's era, he'd have been labelled a complete bust (god those were some ugly games way back when lol).  Obviously Rosen's no Elway, but it's crazy how impatient ppl are for rookie QB's.   

[BroncoBruin]

37 minutes ago, AKRNA said:

My issue with Rosen has always been his build. I don't think he can take the beatings and still produce.

No body can survive very long getting hit like he was tonight. He'll be hearing footsteps soon if he hasn't already.

Yeah, Rosen's success will be more tied to a clean pocket than the other QBs in this class. I would say Rosen ended up in a rough situation, but the other three rookies are also playing behind bad offensive lines. On the whole, it's probably the best long term situation because of how stable the front office is relative to Cleveland, Buffalo and New York who have proven to be anything but. 

[Broncofan]

 

Huge break for us if the above is true, that was a scary injury.  A grade 2 MCL is a 3-4 week injury, that timeline is way too optimistic (unless it's a grade I MCL) FWIW, but really, it's more about the long-term.  Just glad if it's not an ACL injury, that was definitely the risk with the head-on impact. 

Disclaimer - I don't know if they'd have the MRI this early, and so an ACL injury can be missed - I'd be more reassured if that's still the diagnosis after they get back home tomorrow (as I'd imagine they will be doing a MRI then, the clinical test can miss torn ACL's, and being able to walk post-injury on same day doesn't exclude it either).

[lomaxgrUK]

Well, I said pregame that I hadn't seen much of the Cardinals. After that, I won't be in a rush to again ... My days are they bad.

Is it bad that my first thought when we ran that Sanders throwing play was, "why are we doing that in this game as opposed to earlier in the year when it may have mattered?" Still, it was a nice play and a hell of a catch.

Overall I really don't know what to take from this game on Offense. The Defense had it won for them anyway. I thought the DL played well early which was important. Zach Kerr and Peko seemed to stand out on the interior, which has been an issue since the Chiefs game.

It's always great to see your team blow someone out, but it appears my thoughts are the same as most of you in that it barely even counts against an opponent so poor.

[jsthomp2007]

When Von plays the way he did, he is Jordan-esque and unstoppable...why can't he do that for 19 games though? 

[champ11]

11 hours ago, Broncofan said:

Meh, the problem is that this will give VJ and Elway a ton of leash for the status quo.   When we really need to think future.  This will just get the press and casual fanbase to think we have hope.   I prefer to just lance the boil as early as possible.   This just prolongs the pain.

I will take comfort that again our young guys and Sanders are the best players on O.   And I like that Barrett flashed tonight - I hope he does enough to get a nice pick back in trade (provided Elway still is in trade mode).

Still, the W is in the bag, so might as well enjoy it.   And then hope we get our butts kicked @KC and lose to HOU at home so that Elway has a jolt of reality before the Oct. 30 trade deadline. 

I don't think this will give them a leash. Everyone knows how trash that ARI team is. If they no show at KC, we're in the same spot we were at a week ago.

That being said - if they beat KC - I mean.....the season has some hope. Not that I think they are very good, but you beat KC on the road and get to .500 and the playoffs are at least attainable.