Rams-Broncos, Rams lose, 26-27

[Retroram52]

Hello all. Tonight was the anticipated exposure of some our new weapons and at least in the first half of the game, we got a glimpse of what may or may not be during the season. Both first round picks did not disappoint and in an evening which had lots of vanilla on both sides of the ball, we had five outstanding performances that brought a smile to Fisher's face. That would be Tavon Austin, Jared Cook, Alec Ogletree, James Laurinaitus, and Greg Zuerlein. But there were many more as you'll see shortly.

Overall we had a vanilla night on offense with a pedestrian 198 yards of total offense compared to 446 total yards of a pretty talented football team and against Peyton Manning. Overall our defense played in a vanilla fashion as Manning exploited a 5-7 yard gap underneath all evening to march up and down the field at-will that was never adjusted for. Our special teams played splendidly highlighted by Greg Zuerlien's kick-offs that always went out of the back of the end zone and he had another 58-yard field goal that is routine for Greg. Special teams were also highlighted by an opening 81-yard punt return by Tavon Austin in the first quarter. The reporting of an increase in team speed is no joke as Austin demonstrated his blazing speed by nearly out-running his teammates on the same return. If it was more coordinated at the end of his run, he would have scored.

Sammie's first offensive series was a simple jump pass to Jared Cook who towered over the defender and it was quickly 7-0 because it started on the Broncos three yard line. Sammie finished the night at a vanillish 9/16 for 110 yards and a TD. Our running game never got going and the offensive line played decently with a couple of false starts by Saffold and Long which got messy right before the half. O-line pass protection was good and penalties were held to a minimum. Jared Cook is the real deal as he is a big physical receiver with speed for a man his size. That was a very good FA acquisition. Givens and Austin got a couple of catches as did Pettis. Richardson and Pead both had a low production night and we did not do a very good job of run blocking. C. Williams has won the left guard spot over Shelly Smith who I hope they cut on Tuesday as he looked krappy tonight.

On defense, we demonstrated that we could bring at will but played vanilla type defense. James Laurinaitus was everywhere and Cortland Finnegan took his frustration with Manning and the receiver out on Manning with a delayed blitz that ended in a nice hit on Manning for a near sack. Manning avoided Janoris Jenkins all evening and TJ McDonald and Rodney McCloud had a great night. Also, kudos to Ray Ray (1 sack) and Darren Woodard (1 INT) who are going to make this team. Cody Davis had a pretty good night as well when he was in. But the real show was Ogletree. If this guy plays this way all season, we have a bona-fide bad-ass LB corp when Dunbar returns. Let's see, a rip fumble returned for a TD, an interception, an almost second interception, and Alec was around the ball ALL night. What a pick and I take back what I initially said about either of our first-round picks.

On Special teams. The night belonged to Zuerlein-AGAIN! Kick-offs that always went through the back of the end-zone and another routine 58 yard field goal. Pretty good punt coverage that helped Austin blaze through the field on an 81-yard punt return and real good coverage on kick-offs because there were no run backs because of Zuerlein.

But the real story that is continuing to be a mainstay is the fact that our offense continues to not score points or produce yardage which is really has been our problem for a very long time. Granted, I get the fact that this is a pre-season game, but 68 yards total mid-way through the second is not going to get it done in the regular season. I'll give the team a pass until the regular season but this was the pattern last year and we struggled on offense as well. The second unit has less good players and our O-line and the RBs are the two major holes we still have to address in future drafts. So, we shall see as we play the last game whether we have solved our offensive woes going into the regular season.

 

[Vitamike]

Very good analysis Retro!

You never disappoint.

Hey on the whole offensive production thing midway through the 2nd, I'm not worried. There were some very positive contributors that led to reduced opportunities. Namely the punt return putting us at the 3 for the quick score and the turnover strip that put the defense back out on the field after the score.

Our offense, midway through the second quarter, literally had the ball under 8 minutes scoring on 2 out of 3 possessions. That compares to the Broncos, in the same time frame, having the ball around 15 minutes and only scoring on 1 out of 5 possessions.

Are we going to blow the doors wide open on offense? No, not hardly however we will be much better than last year and we might just get there before the end of the season.

We will be fine.

 

[Silas]

I think the Rams improved tonight when the starters were playing. We got some kind of idea what to expect from Jared Cook and Tavon Austin. I would like to see more of Stedman Bailey.

The running game looks weak at best. Someone needs to step up or the Rams will need to look for a running back.

Ogletree looks great right now and the kicking team looks good, but this team needs to score TD's.

I have a feeling that the Rams are going to lose some close games this season as it stands now.

Rams need to run on all cylinders in the last exhibition game. It's time to get serious.

 

[Clayton]

We sucked hard on offense but were pretty spectacular on special teams and defense.

 

[fastforward]

The 1st good Rams pre-season performance. On defense we played tighter and more aggressively. We even showed a few blitz/coverage packages. Ogletree is getting up to speed. He'll get the plaudits because of the strip/recovery, (which won't happen often), but that aside he was much better. The defense still hasn't had any miscommunications or blown coverages. That's a good sign. Even when the DBs conceded passes they were in decent coverage. Still no breakaway runs against us. The offense was still mixed. The starting OTs were good. Miller beat Saffold on 1 play but other than that there were few problems. The interior OL struggled. Wells & Williams combined to miss an inside dog that sacked Bradford. Bradford looked good, yet again, but the WRs are still erratic. Givens screwed up on back-to-back plays. First his sloppy back shoulder move wasn't enough to reach Bradford's pass. Next he failed to read the S blitz and run the hot route. Pettis failed to snag 2 balls. Not his 1st drops in pre-season and he's not the player he was at this time last year. Bailey looked better and maybe ahead of him. Quick looked good but he was playing in garbage time behind Bailey and Blake. (Blake has shown nothing and is a certainty to be cut. Why is Quick behind him?). The RBs showed no change, WYSIWYG. OL & QB depth was an issue, yet again.
For the most part we learned nothing new. The starters are good enough to compete with good teams but we don't sustain drives offensively and our depth is weak. Reading the NFL injury reports we have been mercifully spared so far this year.

 

[Retroram52]

I agree Silas, Vita, Clayton, and Fastforward with many of your points. Thanks Vita with kind words. Good banter indeed. We displayed signs of improvement and we did not give away too many secrets on both sides of the ball but our offensive tendency to rely on field goals appears to be still operating on some level. I agree, I'd like to see more of Stedman Bailey and Quick was working last night with the second and third teams. He better pick it up or he may end-up in the bust category and out the door which I am not hoping will be the case.

It is my hope that Sammie gets better at releasing the ball. It appeared last evening when he had receivers open, especially in the redzone, that he was a bit late on the release which often resulted in over/under throws and missing the receiver. Some of his indecision was due to great coverage but on the second attempt in the redzone he had Pettis (I believe) open for a split second on the two-yard line and just held the ball too long. I suspect that may improve and maybe will see more in the final game of the preseason.

The O-line is looking better in reducing penalties and and pass blocking but we are behind in run blocking and in the run game. Now that the starters have been determined, there will be less instability and more cohesiveness especially with Long around. I watched him specifically on several series and he really brings a level of professionalism to that unit which has been missing in previous years. If we can just get the rest of them on board in that regard I suspect that Vita has it right-we will be good-to-go.

Onward we go!

 

[Clayton]

I think the one play we need to make going forward is the pass play when Pettis got his CB turned around on a 1 on 1 situation by the goal line and Bradford led him about 2 yards too much. That has to be a TD.

 

[ksudodger]

My observations:

Offense:

I am 100% not worried at all about the offense based on last night. Think about this. Last year, 1st and goal at the 3 ended up with 3 points. Jared Cook gained us those 4 points and will do that at will ALL SEASON.

I agree 100% that none of the RB's have stepped up at all. I think it may not be a bad idea to get on the phone with either Beanie Wells or Cedric Benson, at least as a stop gap until someone, ANYONE steps up.

All the WR looked like they are getting it (Quick included) and ready to go.

VERY VERY impressed with the O line... Bradford just needs to learn to trust they will get it done and not rush his throws. That is when he overthrows

Defense:

Alec Ogletree was all over the place and looks like he is ready to go. That near INT in the end zone was a VERY athletic play and I think those are the kind of things we can expect from him.

Two words - RODNEY MCLEOD. I think he might very well have stolen the other starting safety spot from Darian Stewart.

As a whole, the defense was not allowing alot of YAC and that is good.


Special Teams

News Flash, Tavon Austin is pretty good.. Nuff Said
Zuerlien, Hekker and the coverage teams all did everything necessary...


I also liked that they did not give up and marched down the field for the late score. And that 2 pt conversion was as good as it could be and I like that they went for the win instead of the tie


Overall, I was happy with the effort of everyone other than the RB's...

 

[Retroram52]

Yea Clayton. That is the exact play I was referring to in my analysis. Sammie was late alot when he was in there. He was just holding the ball too long and when the Broncos had excellent coverage he didn't take it down and scramble because Sammie is pretty good at scrambling.

 

[demiurge]

I think the run game will be fine - our last two opponents have been game planning while we were very vanilla, and both stacked the line with 8 in the box because they felt that we couldn't successfully pass with all our young receivers. Talent is one thing, but you need to know the game plan and make your adjustments (for example when Givens got hit in the back with the ball because he didn't read the FS blitz) and of course the rookies have to come up to the speed of the game, which led to a LOT of drops in the first two games.

As our passing game kicks in, people will realize they can't afford to go all run defense against the Rams, and that will open up holes in the running game. One thing Bradford still needs to get better at is play-action - he's OK at it but he could stand to improve. But all the color men were very impressed with his accuracy - even Kosar - and Dierdorf was raving about it against Denver.

We lost the game, but we were winning 20-10 at halftime and clearly outplayed their starters, despite them running an absurd number of plays and going no huddle. And two teams going no huddle against us in the preseason should help the team adapt to it better.

Our two 1st rounders came up HUGE. It was good to see, and I was very happy with what I saw.

 

[Counselor Chris]

the first team looked good, gotta remember we were playing a Super Bowl contender.

 

[jacobarch]

Damn Retro nice analysis!!! You beat me to it, I was going to write up my usual analysis this morning but you pretty much covered everything I was going to. I guess I'll have to get off my butt on Sunday night and starting writing.

 

[shopson67]

the first team looked good, gotta remember we were playing a Super Bowl contender.

...who was playing with a star defender that will miss the first 6 games. Not sure why suspended players are allowed to practice (or why Denver would waste the practice time on him, since he'll be out for a month and a half). Then again, Denver came out with their first team offense in the second half (changing only the QB) to try to get back into a meaningless game. It's not like the first team offense lacked snaps in the first half, lol.

 

[cdumler7]

I think the run game will be fine - our last two opponents have been game planning while we were very vanilla, and both stacked the line with 8 in the box because they felt that we couldn't successfully pass with all our young receivers. Talent is one thing, but you need to know the game plan and make your adjustments (for example when Givens got hit in the back with the ball because he didn't read the FS blitz) and of course the rookies have to come up to the speed of the game, which led to a LOT of drops in the first two games.

As our passing game kicks in, people will realize they can't afford to go all run defense against the Rams, and that will open up holes in the running game. One thing Bradford still needs to get better at is play-action - he's OK at it but he could stand to improve. But all the color men were very impressed with his accuracy - even Kosar - and Dierdorf was raving about it against Denver.

We lost the game, but we were winning 20-10 at halftime and clearly outplayed their starters, despite them running an absurd number of plays and going no huddle. And two teams going no huddle against us in the preseason should help the team adapt to it better.

Our two 1st rounders came up HUGE. It was good to see, and I was very happy with what I saw.

Just a couple of remarks to this as a Broncos fan. The Broncos were playing a very vanilla just straight up man coverage defense with very few blitzes or stunts on the DL. Throw in the 2 starting DE's were both out for the game. I guess I don't understand when fans say "Well our team was playing vanilla but they weren't." Every team plays pretty vanilla in the preseason. Coaches are like the biggest conspiracy theorist in the country in they do not want to give any hint to an opposing team during preseason of what they might actually do during the season. A great example is on offense the Broncos have ran twice last year out of the pistol formation with Peyton in yet this whole preseason they have ran almost exclusively from this formation. My guess is they were just testing it out to see how successful it could actually be against a defense. They ran very few plays they actually ran during the season last year.

Next and I hinted at it above the Broncos sat quite a few starters in this game as a precaution for the upcoming season. Welker, Champ, Wolfe, Ayers, Clady (other than the first drive), Dreessen, and other than some spot play DRC. All of these guys either played one or two series or none at all in this last game. The Broncos have some major battles at some different positions that they were trying a ton of different guys at different positions to see who is going to make this final roster and at what kind of role they will have with this team.

I will say I was impressed with the Rams and anybody who keeps talking like the NFC West is a 2 team race is crazy to ignore the Rams and even Arizona doesn't look like a bottom feeder. Good luck on your upcoming season. I would love to see you whoop up especially on Seattle and shut up some of their fans.

 

[cdumler7]

...who was playing with a star defender that will miss the first 6 games. Not sure why suspended players are allowed to practice (or why Denver would waste the practice time on him, since he'll be out for a month and a half). Then again, Denver came out with their first team offense in the second half (changing only the QB) to try to get back into a meaningless game. It's not like the first team offense lacked snaps in the first half, lol.

They were trying to get a picture of what Os could do with the first team unit because behind the 2nd team OL he had been running for his life all preseason. That is all that was about.

 

[demiurge]

Um, CD, you guys ran no huddle the entire first half. Manning had 34 pass attempts in 2 quarters. The Broncos D sold out against the run almost the entire game.

These are not 'vanilla' concepts - those were specific game plans aimed at beating the Rams. Its certainly possible the Broncos didn't go deep in their play book, but that wasn't a vanilla look by any means.

 

[Clayton]

I don't blame the Broncos for doing what they did, though. Peyton absolutely wants to run as many plays as possible....thats a really big focus for their offense from what I've heard. They also have a legit position battle at RB and one of the biggest factors was whether they could block the Rams pass rushers.

I also don't really blame them for using Von Miller because they probably assume that they'll be in the playoff hunt later on in the year and want to give Miller reps. Broncos are a Super Bowl or bust team.

 

[cdumler7]

Um, CD, you guys ran no huddle the entire first half. Manning had 34 pass attempts in 2 quarters. The Broncos D sold out against the run almost the entire game.

These are not 'vanilla' concepts - those were specific game plans aimed at beating the Rams. Its certainly possible the Broncos didn't go deep in their play book, but that wasn't a vanilla look by any means.

Then seriously you did not watch many Broncos games last year if you think that was complex. Yes they ran no huddle which is expected as they plan on doing that a lot during the season so might as well get the players used to going that speed in an actual game but the actual play calling was very vanilla in running underneath routes most of the game as that is what the Rams were giving them so just take 5 yards a play and move it down the field. Like I said they were trying to work a lot of different guys into the game to see how they would respond so I wouldn't expect the Broncos offense to look much like they did last night other than the way they ran the no huddle.

The D did not sell out against the run. They did spend most of the game in the base defense of 4-3 so there were usually 3 linebackers on the field but that was more because the Broncos are having to test out the linebacking core and see how it will function without Von Miller for these first six games. The Broncos last year were a top 3 team against the run in both yards per game and yards per carry so they have a very good DL to stop the run and very good linebackers that know how to flow to the ball. They didn't need to sell out to stop the run. Throw in the run game probably will be the major flaw of the Rams this year. Even most of you have admitted that the run game could struggle so the fact that the Broncos were stopping it shouldn't have shocked you. Top 3 run defense going against a mediocre run team usually means they will stop the run. Throw in if they were selling out for the run that usually opens things up down the field yet they didn't give up many passing yards as well. Defensively it really was about as vanilla as I have seen them. I think they were more complex last week against the Seahawks than they were this week.

 

[Clayton]

I also don't think the Rams were trying to run the ball. They were trying to pass it and that became a necessity once penalties and drops ran rampant

 

[Vitamike]

I think the one play we need to make going forward is the pass play when Pettis got his CB turned around on a 1 on 1 situation by the goal line and Bradford led him about 2 yards too much. That has to be a TD.

Re-Living the game now and if you can, go back and look at it again you might agree.

Pettis gets the CB completely turned around and heads for the sideline and for some reason looks back over his LEFT shoulder....

Why?

His defender he turns around is on his left side and he should have looked over his right shoulder, away from the defender. Had he done that, the pass would have been perfect. As it was, Austin does a 360 himself adjusting to the ball and so I agree, it ends up short however it's on Austin.

Yea Clayton. That is the exact play I was referring to in my analysis. Sammie was late alot when he was in there. He was just holding the ball too long and when the Broncos had excellent coverage he didn't take it down and scramble because Sammie is pretty good at scrambling.

Again, if you look at it once more, you will see Sam held the ball a mere 2 seconds, was able to step into the pass but still took a shot from 6'5" 325 lb'er Kevin Vickerson, any longer and it would have been a sack.

While I agree that should have been a TD and I really like Austin Pettis, that was totally on Austin.

Now on the next play on 3rd and 7, Sam probably gets a PI call if he gets the ball close to Austin in the end zone, as I'm sure the pass was ruled un-catchable, so no PI.

Dierdorff calls it a hold on Duke Ihenacho, however the hold occurs just about when the ball the ball is thrown in the air so it probably needs to be ruled PI and the ball can't be overthrown in that scenario to get the PI call.

Those holding calls/PI calls are iffy at best when the hold occurs just as the ball is getting released. But either way if the pass is close we have first and goal from the 2.5 yard line.