The Denver Broncos are headed to the AFC Championship game for the second time in three years, and yet all I seem to hear is negativity. Why? What else did you expect?
If anybody entered Sunday’s game thinking Denver was going to blow out Pittsburgh, you just haven’t been watching the Broncos this season. This is what they do: They make Broncos Country sweat it out. As Patrick Smyth pointed out on Monday, the Broncos have played and won more one-score games than just about anybody in NFL history.
Broncos DC Wade Phillips was DL coach on '78 HOU team that had an NFL-record 11 wins by 8 pts or less. '15 Broncos are 2nd w/10 such wins.
— Patrick Smyth (@psmyth12) January 18, 2016
Now, either that means the Broncos are just incredibly lucky, or John Elway has simply crafted, as he would say, the ultimate “kicking-and-screaming” team. A lot of the players spoke up on the mentality it takes to play and succeed in so many close games, and, to a man, they all said it was a major advantage.
I guess I’d have to agree. In the NFL, and especially in the playoffs, it’s not always about who’s the best team; it’s about who knows how to win, even when they are the worse team. From start to finish, Denver has proven just that.
At this time of year, all that matters is that you’re still playing, and the Denver Broncos most certainly are.
Still, that doesn’t take away from the fact that Sunday’s matchup was extremely interesting, if not heart-attack inducing. Let’s take a closer look at exactly what went down, using some of Pro Football Focus’ advanced analytics to help us:
Michael Schofield? Michael Schofield!
There are three people in this world Broncos Country universally despises: Tom Brady, Phillip Rivers … and Michael Schofield.
Harsh, yes, but kind of true, too.
But really, he’s been a mess. And honestly, I probably feel more sorry for him than I do hate him. He didn’t ask for this; he didn’t ask John Elway to draft him in the third round. Michael Schofield simply isn’t a very good football player, and when he was pressed into action this season, it showed.
He gave up nine sacks (2nd most), eight quarterback hits (12th most) and 40 pressures (4th most) during the regular season, and he didn’t even play during the Broncos’ first three games. And when Gary Kubiak finally pulled him for Tyler Polumbus in Week 17, it may have been a bigger move than the switch to Peyton Manning. Broncos Country was ecstatic at the idea of watching a Broncos game where Schofield wasn’t moonwalking into the backfield every time a defensive end bull-rushed him.
Then, after all that, Kubiak decided to start Schofield again, and Denver was left dumbfounded. Apparently, though, he knew what he was doing.
According to PFF, only four players on the Broncos offense scored higher than +1.0 (a green grade), and Michael Schofield was one of them. In fact, next to Evan Mathis‘ team-high 6.3 grade, Schofield’s 2.7 grade was second highest on offense.
Well, what do you know?
Easily, this was Schofield’s best game of the season, but it sort of makes sense. Schofield only had one other “green game” on the season, and it happened the last time the Broncos faced off against the Steelers (1.2).
Maybe this is a sign of things to come, or maybe this is a fluke. I’m not sure. But if I was Gary Kubiak, I’d still have Polumbus locked and ready to go next Sunday; take away the two Pittsburgh games, and Schofield has scored a negative grade in 10 of his 12 starts.
Mental lapses killed the Broncos secondary
There’s a reason why the Denver Broncos have the No. 1 pass defense in the NFL, but for whatever reason, that never seems to translate against the Steelers.
Denver’s secondary has only given up 300 yards passing twice, and they both came by the hands of Ben Roethlisberger. But when you look at how Big Ben and the Steelers accrued those yards through the air, the two games are very different.
In the first go-round, Big Ben and Antonio Brown were simply just too good; they couldn’t be stopped. Even on a lot of Brown’s big catches, Chris Harris Jr. was in outstanding coverage; the ball just wasn’t defensible.
The opposite was true on Sunday. This time, when the Steelers succeed, it was thanks to mental lapses by the Broncos secondary, leading to huge chunk plays that took Pittsburgh down the field.
For instance, Bradley Roby dropped back into coverage 39 times on Sunday, and for the vast majority of those plays, he was great. In fact, Big Ben didn’t even look his direction on 36 of those snaps, only targeting Roby three times all game. But when he did, it did not go well …
On those three targets, Roby gave up three receptions for 116 yards, an average of nearly 40 yards per reception, which, as I’m sure you know, is not good.
But in reality, those weren’t necessarily bad plays by Roby; they were dumb plays. The same goes for the 44-yard reception Harris allowed to Sammie Coats and the 23-yard reception Talib allowed to Martavis Bryant. Most all of those breakdowns came in zone coverage, where the Broncos cornerbacks either got lost in space, gave too much cushion or took the wrong man.
Yes, that’s their fault, but it’s also a product of the fact that they’ve been almost entirely a man-to-man team this season; they just didn’t know what they were doing. The same happened when Talib let Tyrell Williams get loose for an 80-yard touchdown in Week 17.
While in man-to-man, though, the Broncos were about as effective as ever on Sunday, but their zone coverage is a real issue, and it could really rear its ugly head next weekend against the Patriots.
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[adrotate banner=”10″]Winning with four
In my eyes, the Broncos had two ways to go about defending Ben Roethlisberger on Sunday: (1) Blitz the crap out of him, test his health and force him to succeed under duress or (2) lay off, rush with just four and let your secondary stifle any and all passing lanes.
Wade Phillips and his defense went with option two, and I guess you’d have to say it worked. I mean, they won.
Of the 40 times the Steelers dropped back to pass, Denver only blitzed nine times (23 percent of the time). Compare that to the last time the Broncos and Steelers faced off, where Denver blitzed on 33 of 58 passing plays (57 percent).
And while the Broncos only got three sacks on the day, they combined for a total of 20 quarterback hurries, almost all of which came from Denver’s front four; that’s evidenced by PFF’s grades, which had Von Miller (4.3), Derek Wolfe (3.3), DeMarcus Ware (3.3), Sylvester Williams (2.5) and Malik Jackson (2.4) as Denver’s top-five defense players.
It’ll be interesting to see what Denver does next week against New England. The last time they faced off, Denver blitzed Tom Brady on 36 percent of his drop backs, but they’ll need to get to him on Sunday if they want to have any chance of slowing down the Patriots offense.
We’ve seen throughout the years that the best way to stop Tom Brady is to pressure him, and pressure him quickly; it’s more true today than ever before. With guys like Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola and Rob Gronkowski dominating the middle of the field with short, quick routes, Brady is getting the ball out faster than just about anybody. If he’s not pressured, there’s no stopping him.