Week 1 GDT: Broncos at Seahawks

[paul-mac]

I’ve only quickly watched the 40 minute copy on the train in to London for work this morning but tbh we were lucky to even be in that game. Outcoached from start to finish. 

[lomaxgrUK]

55 minutes ago, paul-mac said:

I’ve only quickly watched the 40 minute copy on the train in to London for work this morning but tbh we were lucky to even be in that game. Outcoached from start to finish. 

You think? The highlighted bit is almost the exact opposite of how I feel.

Once the game settled down, it was clear who the superior team was. Seahawks had no points in the 2nd half, and threatened very little.

Denver had 3 trips inside of the 3 yard line in the 2nd half, and came away with 3 points. As per Will Brinson (CBS), this was the first time since week 3 of 1987 that a team has fumbled twice at the 1 yard line. Courtland Sutton then gets called for false start at the 3 yard line on another drive.

If anything, Seattle were lucky to still be in the game because of our incompetence. 

Coach is going to catch a TON of heat this week. Rusty first half (almost certainly down to no preseason and tackle to the ground training camp), poor personnel usage in the redzone, TWELVE penalties, and a catastrophic bit of game management with the game on the line.

But to say we were lucky to be in the game? I don't see that at all.

Side point - does anyone know what the hell was going on with why we ran down to 0 seconds all the time on Offense? CBS said that Hackett gives Russ two calls in case he wants to audible which is bonkers on the road. Interesting point to this - Graham Glasgow said after the game on the Williams fumble, Russ changed the play from Pass to Run and Glasgow didn't hear the call, hence him being 3 yards in the backfield.

Edited September 13, 2022 by lomaxgrUK

[paul-mac]

7 minutes ago, lomaxgrUK said:

You think? The highlighted bit is almost the exact opposite of how I feel.

Once the game settled down, it was clear who the superior team was. Seahawks had no points in the 2nd half, and threatened very little.

Denver had 3 trips inside of the 3 yard line in the 2nd half, and came away with 3 points. As per Will Brinson (CBS), this was the first time since week 3 of 1987 that a team has fumbled twice at the 1 yard line. Courtland Sutton then gets called for false start at the 3 yard line on another drive.

If anything, Seattle were lucky to still be in the game because of our incompetence. 

Coach is going to catch a TON of heat this week. Rusty first half (almost certainly down to no preseason and tackle to the ground training camp), poor personnel usage in the redzone, TWELVE penalties, and a catastrophic bit of game management with the game on the line.

But to say we were lucky to be in the game? I don't see that at all.

Maybe lucky is the wrong word, but it’s very rare that you’ll be in a game where you fumble twice at the 1, commit a whole bunch of penalties (as I say, I’ve not watched tape or even the proper TV copy, so not clear whether it was down to I’ll discipline or incompetent zebras), allow the opposing QB to complete 15 of his first 16 passes etc. Felt to me like the only reason it was even close at HT were the goal line stand on 4th down and the long TD to Jeudy. 

 

Speaking of Jeudy, absolute pleasure to finally see him making plays.

 

I think what we saw was the price of not playing starters at all in preseason. Really they should have played at least a half in Buffalo or the last game. The risk of a significant injury in 2 quarters is there but the downside is sloppy play early in the season. 
 

Still think we are a good team and will smoke the Texans at home next week. 

[broncos67]

Some thoughts on that trainwreck of a game last night, especially now that I've had some time to think about it. I don't think anything I'll say will come as a surprise to anyone but here it goes:

Denver was flat out the better team and should have won that game 99 times out of 100. The biggest factor to me was the lack of preseason reps for anyone on the first team. That part showed up early, especially on defense, but was clearly a factor throughout the night for the entire team, I thought. Seattle did move the ball in the first half, and was aided with an addition 71 yards of penalties, a fluky TD because Singleton didn't know how to tackle Geno on the first drive, and some efficient playcalling from the Seahawks to put Geno in a good spot.

In the 2nd half especially, Denver was easily the better team, but once again couldn't figure out how to convert near the goal line and left at least 22 points on the field. Evero did a nice job adjusting and I thought the defense played very well after halftime. 

Hackett left a LOT to be desired tonight. The playcalling was, IMO, awful. I felt like the offense was wildly ill-prepared, especially with the silent count issues, which is wild knowing the environment we went into. No clue why we didn't attempt any sort of pass at the goal line with Russ, taking Javonte out for MG3 when Javonte was cooking, all baffling. That said, the offense was able to move the ball up and down the field, which is why I'm not going to hit the panic button yet. It's clear we'll be able to move the ball, but what's not clear is that we can score points. Same problem we've had every year since Manning left.

Now, the clock management at the end of the game. I gave Fangio nothing but hell for his terrible clock management. This was, by an order of magnitude, the worst clock management I have seen in 32 years on earth. Period. I have no clue what the hell Hackett was doing. Even if you want to say analytics made the decision, I haven't seen one stat that indicates the FG was the right move. Not clear why we let all the time run off the clock only to kick the FG. You don't pay Russ that money and then don't let him get 5 yards. Hackett played scared of not converting the 4th down and then played dumb by not running plays quicker, the combination of which led to an extremely low percentage FG try.

I hope this was a case of rookie jitters for the HC, because that was unforgivable clock management. It just was. Other things cost us the game too, but that was a very clear and obvious screw up.

I expect Denver will dogwalk Houston next week (although I felt that way this week against Seattle, to be fair). At least I hope so for Hackett's sake.

[broncos67]

Now, in terms of player performances.

Thought Russ played mostly fine. OL didn't give him a ton of time, but the offense moved the ball pretty well for not having any preseason to find their groove.

Both RBs looked good sans fumbles, which were unforgivable and just very typical.

WRs/TEs looked good when they were actually targeted. Would love to see Jeudy get the ball in space more. No clue why we don't utilize his route running skills more proactively.

OL looked ROUGH in pass pro. Thought they looked really strong in the run game for the most part. Losing Meinerz early wasn't ideal. Felt like Russ was constantly under pressure.

The entire front 7 didn't generate a ton of pressure until the 2H. Once they finally got going, it was nice to see. Chubb got pressure, the interior got pressure, Gregory made a huge play. But the ILB situation is pathetic. I understand the devaluation of the position, but the amount we've ignored the position over the years is just flat out sad. Singleton blew it early with that missed sack directly leading to a TD. I was underwhelmed by that unit the entire night.

Secondary looked pretty good, but some sloppy penalties called. Surtain held up well against DK for the most part. Most of Seattle's passes were quick hits targeting the middle of the field or the TE so it's clear they tried for the most part to avoid our CBs.

Special teams looked rough. Washington did literally nothing, and brought out a few kicks he shouldn't have. The blocking on those kicks was abysmal. Lots of work to be done there.

[paul-mac]

There’s a lot of overreactions in this thread but one thing I do want to say is that it’s very clear to me this team will come good. There was a lot went wrong last night and I think we can point the blame directly at the lack of preseason playing time, but we still dominated the Seahawks for large chunks of the game. It’s one that got away and it could be the difference between playoffs or not, so I share the frustrations of other posters, but I really think we should avoid throwing the toys out of the pram. 

[big_palooka]

9 hours ago, BroncoBruin said:

Russ basically kept us in that game converting 3rd down after 3rd down to extend drives. This is a double digit loss without the value a franchise QB brings. It is really really REALLY stupid to do the “I told you so” on Russ after what we saw tonight. But some people have their agendas and care more about being right I guess. 

This argument works if you ignore the fact that Russ hit 2 defenders in the hands who drops the INT. And his TD to Juedy would probably be picked to if it wasn't a rookie corner on the coverage. 

It's one game in a hostile environment. Things will round out. Never overreact to week 1. But man... I would question Hackett. Does the "friendly neighborhood player coach" ever work out? 

[broncos67]

4 minutes ago, big_palooka said:

This argument works if you ignore the fact that Russ hit 2 defenders in the hands who drops the INT. And his TD to Juedy would probably be picked to if it wasn't a rookie corner on the coverage. 

It's one game in a hostile environment. Things will round out. Never overreact to week 1. But man... I would question Hackett. Does the "friendly neighborhood player coach" ever work out? 

Death, taxes, palooka trolling. Football season is back.

[lomaxgrUK]

If that 2nd half team is a reflection of this team, we will be a tough team to beat. I liked everything other than our redzone Offense and final drive.

The problem is that with our schedule we just don't have games to throw away like that, especially vs teams like that who will only win 5 or 6 games.

We will still be fun to watch this year. I just hope we aren't here in week 18 talking about how we missed the playoffs by 1 game and it was week 1 that cost us.

All it means is we've got to go steal one that we wouldn't have down as a W; @ KC, @ LAC, @ LV for example. 

The Bills lost to the Urban Meyer Jags last year. That's football, sometimes.

Edited September 13, 2022 by lomaxgrUK

[big_palooka]

8 hours ago, Broncofan said:

Because the HC took away the clock with 1:10 and let it run down and called for a yardage gaining play.

There's a reason why the others see it as a ridiculous take.    It's OK to have a minority opinion, but sometimes, a bad take is just a bad take.    You choosing to use the result to justify Wilson is not the answer when he & Jeudy/Sutton (and 3rd down fumble notwithstanding, Javonte) were the reason we stayed in the game on O, is just classic confirmation bias.   We don't have to agree, I'm quite happy to have Wilson on the team, and I'm willing to give Hackett & co time (his game management coach might want to update his CV, though).

Describe what you think "the answer" is. Because he looked average in the pocket and heavy footed when trying to move out of it. Which is what many pointed to in Seattle. He through what should have been 2 INTs on terrible balls. And was bailed out on his long TD pass. 

If "the answer" is competing against Mahomes and Herbert in the AFW, then he's probably not the answer.

[lomaxgrUK]

12 minutes ago, big_palooka said:

This argument works if you ignore the fact that Russ hit 2 defenders in the hands who drops the INT. And his TD to Juedy would probably be picked to if it wasn't a rookie corner on the coverage. 

Are we going to count near INTs for all QBs, or just Russ?

The Jeudy throw comment is just daft. If it wasn't a rookie CB, he wouldn't have got beat so bad and Russ might not have thrown it.

It wasn't a good throw, but when the CB is beat by 5 yards and has his back to the ball, just get the ball in the air. He ain't picking it.

[lomaxgrUK]

Christ.

I am done with this 1 week hyperbole.

If your take from that game is anything about Russell Wilson, I can't be bothered with it.

[Broncofan]

21 minutes ago, big_palooka said:

Describe what you think "the answer" is. Because he looked average in the pocket and heavy footed when trying to move out of it. Which is what many pointed to in Seattle. He through what should have been 2 INTs on terrible balls. And was bailed out on his long TD pass. 

If "the answer" is competing against Mahomes and Herbert in the AFW, then he's probably not the answer.

The answer is to go with the guy who threw for 340 yards and 8 YPA, when you have 1:10 left with 3 TO's.   Not only do you put the ball in the guys' hands to get the first down.  You also let your best guys win the game.   Our best player isn't our K.   And if it doesn't work out, with 3 TO's, you can still stop them and get the ball back.   

It's 2 chances with your best unit to win right away, and still 3 TO's for the D that stopped them all 2H long.   It's 2 chances, with a baseline 40 percent win probability (4th and 5) with an O that converted 1st down on pass plays with a much higher probability, and acquiring a 2nd chance still with 3 TO's left if it doesn't work out - to 1 with a 2/10 probability at best.  

A 64 yard FG is what you choose when you have no choices left.   With 10 secs left etc.    It's not really hard math.   It's an absolute no-brainer.   

Nice try on changing the goalposts though.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Broncofan

[Broncofan]

21 minutes ago, lomaxgrUK said:

Christ.

I am done with this 1 week hyperbole.

If your take from that game is anything about Russell Wilson, I can't be bothered with it.

Given the Wilson criticism is coming from a Raider fan and one person completely opposed to acquiring Wilson in the first place, it's pretty much pretty transparent it's mostly confirmation bias.   Arguing that the FG was the answer over trying for 4th shows some serious math deficiency skills, and it's not rational. 

If anything, the game should give more optimism that the O is going to be fine.   No exhibition game, terrible presnap preparation (with all those 0-1 sec left snaps that let the D know when to attack), and no Turner, and losing Meinerz - and the O still churned out 430+ yards, and 340 in the air.    And for all the talk about Russ only being able to freelance, in the 2H we saw a LOT more of him extending plays, but staying in the pocket with eyes up - exactly what we want to see.   

It's an absolute crusher to lose, but it's still just 1 game.    The bigger issue is how Hackett & co. bounce back.  Their lack of preparation is understandable given it's their first game, but it's also far more likely to still be an issue next week, than the actual players on the field.

What would be great is for Hackett to own his mistake.  Last night's explanation was just inadequate - to put it mildly.   Today he should be saying "OMG I cost the team, and I own that.  That's never happening again, I'm going to learn from this".   Last night's explanation was truthful - but today he needs to wake up and own the blunder.  It's literally the worst game management mistake I can think of, since there was 1:10 and 3 TO's left (as opposed to the 20 secs, no TO's left, hard choice we see other teams faced with).

 

 

Edited September 13, 2022 by Broncofan

[BroncoBruin]

44 minutes ago, big_palooka said:

This argument works if you ignore the fact that Russ hit 2 defenders in the hands who drops the INT. And his TD to Juedy would probably be picked to if it wasn't a rookie corner on the coverage. 

It's one game in a hostile environment. Things will round out. Never overreact to week 1. But man... I would question Hackett. Does the "friendly neighborhood player coach" ever work out? 

Pretty tough to take you seriously when your argument is “yeah but some things that didn’t happen could have happened”.