Sunday’s win over the Pittsburgh Steelers was huge. I know it may not seem that way right now. I know there are a lot of issues to dissect (we’ll get to those), and I know the Patriots look like a bigger roadblock than ever. But we won a playoff game, and we’ll be playing for an opportunity to go to the Super Bowl next weekend; there are 28 other teams that can’t say the same.
And really, would this opportunity have come any other way? That game was a microcosm of this whole season: Everything goes wrong, everybody gets angry and yet, in the end, everybody wins.
My predicted lifespan may have dropped significantly during the first three and a half quarters of Sunday’s game, but it’s all worth it today. I’ve seen too many disappointing Broncos playoff losses in my lifetime to every complain about a playoff win.
So, with all that out of the way, let’s try and breakdown what actually happened on Sunday, because the truth is that Denver will need to improve on that performance if they want to beat New England in just a few days.
Here are five takeaways from the Denver Broncos win over the Pittsburgh Steelers:
The drops …
If we had lost, this would have easily been one of the biggest topics of conversation on Monday morning. Even with a win, it’s pretty bad. What’s worse, though, is that this is no longer a fluke or a bad stretch; as far as I can tell, it is who the Broncos are.
From the season’s opening kickoff, the Broncos have been dropping footballs, and it was debilitating on Sunday. Pro Football Focus recorded the Broncos receivers as having five drops, but there were easily four or five more that should have been caught.
And it all comes back to the same thing: This offense can’t stop shooting itself in the foot. Whether it’s turnovers, missed protections or dropped passes, Denver’s offense hasn’t been able to get out of its own way all season. That has to change if they plan on winning these final two games.
Against the Patriots, the Broncos have to play a perfect game. They can’t drop passes on third down. They can’t turn over the ball. They can’t settle for field goals. If the Broncos are going to play in their eighth Super Bowl, they have capitalize on every opportunity.
This week, ever Broncos receiver needs to put in some quality time with the JUGS machine.
Zone Defense
I talked about this early today in our look through of the advanced analytics from yesterday’s game, but it’s something worth bringing up again. In the last few weeks, as Chris Harris has struggled with a shoulder injury, Wade Phillips has implemented more zone defense into Denver’s game plan, and it hasn’t really gone well.
This is a man-to-man team, these are man-to-man corners and all they’ve really played this season is man-to-man coverage. Consequently, they don’t seem very comfortable in zone.
Now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t play zone coverage; I think it’s because they haven’t.
Whether they’re getting lost in the mix, giving up too much cushion or taking the wrong guy, Denver has made several mental mistakes, leading to huge plays from the offense. On two occasions, Bradley Roby was supposed to have the deep outside in the Cover 3, but cut down on the short receiver, allowing what should have been his man to get open for a huge reception. The same thing happened in Week 17, when Aqib Talib allowed Tyrell Williams to break free for an 80-yard touchdown.
Again, in all of these cases, it’s much more of a dumb mistake than poor ability, but it’s crucial they get it fixed; Tom Brady won’t miss a wide open receiver next week.
Give C.J. the ball!
Man, what does Gary Kubiak have against C.J. Anderson? Heck, what does he have against the running game in general?
Heading into the fourth quarter, the Broncos had only rushed the ball 17 times, of which Anderson got seven. You could say it was because they were ineffective, but that’s not really fair; they weren’t given a real shot.
C.J. Anderson didn’t even get his first carry until the second quarter, but when he did, he was effective, rushing for 55 yards on seven carries (7.9 yards per carry).
I’ve given this stat several times over the last few weeks, but apparently it hasn’t sunk into the Broncos coaching staff: From Week 8 on, Anderson averaged 6.4 yards per carry (most in the NFL!) to finish out the regular season; Ronnie Hillman, meanwhile, only managed 3.8 yards per carry.
The Denver Broncos ABSOLUTELY do have a running game; they’ve just decided not to use it. Or, if they do decide to run the ball, they’re giving it to the wrong guy.
Over that same 10-week span, not only did Anderson receive far less attempts (85) than Hillman (141), but he received fewer snaps than 29 other running backs in the league. A bit odd for the guy leading the NFL in yards per carry, huh?
Even including Sunday’s game, C.J. Anderson has never received more than 15 carries in a game this season — he’s received fewer than 10 six times. Adversely, Hillman has received more than 15 carries five times this season (including against the Steelers on Sunday), yet since Week 8, he’s had four games where he’s averaged less than 3 yards per attempt.
Now, I like Ronnie Hillman, I think he’s a good change-of-pace back, but there is no reason why he should be getting the bulk of the carries over C.J. Anderson.
Please, Kubiak, give C.J. the ball!
Pressure
This is one I touched on earlier, too, but the Broncos made the interesting decision to only blitz Big Ben on 23 percent of his drop backs. That’s significantly lower than the 47 percent rate they had during their previous five games, and even lower than the 57 percent blitz rate they had in their first meeting with the Steelers.
My guess is that they believed, thanks to Big Ben’s shoulder injury, that Pittsburgh would be looking to get the ball out quickly, but that’s not really what happened. In fact, Big Ben took longer to throw this week (2.36 seconds) than he did last week (2.20 seconds). Really, it was right about on par with his season average (2.42 seconds).
The Broncos defenders were saying after the game, and they had been saying it all week, but Big Ben didn’t look any different than normal, and even with Antonio Brown out, that didn’t stop the Steelers from pushing the ball down field; Ben Roethlisberger‘s 9.2 yards per attempt led all quarterbacks last weekend by a large margin.
But whether or not it was the right decision not to blitz is a tough question to answer. On one hand, the Broncos won. On the other hand, Roethlisberger was able to stand in the pocket and slice Denver’s defense up for 339 yards.
I think, given Chris Harris was clearly struggling with a shoulder injury, it ended up being the right decision, but against the Patriots next weekend, the Broncos will need to bring the house. Tom Brady will get the best of them a few times, but the only chance the Broncos have of beating the Patriots is by getting to Brady early and often. If they give him the type of time they gave Big Ben, he’ll destroy any chance Denver has of returning to the Super Bowl.
This piece brought to you in part by …
[adrotate banner=”16″]Tempo, Tempo, Tempo!
There are two things that drive me absolutely crazy about this Broncos team. One of them, as I’ve already detailed, is that the Broncos refuse to give C.J. Anderson the football. The other, is that they refuse to push the tempo.
No joke, I’d rather see another Demaryius Thomas dropped pass than watch another drive where Anderson doesn’t get on the field and Peyton Manning huddles every play.
Why? Because those are the two things that have proven to work! Think back to every big offensive moment of the season, and you’ll be be looking back at a time where the Broncos sped up the pace and leaned on C.J. Anderson, no matter what quarterback was in the game. Yet, for whatever reason, Kubiak and the Broncos will go through two- and three-quarter stretches where they do neither.
The tempo works (a) because it gives the offensive line an advantage, and (b) it gives Peyton Manning an advantage. Not only can the defense not rotate lineman in and out, but they have a more difficult time disguising blitzes and coverages.
When the Broncos go up-tempo, Manning has all the time in the world to look around, read the defense and decide where he’s going to go pre-snap. That’s what’s made him great his whole career!
We keep talking about the Manning offense versus Kubiak offense, referring to the shotgun versus under-center, but the essence of the Manning offense is the up-tempo offense. So get back to it!