Raven's Week

[Mingo]

The addition of Mathis and the Kubiak offense should work against this Raven's team. With Suggs and Elvis coming from the outside - the points of attack need to be up the middle and at Elvis. A steady diet of that and then play action and boom -goes the dynamite.

Ravens on Offense - Make Flacco beat you - certainly don't let Justin Forsett beat you. Collapsing the pocket with Miller and Ware - followed by Barrett and Ray - will make for a tough Flacco day at Mile High.

I'd say - the Manning 7td performance against the Ravens to open the 2013 season -is one of my favorite Bronco games of all time. That Bronco team - that night was easily the best team in football.

 

[TDs3nOut]

Stiff test for Sambrailo in his first game, having to block Suggs and Doom. Hope he is up to the task. Probably have some help from a TE, I suppose.

 

[randymon]

Stiff test for Sambrailo in his first game, having to block Suggs and Doom. Hope he is up to the task. Probably have some help from a TE, I suppose.

Think you'll see that quite often Td especially if he gives up sack early. Hopefully the rook holds is own and they have enough confidence they don't need to throw an extra body in there to help out on passing downs. Go Ty Go.

 

[58crash]

Something tells me Screens will be key in the next 4 games DT , Sanders being hurt and contract problems and Manning timing off with both of them and add in our young OL we will want to get our young OL feeling good about them self's and Screens and running game bolds well for this .

DT in his Smoker Screens makes for near impossible task for a DB on the opposing team ..

 

[58crash]

Also if you go and watch some of Kubiak videos at DB.com you will hear Gary with his Guard down for the first time being a Coach .. Before this it was a waste of time ..Guard up before that ..

 

[randymon]

God Crash I hope you don't mean wr screens. The fact that Peyton and DT are obviously don't have their timing down yet and the inexperience on that O line at this point would not bode well for Denver vs Ravens at least in wks one. I think they better stick to smash mouth run gm and aggressive D than get cutesie with that play until they gain some continuity. God I hope they don't try to work that early in game. Disaster comes to mind.

 

[Draft Crazy]

Pumped.

Gotta stop Suggs and Dumervil and I think we will be fine.

 

[LGM]

Crash has some weird fetish with the wr screens. Did they even run any this preseason? Either way, I expect to see us run the ball more consistently, with little flair passes to the back.

 

[58crash]

God Crash I hope you don't mean wr screens. The fact that Peyton and DT are obviously don't have their timing down yet and the inexperience on that O line at this point would not bode well for Denver vs Ravens at least in wks one. I think they better stick to smash mouth run gm and aggressive D than get cutesie with that play until they gain some continuity. God I hope they don't try to work that early in game. Disaster comes to mind.

It looked great the one time I seen it in in the Preseason DT took it up field for a huge gain

 

[cdumler7]

Very excited that we have finally made it to actual games that matter!

To me this is one of those games that you run the heck out of the football. They no longer have Ngata plugging up the middle, Timmy Jernigan his replacement is dealing with a knee injury, and the strength of our OL is that of run blocking from what I have seen. This takes pressure off of Manning and slows down any kind of pass rush with them having to respect that we run the football. Plus this to me then keeps one of their greatest weapons on defense in Dumervil on the sideline as they know he is a liability in the run game.

Defensively just keep doing what we have been doing. We have plenty of talent at the Corner position to then be aggressive in sending some blitzes but especially getting creative in the front 7. The other important thing will be to keep the edges. Forsett was at his best last year when pushing towards the edges. Thankfully both Ware and Miller are great at holding up the edge. This could be though where we miss Wolfe a bit as that was a huge strength of his was forcing runs back up the middle when coming his way.

Special Teams it boils down to don't make the stupid mistake that turns the game.

 

[Draft Crazy]

Not to be forgotten. Steve Smith and Aqib Talib HATE each other.... Dating back to a fight they had Talib's rookie year when Dante Wesley took our Buccaneers PR Cliton Smith. Barber had to hold back Talib as he went after Smith. The two have been at each others throats since.

 

[cdumler7]

Not to be forgotten. Steve Smith and Aqib Talib HATE each other.... Dating back to a fight they had Talib's rookie year when Dante Wesley took our Buccaneers PR Cliton Smith. Barber had to hold back Talib as he went after Smith. The two have been at each others throats since.

Very excited to see these two battle. Aqib Talib seems like a new man this year. I've seen more fight in him so far this training camp and Preseason. Should be a good battle. Haven't heard whether the rookie Perriman will be playing for the Ravens.

 

[cdumler7]

So Milehighreport has a pretty good preview for the upcoming game. They go using preseason PFF grades to show where some possible strengths and weaknesses could be. Now it is obviously preseason so have to take this with a grain of salt but it does give a good idea where the Broncos might try to attack.

First up was Broncos pass rush against Baltimore's pass blocking. The strength for the Ravens is the Center/RG combo of Zuttah and Yanda. Weaknesses for them were the two tackles. Which hey that weakness sets up pretty darn well for us with Miller and Ware both shining bright during the preseason working off the edge. The one concern I have here is hopefully we don't see a repeat of 2012 playoffs where Flacco was able to step right up in the pocket every time. Thankfully this is where Malik Jackson should show up very well. He will be working against Osemele who had a +.9 pass blocking grade on 70 snaps where Jackson had a +2.7 pass rush grade on only 42 snaps.

Pass rush looks like a huge advantage for the Broncos. If the Broncos can get up early and force Flacco to have to beat us with his arm then to me that should be game over Broncos win in that type of scenario.

Next was Ravens run defense against our new run offense. They have actually done very well at stopping the run. Overall they posted a +4.8 against the run. The Broncos OL thankfully posted a +6.9 in run blocking this preseason. This match up could get interesting. We haven't seen Mathis yet so that could make a huge difference but overall this could be a push between the two groups. WE will get some yards and they will have some plays they stuff.

Now onto the Broncos biggest advantage at least according to the preseason. Peyton Manning vs. the Ravens secondary. So far the secondary that some of the Ravens fans have been saying should be so much better this year hasn't shown it yet. They posted a -16.2 grade in pass coverage in the preseason. Now you might think this is the back ups just stinking but a majority of that grade was against the starters. Kyle Arrington had a -.3 grade, Jimmy Smith a -.8 grade, Will Hill a -3.0 grade, and worst of all Kendrick Lewis -4.5 grade. To me that shows they are especially vulnerable up the middle. Think back to 2013 when Manning threw for 7 touchdowns and he abused those safeties all night long. If there is a place for the Broncos to attack that would be the spot.

So essentially we stop the run and get an early lead this game could quickly get out of hand in our favor. They establish the run early though it could be a close one.

 

[SpringStein]

Will the Kubiak "familiarity" help the Ravens or the Broncos?

The Ravens are very familiar with Kubes tendancies and preferences
OR
The Ravens supposedly haven't made a lot of changes to their offensive philosophy - so Kubiak might know their strengths and weaknesses.

 

[randymon]

Very excited to see these two battle. Aqib Talib seems like a new man this year. I've seen more fight in him so far this training camp and Preseason. Should be a good battle. Haven't heard whether the rookie Perriman will be playing for the Ravens.

might not be surprised if Harris is on Smith this time. IDK?

 

[cdumler7]

Will the Kubiak "familiarity" help the Ravens or the Broncos?

The Ravens are very familiar with Kubes tendancies and preferences
OR
The Ravens supposedly haven't made a lot of changes to their offensive philosophy - so Kubiak might know their strengths and weaknesses.

I think it favors the Broncos. Since the Ravens are keeping so much of their old play book Kubiak should know by formations and what they like to do what play might be coming. On the other end of the spectrum while the Broncos have taken Kubiak's playbook they have also kept much of the old playbook that works well with Manning. I said this on the general board in that Kubiak might love to run over the right side on 3rd and 2 most of the time as that was the strength of the Ravens run blockers but with the Broncos Manning in those situations would rather pass and run a quick slant or something of that nature. So they can't read too much into what Kubiak has done in the past as they might run what Manning loves to do in those situations instead.

 

[cdumler7]

might not be surprised if Harris is on Smith this time. IDK?

That is very possible. I'm hoping Talib gets a few plays at least against him as I do think Talib would love to have that match up. Really I actually expect the Broncos to do a little of what they did last year in just keeping each of our corners on their own side unless there is a certain match up that lines up well with the talents of one of our corners over the other. I know most of us are upset with how the Broncos put Talib on Hilton during the playoffs but have to remember they did the same thing in the regular season game and Talib won that match up most of the time. Hilton only had 5 catches for 41 yards in that first game.

 

[Orange Crush77]

might not be surprised if Harris is on Smith this time. IDK?

I agree, I think Harris matches up better with Smith

 

[Orange Crush77]

We are going to stomp a mud hole in the Ravens collective asses. This D is going to win the game. No Ngata, no problem. Suggs is a monster, I'm sure Kubes will have something dialed up to nullify him. I'm actually glad a lot of pundits are sleeping on our heroes, the underdog role suits them well. No pressure, tremendous hunger is a great combo

 

[MileHigh64]

Just read an article that quoted Coach Harbaugh saying that their toughest challenge is not knowing how Kubiak is blending his offense with the one that Peyton has been running the last couple of years. He went on to say that team's playing the Broncos around week 4 or 5 will have the advantage that the Ravens won't have in week 1. I've thought all along that what we're about to see on Sunday night will be dramatically different than what we saw in the preseason. There will certainly still be the emphasis on the running game but I think formations and when they choose to run or pass will look very different than what we've seen this summer. Can't wait for this game! Go Broncos!

MH64