Finally got to watch the game

[cdumler7]

Have to start off tipping my hat to Peyton Manning. Some will argue this is not his best season ever but what we have got to watch this season has obviously been historical but just down right almost impossible. The guy 2 years ago had to relearn how to throw a football and here we are watching him break record after record for the quarterback position.

Also kudos to both Decker for getting to 10 touchdowns and really becoming our most consistent receiver here at the end of the year. Finally kudos to Moreno for his first 1,000 yard season of his career and just looking like the back that we all hoped for when the Broncos drafted him.

Now to the game itself. Good win for the Broncos even though at times it looked a bit ugly. As usual I will start with the somewhat ugly and work my way to the really good (although how ugly can a 24 point victory really be so realize my critiques are just small things).

Offensively the OL had a very up and down day. Anytime you average over 6 yards per carry on the ground it is a very good day running wise for the OL. Probably my biggest critique of the game is why the heck weren't we running it more?! That 3rd quarter it seemed like Gase and Peyton forgot that in the NFL you can actually run the football. They just seemed bound and determined that they were going to force the pass game when there were some 5 and 6 man boxes that should have been easy to run on. Passing wise the Texans decided to go all in on hitting Peyton and just blitzed the heck out of him. Not a huge fan this late in the season seeing Peyton get drilled play after play. Not sure why we didn't see more screen plays to the RB's in this one with how the Texans were blitzing.

Now this is on the whole team not just the offense but Penalties are just starting to get a bit ridiculous. Not sure what the deal is but this team just doesn't always play the most disciplined football in the league.

Last bad point (again these are nitpicking things not huge oh my goodness the sky is falling kind of things) but Trindon Holiday has just worn out his welcome in my book. He had a couple of decent returns but he just looks scared on the field and there seems to be about one play a game where he does something that just has you cussing at the tv.

Ok now to the good part. I don't think there is another team in the league that even though the offense get's stuck for a bit can still put up 37 points in a game where they looked mediocre. I mean you look down for a second and the score is 16-13 then when you look up the score is 37-13. It has gotten where you just expect this offense to get going even in the games that they look sluggish. Also kudos to the offense for once again no turnovers (couple maybe should have been picked off but hey every quarterback gets a break or two).

Defensively just have to say WOW! Von Miller goes down in the 1st quarter and yet this defense just has their best game of the season. The DL for the most part controlled the LOS and our DT's in Knighton, Sly (starting to show why he was our 1st round pick), and Unrein all made plays in the backfield in this one and just collapsed the pocket. I can't imagine what would have been say Von doesn't get hurt and Schaub is running to the outside to escape the pressure to only find Von waiting. Still haven't heard how he is doing but from what I have heard this morning things are much more promising than last night on his knee.

I also want to give a shout out to Champ. The guy looked like his old self last night. The announcers kept saying that Champ had hardly played in the game but he actually got quite a few snaps he just blanketed his receiver. To me a good corner is one that you don't hardly notice through a game and Champ did that. There were still a couple of blown coverages by the secondary but that was definitely their best game of playing technical football. I think Champ being on the field definitely helps with that area as I saw him communicating with his safeties more than any of the other corners. I guess better now in the season to have our big 3 corners than at the beginning of the year so hopefully they can continue this trend upwards!

Great team win and always enjoyable to be AFC West Champs 3 years in a row!

 

[Morpheus]

Good post. I think as far as running it more in the 2nd half, when it looked like we were controlling the game and had the lead, I thought it was pretty obvious they were going for the Passing TD record.

They could have chewed up a lot more clock time running the ball but the Texans were imploding offensively at that point.

 

[Malibu]

Still needed to run the ball more in the 3rd quarter. Just ask Dallas gainst the Packers last week. Yes getting the record is great but Manning's health and winning the game without Manning getting hit as many times as he did in the 3rd quarter should have been the number one concern. Great win overall now 1 more to go with no Miller for the rest of the year.

 

[DownSetHutch]

Really good post, cd. As far as the Texans' offensive playing-calling being so pass-heavy, I think there are 2 reasons for this. 1) Our pass defense has not been very good this year, and; 2) Our run defense was absolutely stuffing the run throughout the game. That was great to see. Also, our DBs looked a lot better with Champ in there.

 

[cdumler7]

Really good post, cd. As far as the Texans' offensive playing-calling being so pass-heavy, I think there are 2 reasons for this. 1) Our pass defense has not been very good this year, and; 2) Our run defense was absolutely stuffing the run throughout the game. That was great to see. Also, our DBs looked a lot better with Champ in there.

Thanks. I was actually gearing that towards our team being pass heavy especially in that 3rd quarter. When we went 3 and out 3 times in a row we ran one time for 4 yards in that time. Not only does this hurt us in obviously the offense isn't moving the ball but defensively then they are having to go on the field a lot quicker than expected. At that point we had a 10 point lead and were averaging close to 8 yards per carry so I guess to me it just didn't make sense to not try and run the football a little more. Especially there was quite a few times they Texans had 6 or less in the box which to me is them daring the Broncos to run on them and yet we kept going to the pass.

I will say now knowing that Von is out getting Champ back couldn't have come at a better time. He definitely seemed to help our secondary look a lot more confident than in games past. Throw in next game we should have Webster back instead of Tony Carter (looked pretty bad yesterday) and our secondary could finally become a decent strength for this team which is exactly what they need with the lack of pass rush that could develop without Von.

 

[Malibu]

Champ did play very well but wtf has happened to Woodyard? He looked lost again on a few plays and hasnt been on the field much.

 

[DownSetHutch]

Damn cd, my bad. I totally mixed up your post with my own thoughts and got it all twisted. Back to reading comprehension class for me.

 

[cdumler7]

Damn cd, my bad. I totally mixed up your post with my own thoughts and got it all twisted. Back to reading comprehension class for me.

Haha no problem. I agree the Texans compared to usual definitely went pass heavy. I think a big part of that is the Broncos were doing well against the run but also being on the 3rd, 4th, and even some times 5th string running back didn't help matters for them. I definitely did like that the Broncos did finally look good against the run again. Now some of that yes is they didn't play the best running backs in the world but they also dominated the LOS and were constantly hitting the running back in the back field so good to see that again. Sly Williams looks like he is really coming along nicely. Which is good since the Broncos are going to need some good pressure up the middle now that Von is not coming off the edge. I will say in Von's absence though Irving looked much better in pass defense than Von has all year as sometimes Von being over aggressive played right into an offenses hands. Then when going after the quarterback Ayers and our new guy is it Mincey actually did a pretty decent job providing some pressure.