Denver Broncos and Bye week coaches film analysis

It's never fun to watch your team get completely dominated in every phase of the game. But, that's what happened last Sunday night.

Our starters were missing - and it showed.
I'm really only going to look at the first 3 quarters, because, nothing mattered after the end of the 3rd Qtr.

We'll first start with the positives on offense and work to the negatives and the same with the defense.

Offense:
Positives: Most of Ck's struggles weren't necessarily in reading coverage. When I saw the game live, I thought he had a worse game than he did. Looking at the film, he was in a tough spot most of the night. He did miss a couple throws, but, because of the problems on defense, Denver decided that they were going to try and take away our passing game. Something we haven't seen from many teams. early on in the first half, they played a lot of 2-man coverage, they played a lot of man coverage in general. I think this caught us fairly off guard because hardly anyone tries this defense with us. I'm not sure VD is 100% yet, because, usually when a team plays this defense against us, VD will eat them up all day long. But, he struggled with some of his routes gaining separation because his hips were a little high in/out of his breaks. His routes weren't as sharp as I'm used to seeing them. This gave Denver an advantage early on. Ck did make some good throws to receiver's in 1-1 coverage. But, he was under pressure all night.

Denver's D-line overwhelmed out line most of the night. We couldn't run the ball at all, even against 7 man fronts - which really hurt our passing game. When Denver knew we were going to pass, they were blitzing often while allowed their talented corners to play sticky man coverage. Ck and the receivers still made some great throws and catches, but, you just can't hope for those all night. We weren't able to run the ball, or get CK out in space to take advantage of Denver's aggressiveness. Staley, in particular, played rather poorly. One of the worst games I've seen from him. He got beat in the run game and passing game. I think the loss of Iupati had something to do with it. It seemed like he and Looney weren't in sync throughout the night. There were times, in the run game, where it looked like Staley thought he was gonna get more help on some combo blocks and other things.

In reality, there aren't many teams who are going to be able to take on Denver when the defense is so overwhelmed. This was a game where everything that could go bad leading up to the game went bad and anything that could've got right for us, didn't.

I think we got down so much in the first half that, we were forced out of our element and couldn't keep pace. So, by the 2nd half, Denver put their guys in man coverage with a single safety and brought pressure on almost every down. When I was counting off time to pressure - which is the time Ck had before defenders started to flash towards him uncovered, it was under 2.5 seconds. So, there were some plays where, if he had had at least 3 seconds, he could've made them. But, Denver's pressure was relentless. When you're on the road, in a loud stadium hyped up over Manning's record and a Sunday night game, losing the pieces we did, we didn't stand a chance.

So, I won't spend too much time in this game overall, because I don't think it's very indicative of who we are as a football team or what we can do. That was really a positives and negatives section.... but, since it was kind of a little bit of both game.....

Defense:
Positives: We didn't allow 49 points......

I have a hard time putting much of this at Fangio's feet. I saw us mix up our coverage a lot and none of it worked to fool Manning - he's just that good. We tried quarters, cover 2 zone, cover 2 man, cover 1 man, cover 1 lurk, cover 3 zone, cover 6 zone. None of it worked. There were breakdowns in communication, guys were over-matched, and we couldn't get pressure of any kind on Manning. We did alright against the run game - for the most part. We did give up a huge run, but, our starting front 7 weren't even in on that play. Our defense had gotten so wore down by that point, we were trying to sub guys in. It was like watching a pre-season game where one team has their starters in and the other is playing their backups.....

The defense was playing against a master QB who's craft of the position might be the best there has ever been. When you look at how far ahead Peyton Manning is than even the best TD throwers in the league, it shows you how far above everyone else he is at playing the position. Rodgers, Brees, Brady - not even close in TD's thrown. His ability to move the zone defense with his head is textbook and incredible to watch. His ability to identify the leverage for his receivers in man-coverage is amazing.

Negatives: There were a lot! Our LB's were a huge liability in coverage. Not just on their individual guys, but, in their middle zones when the rest of the team was in man-coverage. Brock really struggled in this game. He got turned around several times, got bullied by D. Thomas when he tried to get physical and gave up the TD to Welker. Our pass rush was non-existent and was pretty much a non-factor.

Overall - it was a sucky game. So, I won't be spending a ton of time on this game as I don't think there's really that much to glean from it. It was a game and a situation I don't think we'll see again for a very long time so, not much good information. I'll touch of some of the missed opportunities and some of the defensive breakdowns and some of the things that went well, but, for the most part, I won't spend as much time as I normally do on a game. Instead, when I move on, I'll be trying to do what our team is doing this week - self scouting and review of the first 7 weeks.

Great post. Due to the circumstances with our defense, where we were playing, and who we were playing, found it difficult to put much if any blame on Fangio. You watched the film, I didn't. There were so many issues that contributed to our defense getting steam rolled.

Defensively it was not about what we should have done, it was about what we couldn't do...

Here's a major breakdown in commincation


This was a key play in the game early on. It was 2nd and long and we had a chance to set up a 3rd and long on the first drive of the game. We're playing man-coverage with a single safety and a middle LB shallow middle zone. We have Dontae Johnson at the bottom lined up against a RB and Demaryius Thomas in tight with Wilhoite in coverage and Cox on the TE. Either Johnson or Cox should've switched with Wilhoite on his coverage. There is no way I could see Fangio wanting Wilhoite on D. Thomas 1-1.

You see our guys locking in on their man-coverage. That's one way you can tell it's not zone, they're not looking at the QB or other routes, they're locking on to their guys. So, Denver has Thomas on Wilhoite.


Wilhoite is trying to maintain some outside leverage as the only help he has is towards the middle, but, Thomas is too fast for him to really play it effectively and Thomas gains a lot of separation to the inside. Welker takes a short in and Borland tries to attack the short in route which opens even more of the middle for Thomas.

You see how much separation Thomas gained, that mixed with Borland trying to jump the short in, made this way too easy. Thomas catches the ball on the run.


Thomas gains 37 yards. This is why we try and keep everything in front of us. Willis and Bowman are great at this. They get depth on their drops and allow the shorter throws so that you don't give up these kinds of plays.

that's where losing Patrick Willis hurts ^ and makes a huge difference, and is a huge drop off with Borland

Kevin Wilhoite woulda shut that down

IMO this game is COMPLETELY different if even Aldon Smith were playing.

Question for THL and Jonny. When you look at the film, what do you see from Crabtree (besides the drops). Are teams focusing on stopping him, or is he just not getting open? For the life of me, I can't figure out how Stevie Johnson would mirror his production with half the playing time. For a guy who is expected to carry the offense, and is playing for his next contract, he is seemingly invisible for most of the season.

Originally posted by TheRatMan13:
IMO this game is COMPLETELY different if even Aldon Smith were playing.

Question for THL and Jonny. When you look at the film, what do you see from Crabtree (besides the drops). Are teams focusing on stopping him, or is he just not getting open? For the life of me, I can't figure out how Stevie Johnson would mirror his production with half the playing time. For a guy who is expected to carry the offense, and is playing for his next contract, he is seemingly invisible for most of the season.

mediocre

Originally posted by TheRatMan13:
IMO this game is COMPLETELY different if even Aldon Smith were playing.

Question for THL and Jonny. When you look at the film, what do you see from Crabtree (besides the drops). Are teams focusing on stopping him, or is he just not getting open? For the life of me, I can't figure out how Stevie Johnson would mirror his production with half the playing time. For a guy who is expected to carry the offense, and is playing for his next contract, he is seemingly invisible for most of the season.

That's something I'm going to look at over the coming week

Here's a play where, we do just about everything right and still get beat. NCommand, this is also for you ;) - not in a rude way though.


So, we're going to run a cover 1 man, this time, we're going to drop an OLB into flat coverage and out MLB, Borland, is in man-coverage, but the RB stays in to block so he ends up in a middle zone. Reid is obviously trying to give help to Johnson on the wide side of the field as well. Manning love to take advantage of the wide side of the field against man coverage.


We're trying to get physical with a jam at the LOS since it's 3rd and short. But Welker's off the line in the slot, so, we're not able to jam him at the start of his route.


As Peyton drops back he see's Borland stay in coverage so he knows the slant's taken away. This leaves him with only one option - Welker.


you see how we're trying to get physical with the WR's. But, Manning understands Welker's leverage and knows how he'll work that leverage. He uses his head to draw Lynch into a flatter drop than a deeper one.


Welker uses his leverage to work Bethea up the field so he can break and create separation. This is another area where our depth hurt us. But, not many guys can keep up with a shifty Welker - that's why we had Lynch over there for help on the short out. But, Manning moves him just enough. When the ball's thrown it's a small window to get it into. He has to drop it over Lynch and right at the sideline.




He places the pass perfectly. Sometimes, you just can't beat an elite QB on the top of his game.

Could it be? Press man!?

I think roman did ok, I'm not usually a fan but he did ok. I thought Kap made some real good plays.

To me the difference was Ware. We needed to be perfect on offense and he was a monster all night. Much better than he's been the last few years. Some people say, let's run shorter routes! We were, and Kap missed Ellington for a short first down on his interception. We needed to be perfect and we just weren't. On to the next game.

Most of this could have been negated with an effective pass rush. If we played press man and set up some blitz packages (as RexRyan did last week against Denver), we would've or could've had considerable success. Again, we relied on our front 4 to pressure Manning, and set all our guys back, thinking that more guys covering ground would close gaps available to Manning for easy completions.

Mission failed. Manning is a surgeon, and if you give him enough time, he'll find the open guy no matter how tight the coverage. This game was not lost because of Manning, but rather in the trenches. Our oline could not protect Kap, and our cline could not pressure Peyton. Simple as that.

When the schedule came out this was a game I gave a 50/50. Then the injuries hit and Denver began playing at a very high level...better than last year. But even though it shouldn't have been surprising, I was hoping that the 9ers, as an NFC team, would out tough the Broncos. Didn't happen...oh well, no big deal...lost an away game under horrible circumstances.

Originally posted by defenderDX:
that's where losing Patrick Willis hurts ^ and makes a huge difference, and is a huge drop off with Borland

I remember a few times in the past where either Willis or Bow were 1on1 with a receiver, and it worked in our favor. Didn't Bowman stop a pass to Roddy White on the last play in ATL in the playoffs?

Here's another example of just how tough Manning is to beat.


Here we're playing man coverage out of our base personnel. We have Bethea on Welker - I think a lot of that had to do with Ward being out of the game. The LB's are playing, "back/TE out to their side". Meaning, they're in man coverage if a back or TE flares out on their side. But, Denver doesn't send either of them out in a pass patter, so, they all end up playing underneath zone coverage.


The run fake pulls all the LB's up for a step, but, they recover well.

You see the LB's dropping in zone coverage. It takes away the deep crossing route Manning wanted.


Manning doesn't panic though, he keeps his head down the middle of the field. This causes all the LB's to keep dropping towards that direction and Reid heads that way too. On the backside, the receiver is able to drive Brock upfield to open up his inside cut.


Because Manning's head kept all the defenders flowing that way, it opens up a space for the backside receiver to work.

The space he had was again, just enough. He gets the ball over the LB into the space for his receiver. We had 8 men in coverage against 3 receivers and he still beat us, just by his head movement and knowing that his backside receiver was going to have inside leverage.