Tag Archives: Denver Broncos

Super Saints go Ballistic, Bengals are Atrocious

14 Wednesday Nov 2018

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Nothing much really happened in week ten of the NFL so maybe we should all just prepare ourselves for the upcoming Monday night matchup between the LA Rams and the Kansas City Chiefs? Not buying that… okay I guess there’s only one place to start for me so let’s do this.

The Cincinnati Bengals didn’t just get beat, they had a fifty burger put up on them by a rampant New Orleans Saints team. I told you I was scared about this game! There wasn’t just one thing but there never is in a game like this, it was a combination of factors that produced an absolute thumping. However, for about sixteen game minutes things were okay and looked vaguely competitive. Yes the Saints marched down the field and scored on their opening drive but the Bengals were able to start with a touchdown drive of their own and even pulled a Saints move with their backup quarterback Jeff Dreskel taking a snap with Andy Dalton lining up as a receiver. However, whilst the Saints continued the pattern that would dominate the game, i.e. moving the ball without any trouble and scoring on every drive bar the last on, the Bengals were unable to keep their offence moving consistently. There were flashes from Joe Mixon and Tyler Boyd but the offence sputtered and were not able to match the Saints’ machine like efficiency. The Bengals having to punt on their second and third drives was one thing, but then when they did move the ball Andy Dalton threw an interception on a play that snapped with twenty-four seconds left in the half that was returned seventy-eight yards and just like that the Saints had time to squeeze in another touchdown to go into the half 35-7 up.

You could argue the second half was better as the Bengals only gave up sixteen further points and scored another touchdown with Jeff Driskel in the game after Dalton had been pulled, but clearly not. The Bengals have a lot of injuries in the back seven of the defence, but there has also been a lot of talk about grey areas in the new defence scheme and clearly there is something to it as defensive coordinator Teryl Austin has been fired and Marvin Lewis is doing something he has always been reluctant to do, and that’s call the defence himself. How this is going to work I don’t know, but just to throw extra murk into the waters, or possibly improve the juggling of game day, Hue Jackson has been rehired – this time as special assistant to the head coach. The players have been saying it’s not time to panic as their destiny is still in their own hands, but if ten is the magic number of wins that nearly always gets you into the playoffs, then they would have to go 5-2 the rest of the way including two games against the Browns and visits to the Chargers, Steelers and next week the Ravens. I keep hearing that you know how good your team is by how they travel and the Bengals are 2-2 on the road but have had two bad losses already and three divisional road games coming up. I’m not calling them done just yet but I think it’s more likely than not that things don’t get much better.

Oh yeah, and the Saints right now are the best team in the league.

Can I stop now?

Good.

So, the fluid nature of teams and the small sample size continue to confuse those of us picking game but it does entertain us. The New England Patriots lost to a Tennessee Titans team who have had two solid wins after the bye and whilst it is too early to hit the panic button if you are a Patriots fan, they are outside of the top ten in DVOA in the second half of the season for the first time since 2005 with Tom Brady as the quarterback and since 2008 when Matt Cassel led the team (this has been taken from Aaron Schatz’s weekly update that you can read here). In the absence of time to watch coaching tape this week (life just keeps getting in the way) I may well try to just watch this game to get a better idea of how it happened.

Other notable results were the Buffalo Bills scoring forty-one points after Matt Barkley made his first start in two years and his first for the Bills, which has led to the release of poor Nathan Peterman and who knows if he will get another shot with a team. The Pittsburgh Steelers put up fifty points against the Carolina Panthers on Thursday night whilst both the Chiefs and Rams won their games ahead of the matchup. Interestingly both teams has asked to play the Broncos in Denver before their Mexico city game but the league was smart enough to deny both teams and in a twist of fate with fears about the safety of the pitch in the Azteca stadium the game has been shifted back to LA. The Chicago Bears ran out easy winners against the Detroit Lions but the real test comes next week when they face the Minnesota Vikings coming off their bye.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers managed to put up five hundred yards of offence and only come away with three points, which just should not be possible and is the kind of thing I deserve for picking them. Washington continues their improbable run atop the NFC East but their coaching staff should get credit for finding a way to win despite the raft of offensive line injuries. Things got even better for them when the Dallas Cowboys went into Philadelphia and beat the Eagles meaning that Washington are now two games ahead at the top of the division. However, not only did the Cowboys defence continue to look pretty good and have moved away from their reliance on Sean Lee, but there were signs of their offence evolving. It’s not as if they are suddenly the Saints, Rams, or Chiefs, but with more motion before the snap, the addition of Amari Cooper, and Ezekiel Elliott catching some balls out of the backfield to complement his one hundred and fifty yards on the ground there is a chance the Cowboys could make a nuisance of themselves.

The other contender for game I would still like to see is the Jacksonville Jaguars continuing their losing streak, this week to an Indianapolis Colts team who have dragged themselves to 4-5 record with Andrew Luck continuing to shake off the worries about his return to the game. We are a long way from him being subbed out for a Hail Mary play.

Finally, the Cleveland Browns separated themselves from the 49ers and the Giants with their third win of the season that also likely scuppered the Falcons unlikely recent playoff surge and the Oakland Raiders are officially the worst team in the league thanks to the Giants win over the 49ers on Monday night that leaves the Raiders as the only single win team. I’m sure the schedulers were thrilled about how these two once mighty franchises were faring going into this week’s prime time game, but at least it was competitive. Right now I’d take that from the Bengals…

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The Battle of the Big Guns

07 Wednesday Nov 2018

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I had a serene Sunday with the Bengals on a bye, although I have a creeping dread more worthy of the Halloween that just passed about the upcoming game as the New Orleans Saints are visiting Cincinnati and that bodes ill for the rested but injured Bengals team.

Still, before we get to the future outlook of the team there’s the minor matter of this week’s games to contemplate and the interesting results that occurred.

The obvious place to start would be the pretty amazing run of late games that I think entertained everyone. Although watching back later, I saw two games in sequence before circling back to the best game of the week once the UK Gamepass blackout had cleared. The first of these was the LA Chargers going into Seattle and demonstrating the faith I had placed in them was not misplaced with a relatively comfortable win against the Seahawks. It could have been even more comfortable had Caleb Sturgis not missed two extra points and a field goal, which also resulted in a missed two point conversion attempt by the Chargers trying to get back the original missed extra point back. Unsurprisingly the Chargers have moved on from Sturgis and reinstated Michael Badgley who was also on the roster, but that still means they have had seven kickers in the last three years! At this point surely some question are surely being asked about the special teams evaluation process of the front office as the Chargers have also had four people punt for them during this period.

Moving on from the special teams’ conundrum that is the Chargers, we saw this week’s contender for the best game of the season when the New Orleans Saints hosted the LA Rams and ran out 45-35 winners. The Saints built a big lead only to see the Rams close the gap back to 35 all in the fourth quarter before the Saints extended the lead once more for the win. It was an entertaining game, even if someone like me would have liked to see a little more defence, and that could be the Achilies heel of the Rams. It seemed like Marcus Peters was being picked on in the continuing absence of Aqib Talib who is seen as likely to return from IR in week thirteen. However, whilst the Rams defence has some very high profile names on it, including Dante Fowler who joined the team via trade on deadline day, doesn’t look to have quite gelled yet and are currently ranked only sixteenths by DVOA. The ranking against the run of twenty-fourth by DVOA showed up as Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram did the work on the ground whilst Drew Brees threw for four touchdowns and three hundred and forty-six passing yards. The Rams and Jared Goff were not quiet able to match this efficiency in the air whilst Todd Gurley finished with a modest sixty-eight yards on the ground and now the jockeying at the top of the NFC will get really interesting.

Finally, on Sunday night we had the battle of the 12s as the Green Bay Packers visited the New England Patriots but whilst keeping it relatively close for a lot of the game, the Packers were ultimately done for by the Patriots better consistency. The use of Cordarrelle Patterson as a makeshift running back in this game was effective enough that we might see more of it going forward even when Sony Michel comes back from injury whilst Josh Gordon caught five balls from ten targets to go over one hundred yards for the first time as a Patriot. What this game really showed however, is that so much of a quarterback’s success depends on the infrastructure around them and you get the feeling that there could be a coaching change in the works for Green Bay given the moves the newly installed GM is making.

Other notable things around the league include the Kansas City Chiefs beating the Browns convincingly and the Chiefs have one of the best offensive DVOA ratings ever. Conversely the Buffalo Bills have an historically bad offence, with their offensive DVOA of -53.9% putting them in the bottom ten of offences for the last thirty years. The Chicago Bears beat the Bills to stay atop the NFC North and now have two forty point blowout wins this season. The Carolina Panthers continue their quiet challenge for the playoffs with a big win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to take them to 6-2 whilst the Pittsburgh Steelers managed to do the double over the Ravens to stay atop the AFC North. The wheels came off for Washington when they lost both starting offensive guards to injury against the Atlanta Falcons and got beat badly. This could give Washington real problems going forward although they stay a game clear at the top of the NFC East whilst the Falcons have now won three straight and still have an outside shot of pulling themselves back into playoff contention. Speaking of streaks, the Houston Texans have now won six in a row while the Denver Broncos continue to struggle.

Finally, it is my mission to bring you every safety of the season and whilst we did not have any this week, we had three in week eight that I didn’t bring you because I was rushing off to London. That’s a total of eight so far this season and the 28th of October was second Sunday in a row where we had three safeties.

The first I’ll mention is a classic of joined up football where an LA Rams’ punt pins the Green Bay Packers up against their goal line and on their first down of the drive running back Aaron Jones gets met in the hole by Mark Barron and stopped for the safety. The second is combination of comedy of errors and situation awareness as on 3rd & 7 on the eight yard line, the Arizona Cardinals’ Josh Rosen starts in a shotgun formation and drops back to pass into the end zone, and whilst getting tackled tries to throw the ball away and gets called for intentional grounding, giving up the safety anyway. You can’t hold on to the ball in this situation and once again this is what happens to an offence when pinned against its own goal line by a punt. The final safety was again after a punt but this time it was a holding penalty called against Desmond Harrison of the Cleveland Browns in the end zone that results in the safety, and if you seek out the play from the week eight game against the Steelers you will see that it wasn’t exactly a marginal call.

Speaking of which, is it me or have the rule changes settled down over the last few weeks even if the defences to seem to be really struggling to contend. Anyway, I’m off to worry about this weekend’s game, the awful lines we’ve got this week, the trivia question I’m utterly stumped on, and to get on with this week’s newsletter.

Bring on Thursday night football, which looks to be a cracker of a matchup!

Quarterbacks and Injuries

03 Wednesday Oct 2018

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Image Credit: milehighsports.com

Here we are, preparing for week five after which all the teams will have played four games and I can try to run through the entire league in a panic at the quarter pole post, but we are already beginning to get a bit more of a feel for how the league is shaping up.

Of the young quarterbacks that seem to be the story of the league so far this year, Patrick Mahomes traveled to Denver Monday night and struggled comparatively for him so far this year but still found a way to get the win for the  Kansas City Chiefs against the Broncos, whilst Mitch Trubisky threw for six touchdowns as the Bears thumped the Tamps Bay Buccaneers. I have only seen the highlights of the Bears game and yes there were a lot of wide open people catching the ball, but I thought Trubisky looked good in terms of his footwork and whilst you can’t expect this every week it is a promising sign that Matt Nagy can find a way to keep his team competitive in the division with Trubisky as his quarterback.

Speaking of the NFC North, the Green Bay Packers pitched a shutout against the Buffalo Bills who reverted to type and were bad in this game. This leaves them one game behind the Bears but one ahead of the Minnesota Vikings who could not keep up with the LA Rams on Thursday night but then no team has this season. With quarterbacks on the mind I should also mention that one of the reasons the Rams look so good is that Jared Goff is absolutely thriving in Sean McVay’s office and threw some absolutely amazing balls to beat the Vikings coverage. The Detroit Lions lost a close game to the Dallas Cowboys who managed to find some offence this week, which is not how the Lions and Matt Patricia will have wanted to follow up their impressive win against the Patriots.

I hesitate to do this, and it is perhaps lucky that Dan is on holiday this week as the Miami Dolphins got demolished in New England. There is a reason why everyone was hesitant to write off the Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, and this was it. They ran for one hundred and seventy-five yards and got themselves back to 2-2 before Julian Edelman comes back next week. Things could well still go wrong but it would surprise no one if come December the Patriots are once again top of their division.

The other perennial contender that is struggling at the start of this season were not so lucky as the Pittsburgh Steelers failed to win their second division game as they lost at home to the Baltimore Ravens to go 1-2-1. We have seen dips of form before with the Steelers, but with the Le’Veon Bell situation rumbling on and a defence that is not the kind we usually associate with this franchise there could be real problems. They face the Atlanta Falcons next week in a game that will very much be decided by who can score the most points as the Falcons are struggling to stop anybody on defence. In week four this benefited the Cincinnati Bengals who squeezed out a 37-36 win game despite losing Tyler Eifert to a season ending injury for the third straight year. This was heart breaking as Eifert had finally had a healthy offseason and it was a horrible ankle break, but at least it wasn’t connected to his previous back/ankle injuries. Eifert has so much talent and it’s really sad he’s so seldom been able to make the most of it or get to that lucrative multi-year second contract given what he has produced when he has been on the field.

The other big injury from the weekend was to Earl Thomas who had been playing well for the Seattle Seahawks despite hardly practicing in protest at the Seahawks refusal to trade him after not giving him a new contract. The middle digit he offered to the bench was a sign of the frustration a player must feel when what he feared materialises, but a broken leg is at least an injury that shouldn’t affect him next season. That may not be that much comfort to a safety going into his thirties though, particularly given the lack of activity in signing veteran free agent safeties this off-season and this is exactly why Le’Veon Bell is holding out as he fears a similar injury when running backs are treated with even more scepticism as they approach thirty.

I think I will end this week’s round up though with a team who may not be playing pretty football week to week, but have got themselves a winning record despite multiple injuries. In week one the teams with new head coaches went 0-7 but rookie head coach Mike Vrabel and his staff have now won three straight games despite Marcus Mariota sustaining a nerve injury in week one that has led to numbness in the fourth and fifth fingers of his throwing hand as well as grip issues, and his backup Blaine Gabbert being lost to a concussion in the opening quarter of their week three game against the Jaguars. The Titans may only be ranked twenty-sixth on offence by DVOA and fifteenth by defence, but they are top ten in special teams and are finding a way in win games. It also helped that Mariota looked better in this week’s overtime win against the Philadelphia Eagles where Mariota played with a modified glove on his throwing hand where the first and second fingers had been cut off so he could feel the ball but the glove could help his week fingers/hand. I’m sure this is not what offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur was not expecting to have to deal with this when he joined the staff, but the Titans have remained competitive in the AFC South and will be looking to build on this solid start. This is a pretty impressive achievement for Mike Vrabel who does not have that much coaching experience compared to a lot of coaches yet alone experience running a team. Let’s see how sustainable this is.

AFC Preview

04 Tuesday Sep 2018

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18-09-04 AFC

With the new season only days away I thought I would take you through a whistle-stop tour of the league starting with an AFC preview and I’ll give the NFC teams their own post before the Philadelphia Eagle and Atlanta Falcons get things under way on Thursday.

I don’t particularly like making predictions as there are too many variables and injury luck is can be such a huge part of team success so I’ll be breaking the divisions up into favourites, competitive, and likely to struggle as I work my way round the division compass so without further ado let’s make a start on the .

AFC North

Much as it is painful for a Bengals fan to say it, the favourite to take the AFC North division is still the Pittsburgh Steelers. They may have questions at linebacker thanks to Ryan Shazier’s injury, but the defence still finished top ten last year by DVOA in and the options in their offence are still terrifying. Time is ticking for Ben Roethlisberger but as long as he doesn’t suffer a dramatic fall off then this is going to be one of the teams of the conference who should have their eyes on the Super Bowl.

The AFC North is always a tough division, and even when the Browns are struggling they are often a tough out, but not so much under Hue Jackson. However, with a defence that has looked good in pre-season and the additions of Jarvis Landy and Tyrod Taylor as well as new offensive co-ordinator Toddy Haley it at least feels like the infrastructure for success is more solid. In a position to let rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield develop and not rush him I think the Browns will be more competitive than last season, but whether their ill-discipline (they got penalised a lot in pre-season) will allow them to win games I don’t know. I think we’ll know a lot more about this team by the end of the first four games.

The Baltimore Ravens are another team who are perennially competitive but had to do it with defence and special teams last year. With a kicker like Justin Tucker you can mask a lot of deficiencies in offence but the thing the Ravens coaches might be most happy about having drafted Lamar Jackson this year is the fire it seems to have lit under long time quarterback Joe Flacco. He may also have been helped by better receiving options and being healthy in the offseason for the first time in two years but if the Ravens’ Super Bowl winning play caller can lead the offensive to a better ranking than twenty-first by DVOA the Ravens will be right in contention for the playoffs again.

I’ve written a fair amount about the Cincinnati Bengals this pre-season and it is telling that neither of the offensive tackles two years that they drafted to prepare for a transition of talent have worked out whilst Andrew Whitworth looked great for the LA Rams last year. With new playbooks on both sides of the ball there have been a lot of changes to coaching and the roster. Whilst the Bengals have another young team there seemed to be a lot to like and if the O-line gels, then Andy Dalton should have a much easier time finding his myriad of skill players. I’m not pencilling them into the playoffs, but I’m not ruling it out and I wasn’t sure that would be the case when it was announced the Marvin Lewis was coming back.

AFC East

Is this the year that the New England Patriots falter? For the first time Tom Brady was not ever present through the off-season, their first round offensive lineman Isaiah Wynn ruptured his Achillies after they let starting left tackle Nate Solder leave in free-agency, and this was a team that went to the Super Bowl with a defence ranked thirty-first in the league by DVOA so they can ill afford an offensive wobble. I think we’re all at the point where we’ll believe Tom Brady is done when he has signed his retirement papers, but what will help them is that none of the rest of the division are exactly standing up as challengers at the moment and so the Patriots look to be favourites still. This could finally change though.

The Buffalo Bills made the playoffs for the first time in eighteen attempts last seasons, but they responded to this by cutting the quarterback that got them there, not signing the linebacker that led the league in tackles and trading their left tackle to the Bengals in the draft manoeuvres required to get their quarterback of the future. Have traded away AJ McCarron they have opted to go with rookie Josh Allen and Nathan Peterman as their QBs, but whilst Peterman has looked good in pre-season and Allen has flashed, the Bengals defensive line had a field day against Buffalo’s o-line and it could be a very long season for whoever starts. I was impressed with everything Sean McDermott did last season bar benching Tyrod Taylor but I don’t think this season’s roster is better than last years and I have a nasty feeling they will struggle for a lot of the season.

If you trade away your best offensive and defensive players for chemistry reasons, you had better have an awful lot of talent coming in and I’m not sure that Miami Dolphins do. I thought they had a good draft and I would say Adam Gase is a good coach but I’m not at all sure of the roster construction and this feels like the latest in a long series of make or break seasons for Ryan Tannehill. I believe that Gase can keep the locker room together and make them competitive but it would not surprise me if they fall into a difficult season. Nothing would make me happier than to be proved wrong, if only to cheer Dan through the season.

Finally we have the New York Jets, and I though Todd Bowles did an excellent job of coaching with a lack of talent on the roster last season and not sure many other coaches would have got as many wins. The most ready of the rookie quarterbacks fell into their laps in the draft and Sam Darnold looked good enough in pre-season that the Jets traded Teddy Bridgewater to the New Orleans Saints. I think it will take another or season or two to turn things round and I don’t know if Bowles will get the chance to complete the job, but I can see the Jets equalling their record of last season. There will be ups and downs with a rookie quarterback but the real question for this season is have the Jets finally got a franchise QB. Everything else after that can wait.

AFC South

The Jacksonville Jaguars continued to build their defence, stuck with Blake Bortles and their big free agent signing was a offensive guard. I thought that Bortles might have learnt a thing or two in last season’s playoff run but with the exodus at receiver and the injury to Marqise Lee this team will be as reliant as ever on their defence and the run game. The good news is that the defence will be no less scary and they should rightly be considered the favourites for this division.

The Houston Texans may have only won four games last season, but they revealed they could have a bright future as long as the young quarterback Deshaun Watson can recover his blistering form from last season before his knee injury. With the defence hoping a number of players stay healthy, including JJ Watt this could be really good team even if the offensive line looks to be a big problem. There are a lot of ifs there so whilst the Texans will start out competitively, how long they will remain so is the big question.

The Tennessee Titans ground their way into the playoffs with a run first offence and a defence that ranked twenty-first in the league by DVOA. This was not enough to save Mike Mularkey his job and there rookie head coach Mike Vraebel is hoping that Matt LaFleur can revitalise the offence and fourth year quarterback Marcus Mariota. The coaches with links to Bill Belichick have not necessary flourished as head coaches and Vraebel has limited experience as the man with ultimate responsibility so I am very curious to see how he goes. The honest answer is I’m not sure so this is one of the teams we’ll need to follow closely through the start of the season.

The Indianapolis Colts have struggled mightily with Andrew Luck being out injured but this also laid bare the problems with the rest of the roster and whilst there are signs that things are improving in the second year of Chris Ballard’s rebuild, a lot will depend on Andrew Lucks surgically repaired and extensively rehabbed shoulder. The good news is that he’s back to starting but new head coach Frank Reich will be hoping that he can get enough from his franchise quarterback that the season can be a success, but I have a feeling that being competitive would qualify as just that and would be a good place to start.

AFC South

The Kansas City Chiefs won the division last year and I have too much faith in Andy Reid to see this team as anything other than competitive and I would place them as favourites to win the division. That is despite trading Alex Smith to Washington to promote Patrick Mahomes as the starter after a season where the young quarterback sat on the bench. Mahomes has the arms to make use of the myriad of skills players the Chiefs can use in their offence that has borrowed liberally from college, whilst their defence was only ranked thirtieth by DVOA last year when they won the division. It wouldn’t take much to improve that ranking and with the potential of their offence the Chiefs could be one of the most fun teams to watch this season.

The other potential favourite in this division could be the LA Chargers but it would require them to get out of their own way and they couldn’t quite manage that last season. The abiding image of Philip Rivers for me these days is a player somehow functioning as an effective quarterback despite minimal protection from his line. The defence was just outside of the top ten with a fearsome pass rush led by Melvin Ingram and Joey Bosa and they should be competitive again this season. The problem is that they have a nasty habit of losing close games and their ‘home’ games in LA were frequently more like home games for the opposition thanks to fan turnout. I’d like to think they can improve but I’m not willing to just outright declare it, although I’d be very willing to be proved wrong again.

I’m not entirely sure where to begin with the currently Oakland soon to be Las Vegas Raiders. The big move of the off-season would have been luring Jon Gruden out of the commentary booth nine years after he last coached except they have just traded Khalil Mack, one of the best young defensive players in the league, to the Chicago Bears. The reasoning is that the Mack’s contract demands were just too big, and the Bears wasted no time in signing Mack to a six year deal with $90 million guaranteed days after Aaron Donald signed a contract with $87 million guaranteed. The difference between the three franchises is that the Rams still have a young quarterback on their rookie contract as does the Bears, whilst the Raiders have already signed Derek Carr to a five year extension. The issue is that Gruden has been out of the league for a while, even if he was staying plugged into the NFL through his media gig, and the defence his brother Jay Gruden [I appear to have gone made, too many ex-Bengal coordinators involved as it is in fact Paul Guenther who is the new defensive coordinator – Ed.] takes over was ranked twenty-ninth by DVOA with Khalil Mack. I’m really not sure what to expect out of the Raiders this year, and whilst I can see the salary cap argument to an extent (I don’t study it hard, maybe that’s a task for next off-season) the Mack trade amongst others does nothing to help the Raiders now and I think this club will be in for a very interesting time this year.

Last year’s AFC West strugglers the Denver Broncos will be hoping that the addition of Case Keenum at quarterback will be enough of an upgrade to the offence to give the still competitive if retooled defence a chance of winning games. In the one game I saw them this preseason the offensive line still looked to be a problem but after a good pre-season from Chad Kelly, the Paxton Lynch development plan has finally been shelved. It is way too soon to question a GM who has won a Super Bowl and given his history as franchise quarterback you would think that the job is John Elway’s as long as he wants it. However, whilst he’s made a number of sharp moves in free-agency, his record in the draft is a bit patchier and his choice of Vance Joseph as head coach didn’t exactly yield the early returns that Elway would have hoped for. Still, if either Keenum or Kelly can make the offence competitive then the Broncos will be a team no one will want to face, especially at home and that could be enough for them to be in the playoff race come December.

2018 Pre-Season – Week 2

22 Wednesday Aug 2018

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Having concentrated on the Cleveland Browns and Hard Knocks over the weekend it’s now time to focus in on the week two pre-season games for the teams I’m following.

Firstly we have the Cincinnati Bengals who travelled on the road to face the Dallas Cowboys and got their second win of the pre-season running out 20-10 winners but I am not getting over excited yet. What won the game for the Bengals was their depth as for a lot of the game they were losing and they didn’t score any points in the first half.

The big question for this team is still the revamped offensive line and the reason that is important is that Andy Dalton’s strength is his quick decision making and ability distributing the ball but he is not able to play like that under pressure and so far the offence hasn’t sparkled. The big pre-season test is coming this week in the third game, but the truth is that as well as a revamped line the offence has a new playbook and calling system so it may well take some time for things to truly bed in. We will know more once the regular season has been under way for a couple of weeks, but Dalton cannot miss the throws he did in this game and hope to succeed. That said, there are flashes from the young receivers and again Jeff Driskel led the quarterbacks in yardage although he did throw an interception, whilst Matt Barkley got himself a touchdown.

The Bengals’ defence also has a new approach as they have a new co-ordinator this year and the big news post the week two game is the surprise release of George Iloka. There has been a lot of talk about the focus being on turnovers this season, and the Bengals clearly have been looking at this position all off-season as they had free agents come in before they picked Jessie Bates III in the second round of the draft, but I don’t think anyone was expecting the Bengals to cut their starting safety.

It really looks like the Bengals are placing a premium on speed at the moment but the strength of the Bengals’ defence looks to be pass rush and they were able to get pressure throughout the game and finished with five sacks and seriously exposed some of the backup Cowboys’ offensive linemen. It’s good to see rookie Sam Hubbard getting a strip sack and Carl Lawson also got a sack picking up from his strong rookie season last year while Jordan Willis (another of last season’s rookies) managed a pair of sacks so the depth of rusher really seems to be there without mentioned Geno Atkins or Carlos Dunlap.

As for the Cowboys, we don’t know how Ezekiel Elliott will play this year but if he plays the full year at something like his best they will be a difficult team to deal with and to me the defence looked good early in this game. They could still be as reliant on Sean Lee as they were last year but fellow linebacker Jaylon Smith looks like he is finally beginning to get back some of the form that made him such a tantalising draft prospect before the horrible knee injury in his last college game. It was a shock to many for Smith to be picked in the second round and he was still hampered last year (wearing a brace to support his foot) but he could be a big addition to the defence this year.

The Chicago Bears travelled to Denver to face the Broncos and they may have conceded the first safety that I have seen this year, but they ran out 23-24 winners to give the Bears their first win in three attempts.

The Bears revolution on offence continues and whilst there is still plenty of work to do I would say they are better than last year. There were several additions in the off-season but the obvious one in their game against the Broncos was tight end Trey Burton, he of the touchdown pass to Nick Foles in the Super Bowl. He lined up in several places round the formation and caught four balls for forty-five yards and a touchdown as well as appearing to be one of Mitch Trubisky’s favourite targets. There were some problems in pass protection, but when you’re the right tackle with no obvious help, pinned behind your own five-yard line, and Von Miller is lurking I think I might have false started too. The problem with pre-season re-surfaces here as you have to really know who is playing for what reasons and with the lack of coaches tape it’s hard to really dig into plays but I do see a step forward for the Bears but they have an incredibly tough division so let’s not get too excited yet.

The Bear’s defence got pressure in the game and came up with three sacks but this is one of the games where multiple lowering the head penalties came up and whilst everyone is adjusting to the new rule (and it is incredibly hard to adjust when the game is played at such a pace) the Bears will have to watch out for this if the officials call the penalty in the same way during the regular season. It doesn’t seem that surprising that rookie Roquan Smith is being eased in slowly after holding out through the start of camp until last week, nor that he didn’t finish practice Tuesday because of a tight hamstring. The Bears will need to get him into football shape before he hits the field and so the fans will have to wait for their first glimpse of the first round pick and it could be the regular season before he makes the field.

As for the Broncos, the offensive line still seems to be a worry but Case Keenum is an improvement on what they had last season at quarterback and it appears that Chad Kelly has overtaken Paxton Lynch on the depth chart. The defence is different, having lost still more players from the Super Bowl winning iteration but it can still be scary and so this could be an improved year for the Broncos but I’m not confident enough to declare that it will be.

Next week is the dress rehearsal games and the most we will see of the starts before the start of the regular season, which feels much closer than it ought to.

I’m sure the coaches feel the same.

As the Season of Hope Turns

08 Friday Jun 2018

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kigoa football on green grass during daytime

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It will not be very long before the players start practising in pads and before you know it we’ll be though the summer and into the weekly grind of the full NFL season.

Quiet as I may have been during these off-season milestones, I was following along as ever and so whilst we wait for training camp and the start of something we can actually dig our teeth into, I thought I would write a series of deliberately partial articles about what has been going on. The NFL media and coverage continues to expand and my aim has never been to bring you breaking news, but there’s been some interesting developments over the last few months along with the usual flurry of coaching and player changes so I’ll be digging into these and maybe straying into such things as the new rule changes as well, although I might side step the anthem protest developments until we are closer to some games actually being played, but let’s say I’m not exactly impressed with the NFL’s new policy or Trump’s reaction.

Rest assured that deliberately partial is not code for a long series of articles on the Bengals, although I’m sure they will feature, but I’ll pick out some key points I want to write about and I’d welcome input from any of you if there is a topic you’d like me to take a look at. However, as much as I like to say they get overly praised when a team wins, and overly blamed for each loss, not only are quarterbacks a very important part of any team but they are the focus of an awful lot of fans’ hopes in the off-season.

It has been an interesting off-season for quarterbacks. The Minnesota Vikings started the off-season with three quarterbacks going out of contract and kicked off a larger than usual move round of signal callers when they opted not to renew the contracts of any of them but instead signed Washington player Kirk Cousins to a three year guaranteed contract after Washington allowed his to expire. It is rare for a starting quality quarterback to hit the market, yet alone one who has accrued three straight four thousand yard seasons and is still in his twenties. It is an interesting contract that Cousins signed as all three years are guaranteed, but whilst I could very much see this becoming a thing for quarterbacks given their importance to the team (which does grant them additional leverage) it is hard to see the rest of the NFL players getting such deals.

With this first free agency domino falling the Vikings’ old quarterbacks were soon signed to new teams. It appears that the Denver Broncos were unable to get seriously into the competition to sign Cousins and quickly switched to signing Case Keenum after his impressive run to the Conference Finals. He had an excellent season last year but the Minnesota offensive line was unable to protect him against the Eagles pass rush in the NFC Championship game and so the Broncos will be hoping he is able to recapture the form of the regular season for them. The Broncos have named Keenum their start and are looking to continue the development of Paxton Lynch behind him despite Lynch not being able to make use of his impressive arm talent since he was drafted back in 2016. Still, this signing did allow the Broncos to draft Bradley Chubb in round one who is reckoned to be the most rounded pass rusher in this draft class and with the players already available to the Broncos, he will likely be an excellent addition to the front seven of their defence.

While Keenum headed to the Broncos, the Vikings’ opening day starter, the oft injured Sam Bradford, signed yet another big contract, this time with the Arizona Cardinals. With the retirement of Carson Palmer the Cardinals went into the off-season with no real option for a starting quarterback yet as well as the signing of Bradford, the Cardinals traded up to the tenth pick to select Josh Rosen. We won’t know how this turns out until a few years down the road but the criticism of Rosen’s off field interests seemed overblown and given the position in which the Cardinals started the off-season, they have given themselves a shot this year with their two new quarterbacks and could be set for the future if their young QB can back up his claim that the teams who passed on him made a mistake.

The final Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater signed with the New York Jets, but given that the Jets resigned last year’s starter in Josh McCown and moved up to take a quarterback it still looks like a long road back to starting for Bridgewater having suffered a horrendous injury in preseason two years ago. The Philadelphia Eagles have demonstrated the benefit of having two quarterbacks on the roster with their Super Bowl win and with the dearth at the position if Bridgewater can demonstrate he’s on the way back to something like his previous form he should get a legit shot as a starter somewhere. The early buzz coming out of the Jets OTAs (organised team activities) were that Bridgewater looked like the best quarterback of the team, but I’m always wary of the buzz surrounding players until we start seeing them in pre-season games and for quarterbacks, even good play in pre-season doesn’t necessarily translate into the regular season. The Jets could be taking a leaf out of the Eagles recent roster moves and be driving interest for a trade, but I think a lot of the league and most neutrals will be hoping Bridgewater makes a full comeback.

Before I dig properly into the first round quarterbacks who were drafted I just want to cover the saga of Washington and Kirk Cousins briefly, As I said earlier, it is not often that a quarterback still in his twenties with three consecutive four thousand yard seasons hits the free agent market. Washington seemed to be unwilling to make the kind of deal that Cousins and most quarterbacks of his ability would expect and whilst there was some defending the first franchise tag given to him two seasons ago as he was a fourth round draft pick and had really broken through late, there is no real defence for Washington not committing to Cousins long term when he threw for four thousand yards a second time. It is pretty remarkable that he completed the feat for a third straight season given that Washington let both of their top two receivers leave before last season. What they did do this year as Cousins second one year franchise tag was nearly expired was trade for thirty-four year old veteran Alex Smith from the Kansas City Chiefs, sending them a corner back as part of the trade, and signing Smith to a four year deal with fifty-five million dollars guaranteed at signing. If he makes it to the end of his contract he is guaranteed seventy-one million dollars, but whether he can make it to thirty-eight is a big question even with modern sports medicine and particularly as Smith is an underrated runner who doesn’t sit in the pocket and distribute the ball without getting hit like a Tom Brady or Drew Brees. I can’t pretend to know what lay behind these decisions, but I don’t like the process and it does not instill faith in the franchise.

So with the major quarterback moves wrapped up the NFL headed into the draft and I have already mentioned two teams that double dipped signing Vikings’ free agents and drafted quarterbacks in the first round but the first pick of the draft belonged to the Cleveland Browns and this time they did take a quarterback, but not the one everybody was expecting when they drafted Baker Mayfield. Now I’m interested in the draft and I do enjoy the analysis of players and even look up draft grades but I don’t take them seriously. We won’t know what players are going to work out or not, and so much is to do with scheme fit, changes in coaching staff, injury luck that whilst there are players you would feel more confident than others, no one can know. Hell, we’re still waiting for Andrew Luck to play again for the Indianapolis Colts having played through a shoulder injury and missed all of last season. You have to wonder at the medical advice the Colts young franchise quarterback received and why he was allowed to play for so long with what is clearly a serious issue during the 2016 season.

Getting back to the Browns, if this pick works out then great and what I do like is that they picked their player rather than the outside experts but we can’t know whether this was the right decision for a number of season. In fact we might never know as bad luck could scupper the pick or something else unforeseen. What I can question is what the New York Giants did with the second pick as whilst no one would question the talent or ability of running back Saquon Barkley, it is hard to argue that even as good as he can be that the Giants will get equivalent value out of a position that you are lucky to get through two contracts compared to having an entire career of a franchise quarterback. The Giants may well have not liked the quarterbacks in this year’s draft, but they refused to move down and even if Eli Manning regains some of the form that he has failed to display over the last two seasons, at thirty-seven he can’t have that long left in the league and when will the Giants be picking this high again?. Even if they have complete faith in the quarterback Davis Webb who didn’t see the field during a turbulent 2017 season that saw Geno Smith get a start, they could have likely traded the pick to one of the quarterback needy teams, got a big haul and still got a very good player.

What this did mean was the New York Jets who moved early to get up to the third pick took Sam Darnold who most people thought was the most ready quarterback of the draft. The Jets invested in three quarterbacks this off-season, but if Darnold can finally be the franchise quarterback the Jets have been missing for years if not decades then the cost would have been worth it. You can see the importance of the quarterback to teams who don’t have them in the moves of the Buffalo Bills, who having already traded up to the twelfth pick with the Bengals (only my second mention of them in this post) traded again with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to get to seven so they could take Josh Allen. I have already mentioned the Cardinals trading up to take Josh Rosen at ten, but at the end of the first round with the Ravens having already picked and the Eagles coming off a Super Bowl win but short on draft picks haven given up a lot to draft Carson Wentz in 2016, the Eagles traded out the first round as the Raven’s Ozzie Newsome in his final draft as GM picked the fifth quarterback to go on day one in Lamar Jackson.

I still find it somewhat strange that the 2016 Heisman trophy winner had four quarterbacks selected ahead of him and that he slipped past the Saints and Patriots who both have ageing quarterbacks that could have taught Jackson a lot. As could the Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger although he was not exactly enthusiastic about the selection of Mason Rudolph in the third round and claims to be planning to play for a number of years yet despite several years of off-season where Roethlisberger talked of retirement.

This leads me to where I’m going to finish off, with this thought:

With the hope given to franchises in recent years by quarterbacks like Carson Wentz, the LA Rams’ Jared Gough, or the flashes from Deshaun Watson in Houston, it has reinforced the theory that there is no price too high to pay for getting a franchise quarterback. However, you had better be certain about that player as if you get that call wrong, even if it isn’t entirely your fault, as the person who put your faith in the player you are going to get fired if things don’t work out.

It’s not exactly fair, but that is life in the NFL.

AAF: Patrick Mahomes

07 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by in Amateur Adventures in Film

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The last week of the regular season was my final chance to take a look at a player or thing from twenty different teams, but it was the Chiefs decision to start rookie Patrick Mahomes in their final game ahead of the playoffs that caught my imagination.

I was intrigued to see the player that the Chiefs traded up in the first round to get last April even though they had a team capable of competing for and in the end winning their division. Having watched the game I think intrigued is definitely the word I would continue to use.

Patrick Mahomes spent most of his time taking shotgun snaps and the majority of his passes were quick throws and play action. The offence didn’t flow particularly, but there were a number of other offensive starters rested and once Kareem Hunt had run for thirty-five yard and a touchdown on his single carry he too was sat for the day now that he had the most yards on the ground for the season.

You can see why the Chiefs took Mahomes though. I tend to think that we are too focussed on arm strength when assessing a quarterback and as long as they have enough to deliver the ball accurately then you can build an offence for them to function. However, Mahomes clearly has an arm and whilst I’m don’t think I’m qualified to assess his mechanics particularly, he also has the ability to make time in the pocket and throw the ball on the move. As is frequently the case with this type of ability, this can result in wow plays that get you excited and balls that will make a QB coach scream in frustration. There were not too many, but there were definitely throws and decision that Mahomes will be discussing with his coach at some point.

The quick plays work as Mahomes can deliver the ball quickly and on target, with receiver Albert Wilson making a lot of yards after the catch to help Mahomes figures. There were plenty of times when Mahomes would escape pressure and find a receiver, dump the ball off or throw the ball away, and he was only sacked twice. He even shook of one attempted sack and completed a pass up the middle for the touchdown. However, he also threw a horrible interception where he simply overthrew the pass straight to Broncos safety Darian Stewart.

It is always hard to make grand pronouncements from one game, but it feels like a lot of people are already moving Alex Smith out of Kansas and I do wonder if the Chiefs might want to develop Mahomes for another season before they start him full time. Yes after conservative play calling and sitting Mahomes for a drive, he did lead the game winning drive that enabled the Chiefs to kick a field goal but he did get some help with a badly timed offside penalty from the Broncos. He clearly has talent, and I remain intrigued, which is as much as you should probably expect from first start in the NFL, but the Chiefs already have a quarterback who got them into the playoffs so whilst you will want him to start to develop. The timing of when this transition happens is going to be something that will be the focus for this team as soon as the season ends.

Sunday Thoughts

04 Sunday Dec 2016

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It has been a frustrating season as a Bengals fan, but there comes a point where you have to accept that the playoffs really are out of reach, and whilst that happened to me a couple of weeks ago, the optimist in me still tries to hang on to hope for a couple of weeks. I am dreading what Fletcher Cox could do against the Bengals this week, but mainly I’ll be curious about what is going on with the rest of the league.

The Cowboy ran out eventual winners in an intriguing Thursday night game, but even though the Vikings defence is back to where it was earlier in the season, they couldn’t stop the first team to record double digit wins from getting their eleventh. There are two teams that could join them this week, but whilst the Raiders and Patriots stand a good chance of getting their tenth wins, injuries to Derek Carr and Rob Gronkowski could be causing differing degrees of anxiety to fans. Derek Carr came back in the game to play with his nastily injured finger, it is amazing what adrenaline will do for you, but it is possible it might affect his play. More worrying for the Patriots though will be the loss of Gronkowski for the rest of the season after having back surgery this week. You would back the Patriots staff to be able to adjust to this loss, but it is a big loss as Gronkowski is a real difference maker and is a favourite target of Brady as well as being the best tight end in the league.

No team is unaffected by injury at this time of year, but it is a question of whether you have picked up a critical injury and how strong you are at that position in the first place. The Seattle Seahawks offensive line has not been good all season, but in recent weeks they had improved enough when combined with Russel Wilson getting healthy to make the Seahawks look frightening again. However, they picked up more injuries last week and the Seahawks could only register five points against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They are still very much in control of the AFC West, which is very much going through a down season this year, but they will have their eyes on bigger prizes and I will be curious to see how well their offence goes this week against a Panthers team who have been more competitive in recent weeks, even if the results don’t necessarily reflect it.

It felt like a strange week of games to predict, there are a lot of teams whose performance is varying week to week, and when there are questions surrounding even the best of teams, it is beginning to feel that the Cowboys might be putting themselves on a level of their own as they keep grinding out wins.

I think the question of overtime could rear its head again this week with another game that did give us a winner last Sunday, but still went to the end of overtime. One of my picks is resting on whether this extra pick is enough to let the Jaguars cover, but given the previous results of teams coming off a full overtime period it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the Jaguars could pick up a win. I know that Americans are culturally obsessed with there not being draws, but if a full period of overtime is that much of a disadvantage to the participating teams the following week, I’m still not sure that in an era of concern over player well-being, that we are not better off just accepting that draws happen.

Let’s see what happens with the Chiefs and Broncos when they play today.

A Return to Form

17 Thursday Nov 2016

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So the games of week ten were as good as my picks were awful!

One of the reasons suggested for the NFL’s falling ratings has been the quality of the games, particularly in the nationally televised games, but we had a series of close and eventful finishes and probably the game of the season in the Sunday night prime time slot with the Seattle Seahawks beating the New England Patriots in a back and forth game that had seven lead changes. This followed and equally back and forth game between the Cowboys and Steelers that featured three touchdowns in the last two minutes.

The New Orleans Saints must have thought they had won the game when Drew Brees somehow found Brandin Cooks in the end zone despite being covered by two Broncos’ players. However, the resulting extra point was blocked by rookie safety Justin Simmons who vaulted the long snapper Justin Drescher with the help of Jared Crick who made sure that Drescher couldn’t stand up and make contact with Simmons by pushing him down. The NFL has later confirmed that as this was an open handed push it was legal. If Simmons’s block wasn’t enough though, another rookie safety in Will Parks scooped up the ball and ran it back to the end zone for a two point defensive score that gave the Broncos the lead before receiving the ball and holding on for the win. Such are the margins that games turn on in the NFL, although the Saints will likely feel aggrieved as with no definitive view of Parks who likely stepped out of bounds during the return, the return stood. It is very possible that this play would have been overturned if Parks had been wearing black boots, but it is too late now. Still, it is yet another dramatic ending for a really good slate of games over the weekend and we will likely see similar leaping block attempts in crucial field goals/extra points at the end of games, with the same manoeuvre executed on the poor long snapper who can’t do much to defend himself in that position.

The fine margins that separate winning and losing are not always so obvious, but the differences between good and average teams are not always that big. This season seems to have a particular large sample of so-so teams, with it seems everybody agreeing that the Patriots, Cowboys, and Seahawks are looking dangerous, a mass of teams with one or two potential contenders for post season success, and then likes of the Browns and 49ers vying for the first pick in next year’s draft.

The Bengals could be seen as a microcosm of this in that their 3-5-1 record is pretty awful, but they are only two games out in the surprisingly poor AFC North. They are not actually a bad team, but they seem to have been doomed by too many changes at once and things won’t quite come together. Whether certain parts of the team just got too old at the same time I don’t know, but most would consider the roster to be one of the most talented in the league. However, there have been so many changes with a new offensive coordinator and several new postition coaches on defence, and nothing has looked quite right. The lack of consistency is what is hampering the Bengals and those who have been calling for Marvin Lewis to be fired are unlikely to be quietened by anything other than a major turnaround in the second half of the season and post season success.

There are so many moving parts in an NFL franchise, that playing within a structure that is supposed to promote parity, it hardly a surprise that it is hard to be consistently good. Only the very best and worst are standing out at the moment, but whilst you will frequently hear people questioning decisions, you also frequently hear criticisms of such and such is a bad coach, and I’m not always sure that is fair.

In some corners of the NFL coverage you will frequently hear disparaging comments about Andy Reid’s clock management, and these are not entirely without merit, however as demonstrated by their come back on Sunday, even when the Chiefs fall into a hall the players believe in Reid and keep playing. He has won an awful lot of football games, and there is a lot more to being a head coach that clock management. If you get a chance, listen to Ron Riviera talking on this week’s Peter King podcast to get a flavour of what the coaches are going through. I do sometime feel that coaches are wedded to the way they were brought up in football, but there is a constant search for the next small advantage that could turn a game and we don’t always get to see or hear about them.

In a changing game with so much variation from season to season, the sustained success of the Patriots and Seahawks are all the more remarkable, and whilst there is a lot to take from the recent string of Bengals success, they still haven’t won a playoff game since 1990, the longest in the league. In a results based world like the NFL, people’s jobs are tied to very variable results and this does not always lead to better results, but with the seasons that the Bengals are having, much like the Packers who are a team who also have a history of patience with coaches, change could be in the air at the end of the season. There is still over a quarter of the season to go, but things are getting serious now so let’s see what happens.

 

Saints @ Panthers (-3.5)

I got bitten by the line last week, but whilst the Saints are a better team than the Browns, and have a better record than the Panthers, the Panthers played well for long stretches against the Kansas City Chiefs and have looked a lot more like themselves in recent weeks. It may be too late for a playoff push, but I’m not picking against them at home in this Thursday night game.

Gee’s Pick:          Panthers
Dan’s Pick:         Panthers

Broncos @ Chargers

16 Sunday Oct 2016

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Denver Broncos 13
San Diego Chargers 21

This week’s Thursday night game at least finished tensely, but in truth the Chargers were consistently better than the Broncos over three quarters, although they still had a couple of worrying moments that could have cost them.

The Chargers offence had a tale of the opening drive and then the rest of the game. The opening drive was not without incident, with a big gain for Dexter McCluster wiped out by a pass interference penalty on rookie tight end Hunter Henry but he made several other plays in the same drive that ended with the only touchdown for the Chargers’ offence when Philip Rivers stood in and delivered the ball to the rookie tight end. In fact Henry led the team in receiving yards in this game as Philip Rivers threw for a modest one hundred and seventy-eight yards although he didn’t turn the ball over. The Chargers did manage to gain just under a hundred yards on twenty-nine carries with Melvin Gordon running for ninety-four yards, but in truth they struggled to maintain drives for most of the game and kicked a series of field goals to keep eking out their lead, but they managed to win the time of possession battle and put up enough points to win.

After the opening drive, the Broncos were able to clamp down on defence, and whilst their pass rush was not particularly effect at getting to Rivers, although Von Miller got his customary sack, they were able to limit the Chargers for most of the game. However, the Broncos were behind the game flow for all of the game and the real problems were not on this side of the ball.

The Broncos offence wasn’t terrible, but they struggled to maintain drives all game against a Chargers team who seemed to have an effective game plan. They weren’t helped by a series of offensive line penalties of various holding calls and false starts which killed several drives. In fact they had a touchdown by CJ Anderson in the fourth quarter wiped out by a holding call against tackle Russell Okung after the running back had taken a dump off pass and turned it into a twenty yard touchdown play. Not only did a holding penalty cost the Broncos a touchdown, but another one in the end zone gave the Chargers a safety. When you give up eighty-three more yards in penalties than the opposition, and you have them at critical points in the game, then you are going to struggle and with the passing game not really taking off the Broncos fell well short of what they needed to win. It appears that Trevor Siemian is a good quarterback if you can keep the game flow on your side, but the big chunks of yards needed if you fall back to a first and twenty after a holding a penalty is going to really cause him to struggle. In fairness, without head coach Gary Kubiak who usually calls the plays it is perhaps not surprising that the offence struggled this week. When you run for eighty-four yards but only call sixteen run plays to fifty passing plays, you can see that the balance was off for what is usually a balanced attack and it was only late in the game that the Broncos were far enough behind that they had to throw.

That said, the Chargers defence did well enough against the Broncos, and held up in the fourth quarter to win the game with Rivers looking on nervously from the side-lines, whilst the defence withstood a late surge by the Broncos. They actually matched the Broncos defence for sacks and got two more quarterback hits whilst swatting away more passes. Rookie defensive end Joey Bosa got a couple of quarterback hits as he begins to settle in having missed all of training camp, but I am really not sure how much the Chargers limited the Broncos and how much the Broncos caused the problems to themselves. In fairness, the solitary field goal the Chargers gave up in the first half was only due to a special teams mess up on a punt return, which gave the Broncos the ball deep in the Charger’s half of the field, but we will have to see how they develop in coming games.

This game was not the best spectacle, although it was tense late, but a very lopsided set of penalties probably sealed the game for the Chargers. The Chargers cut down on the mistakes, and you could see the relief when they got the win, but I don’t know how far they will go this season.

The Broncos have now lost two in a row, but they are at home for the next two games where they will hope to get their offence back on track and I suspect they will have the return match against the Chargers in week eight very much set in their sights.