WEEK 3: UNDEFEATED 2-0 Denver Broncos vs 0-2 New York Jets - 2.05pm MDT /// 4.05pm EDT

[lomaxgrUK]

On 9/26/2021 at 10:45 AM, lomaxgrUK said:

Cooper got plenty of work in the Jags game. He's going to play a lot, don't worry about that.

It was clear we tried to keep Von off the field in the 2nd half on early run downs to preserve him. I don't see that changing at all even with Chubb out.

Even Mintze got a few snaps last week. I think he will see 5-10 again this week.

18 snaps (33%) for Cooper, 7 (13%) for Mintze.

38 snaps (70%) for Von, 45 snaps (83%) for Reed.

Probably could've seen a more even balance between Cooper and Von, but it's still decent load management.

 

[Broncofan]

2 hours ago, broncos67 said:

Broncos fans just love to complain. It was a comfortable 26-0 home shutout in a game against a terrible opponent where we probably weren’t trying to give too much away. We’re 2 up on KC. Take the W and move on. 
 

Baltimore next week is a different animal although to be fair they looked awful against Detroit, but that Tucker FG might be a huge spark. 

To be fair, BAL was missing 5 starters / key rotations guys on D (Houston, Brandon Williams <massive> & Derek Wolfe all 3 starters, Madubuike & Ferguson as their key DL rotation guys) from Covid/injuries, who should all be back by next week.  Plus T Ronnie Stanley was out with an ankle injury.    To top it off, Hollywood Brown literally dropped 2 TD's, if not 3 (don't look if you are a fantasy or DFS owner who played him - I didn't lol).   Other than Tucker's FG, that was probably their lowest-probability outcome.    It's hard to think they'l be  as meh as they were yesterday given their D will be up to speed, and better hands on Brown (OMG you think it's tough to watch Jeudy's 2020 drops...see below), and Stanley back.

 

Edited September 27, 2021 by Broncofan

[Cutler06]

10 hours ago, AkronsWitness said:

I dont think it takes a rocket scientist to know that Von Miller is cut from a different cloth than Shaq Barrett

And there are many types of apples, doesn't mean one is better than another, just that you like one better. Von was the 2nd overall pick while Shaq was an UDFA, that's just one of the many differences. Both have proven they are capable of double-digit sacks, that's one of their similarities.

You don't care for Shaq, great but no need to kick on someone else's idea just because YOU don't like it. 

 

[AnAngryAmerican]

Curious to see what the MRIs show on Risner, Glasgow and Hamler later today.

I share the concerns echoed earlier about Noah Fant, there’s some kind of disconnect there. He had better chemistry with Drew than he does with Teddy but chemistry takes time to develop. Same can be said about Albert O.

We’re 3-0, and that’s great, and the division looks legit, that’s not. I don’t care that the Chiefs are 1-2 they’ll be there in the end; we don’t play them until Dec. 5 and I have a feeling that, barring a litany of injuries, they’ll right the ship by then. The Chargers and Raiders, oof, those will be tough too. 3-3 against the division would be huge. That makes us 6-3 with the 3-0 start, meaning we likely just have to find 4 more wins to be the playoff mix. We have games against the Lions and WFT, both at home, we need to steal 2 more. Pittsburg could be winnable, but again it’s an 11am game in the far eastern part of the country, certainly won’t be easy. Beat the Steelers and take one against Dallas or Philly and there’s 10. 

3-0 is what the record with which most said we’d start. If we were anything less, it could be ugly within the fanbase now. 

Bottom line is we won 3 games we should win and we’ve been solid in all 3. Let’s see how October goes and we have a real good idea by Halloween what kind of team we really are. I’m more optimistic than I was a month ago.

Edited September 27, 2021 by AnAngryAmerican

[lomaxgrUK]

32 minutes ago, AnAngryAmerican said:

I don’t care that the Chiefs are 1-2 they’ll be there in the end

Yep. As long as #15 is healthy, they will be around.

It was quite beautiful to see the Chiefs get beat and look entirely human yesterday, until you realise it was another divisional rival and their stud 23 year old QB beating them.

[BroncosFan2010]

8 minutes ago, lomaxgrUK said:

Yep. As long as #15 is healthy, they will be around.

It was quite beautiful to see the Chiefs get beat and look entirely human yesterday, until you realise it was another divisional rival and their stud 23 year old QB beating them.

Herbert is so legit. The only QB 6'6 or over that we didnt go out of our way to draft it seems lol

[Broncofan]

1 hour ago, BroncosFan2010 said:

Herbert is so legit. The only QB 6'6 or over that we didnt go out of our way to draft it seems lol

His college tape was awful for the known skillset.  Makes you really question that coaching staff at the time. 

The key part, though - Lock's 5 game run in 2019.    Took us out of position for Herbert, and also gave us false hope we had our guy.   That's the opportunity cost with the wrong pick.   Ironically, Elway was in love with Herbert, too - scouted him in person in 2018 for 2-3 games before Herbert decided to stay 1 more year, and did attend his 2019 college games in person (before Lock showed out in December).  Oh well, what's done is done (and given the college tape vs. meh competition, few to no one really complained - Allen & Herbert have set back the "draft skills, avoid tools-only guys Rd1" argument a decade).

Edited September 27, 2021 by Broncofan

[Broncofan]

 

Well ****.

[BroncosFan2010]

Man, just brutal re KJ. Brutal. 

ACL repair has improved tremendously the past decade, and you see guys who are speed based recover from them and play well now. But its still pretty far from a guarantee. 

[AnAngryAmerican]

Wow. That's what, 7 starters out now - Jeudy, Chubb, Jewell, Darby, Risner, Glasgow and now Hamler. Ouch. 

[Broncofan]

2 minutes ago, BroncosFan2010 said:

Man, just brutal re KJ. Brutal. 

ACL repair has improved tremendously the past decade, and you see guys who are speed based recover from them and play well now. But its still pretty far from a guarantee. 

The issue IMO is that you're not back to full explosion for 18 months.  While you often are back playing at 10-11 months, not the same until 18 months later.   If you are special, then the dropoff doesn't show as much.  If you're not elite, though, that dropoff is noticeable in year 1 return...and then Hamler's 2 years done through his 3-year contract (year 4 is an option year).    UGH.

Can't fault Paton, no one has a crystal ball - but I imagine we'd have been happy to have Trinity Benson as our #3 until Jeudy's back.  I am happy for Kendall Hinton that he's going to get a chance to play - great story from last year, total character guy.   Just a MASSIVE drop off from having Jeudy/Sutton/Hamler as our top 3, to what we have now (Patrick is a great WR4 to have and the dropoff wasn't crazy if the styles didn't match with Sutton so much - but the Hamler to Hinton, and Jeudy-to-Patrick combined, is MASSIVE).

Ugh.

[AnAngryAmerican]

27 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

The issue IMO is that you're not back to full explosion for 18 months.  While you often are back playing at 10-11 months, not the same until 18 months later.   If you are special, then the dropoff doesn't show as much.  If you're not elite, though, that dropoff is noticeable in year 1 return...and then Hamler's 2 years done through his 3-year contract (year 4 is an option year).    UGH.

Can't fault Paton, no one has a crystal ball - but I imagine we'd have been happy to have Trinity Benson as our #3 until Jeudy's back.  I am happy for Kendall Hinton that he's going to get a chance to play - great story from last year, total character guy.   Just a MASSIVE drop off from having Jeudy/Sutton/Hamler as our top 3, to what we have now (Patrick is a great WR4 to have and the dropoff wasn't crazy if the styles didn't match with Sutton so much - but the Hamler to Hinton, and Jeudy-to-Patrick combined, is MASSIVE).

Ugh.

The concern is in the middle of the field; Sutton and Patrick are the same player, Sutton being slightly more explosive. But without Jeudy and Hamler we are lacking a true Z and now our Y when we got 3-wide. Given that the TEs are invisible right now, that makes things tough for a QB who likes to work the short/intermediate range of the field and thrives with WRs who work well in space. 

[Broncofan]

6 minutes ago, AnAngryAmerican said:

The concern is in the middle of the field; Sutton and Patrick are the same player, Sutton being slightly more explosive. But without Jeudy and Hamler we are lacking a true Z and now our Y when we got 3-wide. Given that the TEs are invisible right now, that makes things tough for a QB who likes to work the short/intermediate range of the field and thrives with WRs who work well in space. 

Basically the Jeudy as the coverage-beater anywhere, Sutton/Patrick as the big-body & RZ/jump-ball guy, and Hamler as the lid lifter, was a perfect 3-level threat.   Now we're literally at 2 classic big-body guys, and nowhere near the home run threat without Hamler/Jeudy.   And Fant is clearly physically not OK.    That contracts the field that the D's have to account for in coverage.   To lose both our G's - we'll be fine with run blocking, but unit cohesion for pass blocking is always the issue with injuries, that takes a while, and with rookies/2nd-year guys to boot.

Honestly, there's no good reason why BAL is a dog here.   Objectively speaking, with all their starting D guys and Stanley back, and all of our attrition, with Harbaugh at a distinct coaching advantage as well, and our ST woes (vs. one of the best ST units) - we should be a 3-5 pt home dog right now.   Not saying that to be down on the players, it's just reality.   BAL's game vs. DET and our games vs. sad sacks has slanted perception.    As a 3-5 pt dog, we can still win that game, but this is going to be a big test before we lost all our guys to beat BAL - it's gigantic now.

[AnAngryAmerican]

6 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

Basically the Jeudy as the coverage-beater anywhere, Sutton/Patrick as the big-body & RZ/jump-ball guy, and Hamler as the lid lifter, was a perfect 3-level threat.   Now we're literally at 2 classic big-body guys, and nowhere near the home run threat without Hamler/Jeudy.   And Fant is clearly physically not OK.    That contracts the field that the D's have to account for in coverage.   To lose both our G's - we'll be fine with run blocking, but unit cohesion for pass blocking is always the issue with injuries, that takes a while, and with rookies/2nd-year guys to boot.

Honestly, there's no good reason why BAL is a dog here.   Objectively speaking, with all their starting D guys and Stanley back, and all of our attrition, with Harbaugh at a distinct coaching advantage as well, and our ST woes (vs. one of the best ST units) - we should be a 3-5 pt home dog right now.   Not saying that to be down on the players, it's just reality.   BAL's game vs. DET and our games vs. sad sacks has slanted perception.    As a 3-5 pt dog, we can still win that game, but this is going to be a big test before we lost all our guys to beat BAL - it's gigantic now.

It’s almost a football cliche but we have to run and run effectively, keep Lamar off the field and tire out their defense. We had a 37/27 run/pass yesterday, we need that again and, like you point out, we need to avoid letting the Ravens make big plays on STs. 

[BroncosFan2010]

Who would have thought that having a #4 WR as talented as Tim Patrick might be one of the biggest saving graces this season. Its pretty unique to have a guy as good as him, even if his skillset overlaps Sutton, at #4 on the depth chart. I cant imagine where we would be if we had these WR injuries and needed to rely on the types of guys that are normally a #4 WR. 

Downside is that he is for sure playing himself into a deal too rich for us. Which stinks b/c we wont have a fully healthy WR trio until (likley) halfway through next season. Its a catch 22, too expensive for a WR4 when our guys are healthy but needed as they seem to never be healthy. I love our trio, but we need to perennially have a near-elite-for-a-WR4 type guy in the wings since all 3 have shown injury issues. 

But I will just enjoy it while it lasts.