Tag Archives: 2017 NFL Season

Denver Defense Plays Like It’s 2015 Again

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“Little too close for comfort there at the end.”

My buddy Ryan’s synopsis of the Broncos’ win over the Raiders hit the nail right on the head. That was more or less my first thought after the game concluded, as it was just an ugly win overall and much closer at the end than it needed to be. But after reflecting on it for a bit, I remembered that the 2015 season was littered with ugly wins and that turned out pretty well for the Broncos.

Not to say that the Broncos can make it that far this year without improving in some crucial areas. They can’t. All I’m saying is that it’s a reminder that the defense is and has been the backbone of this team, and that the offense doesn’t have to be the best in the league for the Broncos to win most Sundays. For instance, if McManus makes that field goal he missed yesterday and Siemian and co. come away with just one more touchdown, the outcome of the game isn’t even close to being in doubt. And I don’t think it’s too much to ask of this offense to score 20+ points per game and give their defense a cushion to work with, especially when it’s already happened twice this season.

We’ll see if they are improved or not after the bye, but for one week at least, we were all back in the glorious year of 2015, watching the dominant Denver defense close the door for another hard fought win. Almost brings a tear to my eye.

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Broncos Lose Their Way in Buffalo

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Welp, that was about as frustrating a loss as there is in the NFL. On a day when the Broncos needed to dig deep to overcome a resilient foe, they came up empty. And for a team that has made so much progress from the mediocrity that defined their 2016 season, Sunday was a step backward.

Games like this will happen. Buffalo has never been a kind venue for Denver, as the Broncos haven’t won there since 2007, and one glance at the scoreboard will show that there were upsets and near upsets aplenty for week 3, so it could’ve just been one of those days. However, the fact remains that the Broncos had plenty of chances to reverse their fortunes and come away with a hard-fought win, and they just didn’t get it done. It’s really as simple as that.

Does this mean that the Broncos are no better than last year’s squad and are destined to miss the playoffs again? Of course not. It just means that they have a lot of things to improve on if they want to keep pace with Kansas City and Oakland, despite the latter getting routed last night by Washington. They’ll have a chance to do the same thing to the Raiders next week, and so long as they get back to what made them successful in the first two games, there’s no reason why that can’t happen.

Hopefully it does. On the bright side, the Raiders lost on Sunday too. It wasn’t all bad!

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Power Ranking Rumblings: Week 3

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Hello and welcome back for another week of us critiquing everyone’s favorite sports channel to hate, ESPN! Every week ESPN posts NFL Power Rankings that are generally terrible but not as bad as the commentary they provide to the rankings. So Jesse and I decided it is our duty to endlessly mock the low effort that ESPN put forth.

This week we are doing things a bit different by providing ESPN’s commentary right here on the blog with our personal commentary right below so you don’t have to click between the two articles. But for those of you who want to see the actual rankings, feel free to check them out here:

Week 3 NFL Power Rankings: Let’s be optimistic

And thanks for tuning in. Enjoy!

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And Just Like That, Broncos’ Football is Back

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Before Sunday, it had been a hot minute since we’d last seen the Broncos play anything closely resembling a complete game. I’m thinking maybe back in 2015 against the Packers? That’s a long damn time. Then they went out and did something that basically no one outside of their locker room thought they could do: for four quarters, they largely bullied and battered the beleaguered Cowboys en route to a 42-17 blowout.

It was the brand of Broncos’ football that we’ve all come to know and love, and the one that has typically been most successful for the team. Run the ball with authority, take what they give you in the passing game and play great defense.  It was a beautiful sight to behold and reestablished the Broncos as legitimate contenders in the AFC.

And though there’s plenty of credit to go around, we may as well start with everyone’s favorite seventh-round quarterback.

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Power Ranking Ramblings: Week 2

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(Disclaimer: most of what you see below was written a year ago, when we first started doing these rankings. We didn’t see the need to completely rewrite it from scratch just because it’s a new season. We aren’t lazy. You’re lazy!)

Welcome back for another year of Power Ranking Ramblings! The rankings that we crank out every week are identical in order to the nonsensical ones that ESPN spews out every week. This is partly because creating power rankings from scratch is a painstakingly lengthy process and Kevin gave me the death glare when I suggested that we come up with our own. However, the main reason we do it that way is because ESPN’s rankings are… well, they are just awful. You will seldom come across something as overly biased and ill-conceived as ESPN’s opinion on who the best teams in the league are. And it’s a lot of fun to call them out on this, so the point of our rankings is to rip on ESPN’s version as much as possible.

Or at least that’s how it started. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but it was a fairly abysmal first week of action for the NFL. Bad officiating, bad games and most importantly, bad teams. So while making fun of the Worldwide Leader in Sports and its rampant stupidity is always a good time, we can scarcely allow the league’s overall mediocrity to skid by unscathed.

Feel free to check out ESPN’s rankings here:

Week 2 NFL Power Rankings: Overreaction edition

And thanks for tuning in. Enjoy!

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Hopefully, the Broncos Aren’t Who We Thought They Were

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A good rule of thumb is to not overreact to week 1 of the NFL season. You don’t wanna get too high or too low, unless you’re a Bengals fan and you just watched your quarterback toss four picks and your team get shutout. Then you can overreact with impunity. For the rest of us, it’s important to stay on an even keel. Case in point? The Bills, Jaguars and Rams are all currently in first place in their respective divisions.

That’s why I’m trying not to read too much into the Broncos’ nail-biting win last night over the Chargers. On the one hand, it was encouraging to see the team eek out a close game over a division rival in Vance Joseph’s first game as head coach. On the other, it was eerily similar to last year’s opener against the Panthers. The Broncos almost blow a fourth quarter lead, only to be bailed out when they ice the other team’s kicker and then he misses his second attempt.

One game a season does not make, and there were enough promising signs to suggest that the Broncos are improved from last year’s squad that missed the playoffs. That’s why, for now, I’m not going to get too concerned that they may not have improved enough on the flaws that hindered them in 2016, and will happily take the win. More thoughts and analysis (mostly happy) after the jump.

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Assessing the Broncos’ Draft Needs

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Trying to predict which players an NFL team will take in a draft is a fruitless endeavor. In the age of social media, there are plenty of rumors fueling the fire, but good luck seeing the truth through the smoke. It’s a lot of fun though, which is why Pegboards will be presenting its fifth annual mock draft in a couple days. You know, the one where we spend more time making fun of each other for our bad picks than trying to provide any semblance of useful insight. Think of it as mock draft rehab.

Anyway, what isn’t hard and in a way can be equally enjoyable is figuring out what a team needs to get out of a draft, so in the meantime I’ll be going position by position and taking a stab at why the Broncos may be addressing that part of their team on Thursday. I was just going to cover the positions of need and then I realized that the Broncos are rather needy and require all kinds of help. More than you would think since they are barely a year removed from hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.

But that’s life in the NFL, no? Not for long. Let’s get to it.

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Romo’s Back Could Support Broncos Playoff Run (or it Could Break by August)

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Ah, the NFL offseason. Where the rumors are rampant and the desperation even more so. If your team is active in free agency and loves making big splashes, then the start of the league year is like a second Christmas. For us Broncos fans, John Elway may as well be Santa Claus, because he usually delivers an assortment of shiny new toys every March. Except last year, but hey he helped bring us a Super Bowl. How greedy are you people?

Anyway, there is one rumor that keeps coming up that I just can’t ignore. That of course is the prevailing theory that the Broncos are the front-runners to be Tony Romo’s rebound if the Cowboys file for divorce. You never know what will happen with these kinds of relationships, especially in Texas, but it seems likely that Romo and the Cowboys have reached a crossroads. The question of the day is whether or not Romo is even worth pursuing, or if at this point he is just damaged goods.

Let’s be clear on one thing: signing Peyton Manning was as good as punching an annual ticket for a first-round bye, and clearing a path to the Super Bowl. Signing Tony Romo is more like scheduling your annual eye-exam a year in advance, but then that appointment comes around and it’s not that great of a fit for you anymore. You may not have liked that joke very much (stay with me, I’m warming up), but you can at least agree with me when I say that there is a very clear difference between bringing in the Sheriff and bringing in a guy that probably dresses like one.

So here’s what I’m going to do: I’ll gave you three reasons for why signing Tony Romo would be beneficial for the Broncos, in my humble opinion, and three reasons for why it would make me extremely nervous. You with me so far? Okay, let’s do it.

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