Tag Archives: Peyton Manning

A Glance at the AFC

08 Sunday Sep 2019

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I am so far behind where I want to be, and right now I’m looking at a list of NFL lines with horror – I was meant to have spreadsheets and formulas but despite getting the first game of the season right, I’m looking at the rest of games without even a picking pin to help me and that seemed to serve Dan’s Dad so well last year.

So before I have a nervous breakdown about the week one lines I still have time to run through the AFC divisions, which I suppose might help me gather my thoughts.

AFC East

The obvious class of the division is the defending Super Bowl Champions who will once again be the team to beat. The New England Patriots may well start slowly again, but I won’t believe they can’t be a contender to repeat when I see it, even if Tom Brady has to stop at some point. The combination of Antonio Brown and Josh Gordon could be combustible off the field, but could be terrifying if Belichick and his staff can channel their talent.

This season the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets will both be hoping to be more competitive in the division as their young quarterbacks go into their second years. I have a bit more faith in the Bills’ coaching staff than Adam Gase but Sam Darnold might well be the better quarterback. I’m curious to see how these teams will develop, but I’m not sure this is the year they compete for the playoffs.

One team who definitely won’t be participating in that race is the Miami Dolphins, who committed to the Fish Tank when they traded away three starters last weekend. They are clearly stacking up picks for the future and trying to replicate the Browns approach to the rebuild. I feel sorry for Josh Rosen who after a tough rookie year has been traded to a team who look like they could be just as bad as the Cardinals were last year.

AFC North

I have to acknowledge my own bias, but the AFC North is one of the most competitive divisions in the NFL. That said the class of the division are sadly not the Bengals but the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens who even during their down years are still competitive. The Steelers look like they could be rejuvenated without dealing with Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell and Devin Bush looks like the piece the Steelers defence has been missing since the Ryan Shazier injury. The Ravens have looked good in pre-season and the defence seems to keep their identity regardless of additions and leavers. The offence will need to develop as you can only sustain so much running with your quarterback, but the comeback late in their wildcard loss did show signs that Lamar Jackson could throw enough for the offence to thrive.

The big offseason narrative of the off-season has been around the Browns, who have been amassing futher talent including Odell Beckham as John Dorsey sets the team up for what many believe will be a serious run for playoff success. My one concern though, is that Freddie Kitchens had not even run an offence until last season and now he’s in charge of the whole team. I’m not saying that they can’t succeed, and they may well challenge for the playoffs but I don’t think it is as a sure thing as a lot of people seem to.

I can’t argue that the Bengals should be taken as seriously being in the mix for the division, particularly given the ongoing injury problems along the offensive line, but I am looking forward to finally seeing what Zac Taylor’s plan is for the team. Although, on the road in Seattle has to be one of the toughest places to make a debut. I’m hopeful the offence can be effective as Andy Dalton has looked good in his limited pre-season snaps and Ryan Finley might be the future at quarterback although pre-season success for a rookie quarterback is no guarantee of success. However, I’m worried about the middle of the defence again and we’ll just have to see how things shake out.

AFC South

This is a division that was already looking very competitive and has been thrown up in the air by the shock retirement of Andrew Luck. The Indianapolis Colts have really improved under GM Chris Ballard and head coach Frank Reich and will still be competitive with Jacoby Brissett running the offence but the expectations for the season obviously feels different now.

The Houston Texans are a hard team to read, but the lack of full-time GM led Bill O’Brien to make some distinctly short term moves over the weekend and I’m not sure they were really in the position to make them even with the division opening up for them. The Texans have plenty of top tier talent but somehow have never quite convinced despite O’Brien having them in contention for the playoffs most seasons.

The Jacksonville Jaguars will be looking to bounce back from a dreadful season last year and part of this has been moving on from quarterback Blake Bortles as they look for Nick Foles to provide consistent play under coordinator John DeFilippo who was part of the Eagles Super Bowl winning staff that turned Foles into that game’s MVP. The defence was top ten last year by Football Outsiders DVOA despite knowing that the offence was going to let them down and will look to be dominant again. Meanwhile running back Leonard Fournette is healthy and will be wanting to demonstrate he’s worthy of the kind of contract handed to Todd Gurley and Ezekiel Elliott in recent years.

The Tennessee Titans were really competitive under Mike Vrabel despite quarterback Marcus Marriota dealing with a nerve issue in his throwing arm. This is Mariota’s fifth year in the league and for different reasons than Jameis Winston (who thanks to draft position he’ll always be compared to) he has never quite broken out. Still, on the evidence of his first season as head coach it might end up being Vrabel who becomes the most convincing player/coach connected to Belichick to lead a team. If they can keep Marriota healthy and the defence plays well, the team has the potential to be competitive. Definitely a team to watch in the early weeks.

AFC West

The obvious team to start with is the Kansas City Chiefs who have rebuilt their defence in the off-season but all the focus will rightly be on Patrick Mahomes who had an otherworldly first season at starter last season. They have just added three more years to Tyreek Hill’s contract despite the horror of his domestic situation and we really should not ignore his worrying history. However, the talent is apparently too valuable to ignore and so he gets to play despite many feeling he would get a huge suspension when the recording of him threatening his partner and discussing their child who has been removed from their care. The Chiefs’ were obviously worried about this as they drafted Mecole Hardman who looked good when I saw him in pre-season. I’m not sure how improved the defence really will be, but the combination of Andy Reid and Mahomes should see the Chiefs in contention for years to come.

The other team that looked to be obviously competitive in this division are the LA Chargers, but it feels like they might have been derailed before the season has even started. I have marvelled for years about Philip Rivers’ ability to run the offence without any protection from his offensive line and the team looked legitimately good for long stretches of last season but they have already got injuries to some key players across the roster including left tackle Russell Okung. They will probably still be a tough team to face but without a real home field advantage and multiple injuries this could be a tough year.

The Denver Broncos are hoping that new head coach Vic Fangio will give them the spark to rebound from the disappointments of the Vance Joseph era but this is a very different team to the one that went to two Super Bowls with Peyton Manning. That said, they still have a terrifying pass rusher in Von Miller and Fangio is an excellent defensive coach, but John Elway has not been successful at finding a francise quarterback outside of the free-agent signing of Manning and the Broncos go into this season hoping that Joe Flacco can turn round his decline of recent years. It might be a big ask but I have a lot more faith in the experienced Fangio to at least have the team more competitive than in recent years.

And so to the final team of the AFC, who were all over the news even before they were the subject of this year’s Hard Knocks. They seemed to be tearing the team down and starting again last season, but it is hard to see how their big free-agent acquisition Antonio Brown could have caused more disruption. After the cryogenic treatment issue that made a mess of his feet and kept him out of the start of training camp and the saga of what helmet he would play in that dominated the news – he got into an altercation with GM Mike Mayock after posting his fine letters on Instagram and was finally cut from the team after the Raiders voided most of the money from his contract. Brown has been picked up the Patriots in a move that surprises nobody and Dan finds deeply suspicious.

What does all this mean to the team? I’m not sure as he’s hardly been with them and I’m not convinced at all by Gruden in this second stint as Head Coach. The defence looked pretty good in pre-season but Derek Carr has just lost his best potential receiver and with so much turmoil on the roster in the last two season I don’t know what to expect and I don’t have a lot of faith. I always want teams to do well as selfishly it provides for better content and makes the league more fun to cover but it feels like in their final year in Oakland the Raiders have the potential to implode spectacularly or rally round together. As ever only time will tell.

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The Disappointed Twenty: AFC Edition

02 Wednesday Jan 2019

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It is time to say our sad farewells to the teams that have already gone their separate ways having failed to reach the playoffs. In a bid to make this more manageable to both read and write I will be covering the AFC today and the NFC tomorrow.

Before I begin there is one universal bit of comfort that any fan of the following teams should take, namely that in the NFL a franchise really can turnaround in an off-season, although there are some situations that may take a couple of off-seasons to sort out but even then a big improvement could be in the offing in September.

Miami Dolphins

The Dolphins had a very up and down season that saw a 3-0 start falter and slip to 7-9 record. This has cost Adam Gase his job and it feels like the Dolphins will spend the off-season remaking the roster again and trying to find a franchise quarterback. There were questions raised before the season about trading away some of their best players to address issues in the locker room, but it was a lack of consistency and an utter failure on the road that cost this team. The Dolphins won their first road game against the Jets and failed to win another all year. The season highlight will undoubtedly be the last second hook and ladder play to beat the New England Patriots but once again the Dolphins couldn’t seriously challenge in the AFC East. My concern is that the roster and front office is as much to blame, if not more, than the coaches and until they build a team round a quarterback who can remain healthy for the whole season then there is only so much success they can have. They also rank twenty-seventh in the league for cap space next year and so there is not a lot of room to do much in free agency with the way the team is currently constructed.

Buffalo Bills

The Bills had a tough season this year as they traded away a number of assets to move up in the draft to get their quarterback of the future and whilst this did not affect the defence too badly as it finished second in the league by DVOA, the offence really suffered. The good news regarding Josh Allen was that he proved that he could be effective on the ground in the NFL, but he will need better players around him and to develop as a passer if the Bills are to get back to the playoffs. It will help that there is some stability as GM Brandon Beane and head coach Sean McDermott are staying in place, and this team played hard for McDermott all year, but the offence will have to improve if they are to get where they want to go. The good news is that they have the third most free cap space next year so they have room to manoeuvre.

New York Jets

Having failed to get into the playoffs for three seasons and only going 4-12 this year the Jets let go of head coach Todd Bowles. I can understand that the franchise felt they needed a new voice, but Bowles was not given a huge amount to work with over the last couple of seasons and the Jets always seemed to play hard for him. The good news is that Sam Darnold is a promising young quarterback, but once again he will need to have the infrastructure placed around him to enable success. The worry will be that the defence also needs work as it only finished twenty-first in the league by DVOA despite Bowles’ pedigree as a defensive mind. At least they will have cap room to work with as they are second only to the Colts in cap space next year, but free-agency success doesn’t always translate onto the field as this franchise has learned only a few seasons ago.

Pittsburgh Steelers

The Steelers just missed out on the playoffs and will be kicking themselves about losses to the Broncos and Raiders. However, there was more than a little drama surrounding the team this season and to an outsider it seems that sorting this out may help the on field performance. Part of this should be achieved by the departure in free-agency of Le’Veon Bell, and certainly James Conner was an able and cheaper alternative at running back. In truth there doesn’t need to be big changes as there is an awful lot of talent on this team, who finished sixth on offence and thirteenth on defence by DVOA. I have no doubt the Steelers will be competitive next year and before we say there is too much wrong, with a now competitive Browns franchise the AFC North was one of the tougher divisions in the league this season. Speaking of which…

Cleveland Browns

I billed this post as the disappointed ten, and yes the Browns would prefer to be in the playoffs, but this is the first time since 2010 that the Browns have not been bottom of the division (and yes the Bengals were bottom that season too) and there are definitely things that should give the fans in Cleveland hope. For the first time since the new franchise was founded it looks as if the Browns have got a franchise quarterback and a five and three finish suggests that if the Browns can nail the coaching staff hire this off-season they should be competitive next year. There is plenty of young talent on the roster already and GM John Dorsey has a proven track record of success, whilst the Browns have the fourth most cap space next season. I’m happy for the long suffering fans of Cleveland but it does not make the picture look any better for the Bengals.

Cincinnati Bengals

All teams face injuries and there are plenty of teams who either had more, or had them more clustered, but the offence particularly suffered this season and when the defence didn’t really shape up until the last couple of weeks after Marvin Lewis took control then it’s not surprising that the season sputtered to a halt. The Lewis era is finally over in Cincinnati and I do not forget how much work he had to put in to make the franchise credible and not the laughing stock of the league but how this group moves on is the big question for next season. It is not implausible for the team to bounce back in the off-season, but they will need to be setup to improve and that really all does depend on the coaching staff as there is not much cap room to improve and Mike Brown seems to very much believe in incremental progress. There are a lot of unknowns right now and so us Bengals fans will just have to hope that the next hire is a good one.

Tennessee Titans

For all that I couldn’t get a handle on them for picking purposes, the Titans went 9-7 despite the injuries to quarterback Marcus Mariota and if he can get the nerve issue in his throwing arm to settle down in the off-season then there is no reason why the Titans can’t compete again next season. For all his accolades as a player, Mike Vrabel was a rookie head coach with limited experience as the man calling the shots and he made a winning start in his first year of coaching, which bodes well for the future. The AFC South could be very competitive next season.

Jacksonville Jaguars

The Jaguars had a nightmare season, falling to 5-11 after getting to the conference championship game the year before. It appears that GM David Caldwell and head coach Doug Marone are coming back on Tom Coughlin’s say so but there are real problems here. They have no franchise quarterback and the running back they took ahead of Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes has struggled this year and there are reports that he’s been a problem in the locker room. They are also currently over the cap for next season and even if they cut Blake Bortles, $16.5 of his $21 million dollar cap hit would remain as dead money. For all that they have assembled a good defence, they desperately need a functioning solution at quarterback and better players on offence and who knows if they can put that together in the off-season. There may be trouble ahead for the Jaguars next season as a difficult off-season looms.

Denver Broncos

The Broncos could not sustain a challenge to get to the playoffs and ultimately fell to 6-10. The Broncos never really took off under Vance Joseph and with their vaunted defence slipping and Case Keenum not bringing the form he showed with the Vikings last season to the party this year, it feels like there is a lot up in the air this off-season. I don’t know how long it might take for John Elway to feel pressure, but his drafts have not been stellar and his only real success in finding a quarterback was signing Peyton Manning and even then, Manning was a shell of himself when they actually won the Super Bowl. Their cap situation is not a disaster, but they need to get the coaching hire right and nail a draft if they want to compete with the Chiefs and Chargers in the AFC West, which looks like it will be no easier next season.

Oakland Raiders

The best thing that can be said for the Raiders is that they have a lot of draft capital, but after a tumultuous campaign that saw them go 4-12, the Raiders head into the off-season with nowhere to play their home games next season and questions all over the roster. They have just hired Mike Mayock to be their GM, but whilst he has been a great analyst for ESPN, it is a different job evaluating talent when there are wins on the line and make no mistake it will be Jon Gruden calling the shots. A lot will depend on whether this new pairing can hit the ground running, but with the roster where it is and where to play up in the air, it’s hard to sit here and predict how the Raiders will go next year. Let’s just say it would not exactly be a shock if they struggle again…

And Then There Were None

14 Sunday Feb 2016

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And so the season is done, and the Denver Broncos are the champions for the year. I know Dan and I really enjoyed the Super Bowl this, but this kind of defensive battle is not to everyone’s taste.

The aftermath has been dominated by discussions surrounding Cam Newton’s post game press conference and follow up comments, but I am reluctant to get too involved in this. He did not have a good game, Dan and I were commenting that he didn’t look right from the start of the game. The Super Bowl is a huge one-off game, and the Broncos played outstanding defence, which I will look at in a bit. The big talk is of Newton’s final fumble where he didn’t dive for the ball. As ever, the cover up is worse than the original incident. It has to be said that I didn’t particularly notice him not going for it at the time, and in the replay I just saw a player hesitate, which is understandable given that an oval ball bounces in random ways and all I saw a wrong footed player. However, a lot has been made about him stating he was worried about his leg getting hurt as it was in an awkward position.

In this age of over the top praise and blame, Cam Newton is almost the perfect quarterback for the media. He was lauded before the game as a new breed despite us having seen running quarterbacks before, although not ones so large with the ability to run the ball with power so regularly. However, he also has his flaws and some of them came to the fore in this game. He is not a rhythm thrower, in fact his footwork bothers me quite a lot. The fact that is not pretty isn’t exactly the issue, but if you’re feet are not good then you can struggle with accuracy and this can certainly affect Newton. He also seems to have one speed of throw, fast. His arm strength can and does make up for his technique, and you will see him make throws from awkward positions that very few quarterbacks can make. However, this does mean that if you need short sharp throws to counter a defence then you are going to struggle. He holds onto the ball longer than most quarterbacks in the league, and when facing a defence like the Broncos that can cause all sorts of trouble, but let’s look at what the Broncos did so well to win the game.

The Broncos defence has been good to great all year, and a large part of that is there is no weakness at any level of this defence. Yes the pass rush is formidable, but part of that is that their secondary covers very well so it is hard to get the ball out quickly. This was particularly the case for the Panthers’ receivers who dropped a couple, and were open a couple of times and didn’t get balls thrown their way, but the plain fact is that they did not get open often enough in this game. However, a lot of the problems that the Panthers had were caused by their inability to get much of anything going on first down. The Broncos spent a lot of the game in their base 3-4 defence, even if the Panthers were running three receiver sets. Clearly Wade Philips did not want them to be able to get their running game going and they were largely successful at this, forcing the Panthers out of their preferred game plan, and too many times this meant long passing plays that allowed the Broncos to rush the passer. The other structural nuance was how the Broncos rushed the passer. The Panthers run a lot of passing plays where they send fewer receivers on routes, keeping extra blockers in. However, this created two problems for them as the Broncos’ secondary could cover the fewer receivers, and the players that were assigned to the running back or tight end who was blocking would cover the player until they realised they were blocking and then rush the passer on a delayed blitz. This could clearly be seen on the last play before the half when running back Fozzy Whittaker couldn’t help left tackle Michael Oher as Broncos Linebacker Danny Trevathan spotted that Whittaker was blocking and so followed Malik Jackson on the inside pass rush, which allowed DeMarcus Ware to go round Oher virtually untouched to get the sack.

This really was a team defensive performance, but the focus has been particularly on the MVP Von Miller who had 2.5 sacks for the game and forced two fumbles, including the one that led to the Broncos touchdown in the first half.

If the Broncos defence was great, the Panthers defence was really not very far behind. They limited the Broncos offence to fewer than two hundred total yards, generated two turnovers of their own from Peyton Manning, and if they had won the game had their own MVP candidate in Kony Ealy who finished the game with three sacks, a forced fumble, and an interception. After the first drive they bottled up the Broncos offence, stopping them from sustaining drives even when the Broncos broke the odd run for a decent gain. It was even more remarkable to see Thomas Davis flying round the defence with his broken arm, something that media has certainly been quick to comment on given Newton’s mention of worry about a potential injury. The problem however was that between offensive turnovers putting them in bad positions, and the longest punt return in Super Bowl history, they were given too many short fields to defend. Even then they held the opposition mainly to field goals, only giving up one touchdown, but there were too many mistakes by the team as a whole for their great play to overcome.

The punt return by Jordan Norwood deserves special mention as it so easily could have gone wrong. Norwood clearly doesn’t call for a fair catch, but was surrounded by Panthers and was even bumped by one. Yet somehow he escaped the coverage team and ran for a record breaking sixty-one yards. It was pretty impressive to see defensive end Mario Addison chase Norwood down to prevent any further gain or even a touchdown. The defence held the Broncos to a field goal, but this game was a slow death filled with these little losses that in the end did for the Panthers.

And so at the end of the game Peyton Manning got his second Super Bowl win, pretty much as a passenger, but this was still a feat of leadership. He came to recognise he didn’t have the tools any more, and contrary to earlier in the season where he was throwing interceptions far too frequently, in this playoff run he limited himself, handed the ball off, milked the clock, and used every bit of his experience to get the win. I really hope that this is the last we see of him in pads as impressive as this was, I can’t see him repeating it and there was very little fun in watching this great player performing in such a way other than hoping he can go out on top.

And so the season has come to an end. The offseason started weeks ago, but whilst I will be following all that is going on, I will be taking a break from the blog. I will be writing other things, and I’m sure it won’t be too long before I will be reading and learning more about football. This year I’ll be doing the odd offseason blog around things like the draft, or if particular things crop up during free agency, but for now it is time to take a rest. Roll on next season, just not for a little while.

Super Bowl 50

07 Sunday Feb 2016

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So here we are, one game left. The week has been full of build up and interviews. The Super Bowl has become one of the biggest sporting events of the year, now viewed around the world, although exact figures are hard to come by. The hype has been there, so has the analysis if you go looking for it.

There is always a tension in where to pitch the coverage of American Football, with twenty-two people carrying out two sets of complex coordinated actions on every single play, there is something going on everywhere. One of the reasons that the game is so fascinating also makes it hard to broadcast. It is pretty much impossible to cover every nuance, and so receivers appear wide open mid-play and the viewer needs a replay to see what happened. That is if the team obligingly is not running a hurry-up offence. The international feed has often featured a simplified commentary aimed at the new people who are drawn into the spectacle of the NFL for this one game that us obsessives have been following for months. You can’t blame the broadcasters, the NFL is not an intuitive game due to its tactical nature and stop start game flow. Plus not every fan is interested in what route concepts are used to attack single high man coverage as opposed to a two deep zone.

I am looking forward to watching the game live, and going through the coaching tape afterwards and then taking a break. I love writing about American Football, but what I like doing is looking at the games and writing about the approach and coaching. I will dip in an out a bit more this offseason, but I am ready for a break. The grind of covering the sport year round must be tough given the competition to deliver news ahead of each other, but we don’t actually know what the affects of the offseason will be until well into September. In fact it can take years for a coach to turn around a franchise, a draft can’t be evaluated properly until years afterwards. I love talking football as much as the next fan, and we all have instant opinions, but the truth is that things take time to develop, and what I enjoy is watching that happen over the long term.

However, today is very much about the here and now so let’s grab this last game and squeeze as much out of it as possible as I take a look at the match up for tonight.

The obvious place to start is the one that has garnered the most coverage in the build up to the game, which is the Broncos defence against the Panthers offence. This is because it is the best contest in the game, with everyone being wary of how effective the Broncos offence will be, but it is also a fascinating tactical encounter. The Broncos defence is strong at all three levels, but will be facing a unique offence. The Panthers run the ball more, and with greater complexity than any other team this season. They have built their offence around the dual threat of Cam Newton, but also use extra blocking players in conjunction with forcing the opposition to account for the quarterback. One of the reasons this causes problems for a defence is historically the quarterback was too valuable to expose to multiple hits and so was unlikely to move the ball himself unless scrambling. The read-option changed this in recent years, but there were still limits to how many hits you would want them to take. Cam Newton is built like a defensive end, and the Panthers are not afraid to repeatedly use him in power running situations. This will cause the Broncos defence issues as they have to account for him in their run defence, whilst being aware that the Panthers also use these run looks to create play-action passes to throw the ball deep. If your safety is stepping up to account for a running quarterback, and that same quarterback then pulls up and throws the ball you have big problems.

The good news for the Broncos is that they have a pair of outside pass rushers who are not only good at straight up getting round the edge of the offence, but run stunts by moving inside as their the tackle moves out. This can help to counter the read-option as it makes the read that the quarterback has to make more complex and can slow it down.  There are other ways you can play a running quarterback is by getting your edge defenders to play a specific player, i.e. they have responsibility for the outside man, forcing the play in towards the rest of the defence, or focussing inside whilst a linebacker scrapes over the top to cover the outside player. I expect to see all three from the Broncos talented front seven, and they also have two hard hitting safeties that will be able to help in run support. Their secondary should also be able to matchup against the Panthers skill players, and it will fascinating to see how they mix up man and zone coverage as they try to prevent the deep strikes that have served the Panthers so well all season.

The story of the Broncos offence all year has been Peyton Manning, but there have been other problems affecting them all year. The offseason saw some strange decisions in that the Broncos brought in a new coach whose zone run scheme was much different to what they had been running previously, meaning the offensive line had to learn a new scheme as well as protect an ageing quarterback. This offence has not been able to move the ball consistently on the ground or through the air, but they can get big runs here and there. More importantly perhaps, since coming back from his injury Peyton Manning seems to have embraced his new role and has not thrown an interception in the playoffs, which is in stark contrast to his play during the regular season. Also, when they are down in the red zone, his lack of arm strength is less of an issue and he still has the smarts to get touchdowns as demonstrated by the throws to tight end Owen Daniels last week.

However, they are facing a defence that has been playing well all year. They may not be as consistently good at all three levels as the Broncos defence, but the Panthers coaching staff have done a great job of making the best of the talent they have around theie super start players. In Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis they have one of the best pairings of linebackers in the league, although it will be interesting to see how Davis will play two weeks from breaking his forearm given that I have no idea how he is even contemplating it. The defence does not blitz much, but defensive tackles Kawann Short and Star Lotulelei are going to cause the Broncos offensive line problems all day, which a rotation of ends will apply pressure from the outside. The question will be if the Broncos secondary, which apart from stand out corner Josh Norman, is a little patchwork but plays their zone scheme very well.

The only team to beat the Panthers this year were the Atlanta Falcons, and they did this by running the ball consistently to bring up Davis and Kuechly, before attacking the defence deep. The problem for the Broncos is that Manning doesn’t have the arm for long balls any more, but it seems unlikely that they would be able to run a Patriots style short passing game either. They will have to commit to running the ball, which they have done under Gary Kubiak, and hope to generate play-action passing and enough long running plays to get into a position to score. I am looking forward to seeing how they try to do this, but I am not sure if they have the tools to be successful.

Overall I see this game as either being a close tight affair, with the Broncos hanging around and making it competitive as they have done all year, or the Panthers could really run away with it. However, with as good a defence as the Broncos have and two weeks for defensive coordinator Wade Phillips to prepare, I think it is more likely to be a close game. A lot will depend on what wrinkles the coaches prepare for this game and who executes their game plan more cleanly, but I hope it will be a good contest. I am not particularly invested in who wins as both results would have good stories, but it would be nice if Manning could have at least one last good performance to go out on.

Roll on Super Bow 50, let’s hope it lives up to the hype.

Playoffs, and the Conference Championship Games

24 Sunday Jan 2016

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Three games. That is all we have left if you discount the Pro Bowl, which I do. They look like exciting games, or at least intriguing, but I’ll be looking at them in a bit because what I want to focus on first is how we got here.

There is a simple reason that I am writing about this, which is that in the last two weeks I have found myself repeatedly reaching for the same phrase. This was one game too far for this team, or variations of that. And in each case I am talking about a team that has done well, but for various reasons fell short, but the primary one at this time of year seems to be injury. This is not a new theme for this blog, I have been writing about the importance of depth all season, but it takes on an extra significance at this time of year thanks to the structure of the NFL schedule.

All four of what are traditionally considered the major sports in America operates with a playoff structure, as well as the expanding MLS despite football’s tradition of leagues and parallel cup competitions across the globe. It is simply the expected format over in the States, and it still feels odd to someone who grew up with team sports being settled by everyone playing each other home and away in a league to decide the best team. In the NFL’s defence, there is simply no way for them to schedule such a league wide format with thirty-two teams who are already stretched to breaking point by a sixteen game schedule spread across seventeen weeks.

The reason I bring this up here, is that whilst all the sixteen games look to have the same mathematical value initially, in practice some games are literally more valuable than others. Thanks to the importance of winning your division, and the record comparison that can be used to determine who wins a division or makes the playoffs via the wildcard places, there are some games that are more helpful for getting to the playoffs than others. This in of itself is nothing new to competition, it is impossible to make things absolutely fair, and even in the league format scheduling and timing, not to mention the timing of injuries can play a significant role in the outcome.

For those who are not interested in Premier League football, one of the stories of the season has been Leicester City’s performance, which has seen them top the league and remain in contention through and after the festive period. For me this was always the real test as it is not uncommon for a team to have a good start, but have their performance tail off over the second half of the season, with the fixture congestion over the festive period often really testing a team’s squad and their ability to maintain a title challenge or a top four finish so they get into the Champions League. Not only is great for the team in your city to be on such a run of form, but in the last couple of weeks they have been social media contact between them and the Carolina Panthers, as City had spotted the similarity in both team’s season of unexpected success, and both clubs have been sending each other jerseys.

Whilst there is plenty of season to go for Leicester City, the Panthers are coming down to crunch time. I’m sure their fans won’t be thinking about it, but to some it might seem curious that a team which finished with a 15-1 record, two games better than any other team in the league, still have to win three games to be crowned champions. At its heart, the NFL is an entertainment business and so they can’t help by love the drama and tension of playoff football, and in fairness we all do.

I wouldn’t want to change this as I have already mentioned, but I do think it should be remembered when evaluating teams and players. I will cover the way injuries are likely to affect the teams when I go over the games, but I thought I would cover an aspect of the first game as I prepare to write about the Conference Championship games.

The number of people in involved in an American Football game is greater than any other sport that I can think of, with over forty active players, various coaches, and the required sport staff. It is very much a team game, which is what makes it somewhat ridiculous to start billing the upcoming Patriots at Broncos as Brady vs Manning seventeen. They are in very different places in their career right now, even if they are not so far apart in age. This could be the last game we see Peyton Manning play, the brain is still willing but the body whilst not exactly failing, is no longer truly up to the rigours of the NFL. The most frustrating thing for him must be that in most games he still makes a really good play, but he can no longer do it consistently and the arm strength has become a real problem.

The other qualifier that is often mentioned when looking back over Manning’s career is his playoff record, and this is usually compared negatively to Tom Brady’s. It is not that this is an unfair comparison, but that I think it gets over played. They are both outliers in terms of ability, each are Hall of Fame quarterbacks, and there is no argument that Brady has the more impressive post-season résumé. There is even a structural criticism in that by taking the salary that Manning has in a salary cap sport, it has meant that his teams have had to build their roster in a different way to the Patriots, where Tom Brady’s more team friendly deal allow the Patriots be more competitive. However, whilst I think there is some validity to all of this, the overlooked part is that Brady has also played his entire career with one of the all time great coaches, who not only wins tactically, but seems to have mastered the art of taking players that other coaches have let go, and put them into a position to succeed with the skills they do have.

In a culture where we seem to love building up heroes and then knocking them down, there is so much to admire in Manning’s come back from four neck surgeries and his performance over the last few seasons. One of the best defences we have seen in a long time stopped him winning that second Super Bowl, and it wasn’t him who snapped the ball over his head. There are different ways of leading, it doesn’t have to be screaming and shouting on the side line, and Manning’s preparedness is legendary.

All of these things will be played out one more time in the AFC Conference Championship, which will be hugely pressured, but in something as volatile as game of football there are no guarantees. Not only that, but injuries could well play a part as the four top seeded team play for the right to face each other in the Super Bowl.

New England Patriots @ Denver Broncos

In the opening drive of last week’s game we saw that the Patriots had managed their injuries well over the last few weeks of the season, and looked more like themselves on offence. Tom Brady was able to get the ball out quickly again, as the Patriots threw the ball all over the Kansas City Chiefs, who were unable to get pressure on Brady. The Patriots come into this game with not the best history of playing in Denver, and they face a team that have been winning ugly all season.

The Broncos won last week with a solitary touchdown on offence, but with better special teams than the Pittsburgh Steelers and a defence that held Ben Roethlisberger and his receivers in check. However, a large concern for them is that corner Chris Harris is struggling with a shoulder problem and was in and out of the game a lot. This is a problem for the Broncos defence as he is their most effective slot corner, and when facing a team with both Danny Amendola, and particularly Julian Edelman, you want your best slot corner to be on top of their game as they will do their damage from these positions.

The other worry for the Broncos is that Belichick’s game plan on defence is always to take away what the opposition do well and force them to win by doing something they are less comfortable with. I would expect this to take the form of the Patriots focusing on stopping the run and short passes by packing the middle of the field, daring Manning to make the deep and sideline throws that have given him problems this season. With some of the injuries to the Patriots front seven, it might be that the Broncos will be able to run the ball, but they will have to if they are to keep this game close.

I am expecting the Patriots to win this game, I think that the better balance between offence and defence will be too much for the Broncos to overcome, but they got here for a reason and so if they can keep it a tight game they stand a chance. There is part of me that still wonder if Manning has one or two moments of magic left in him, but even if he hasn’t, it has still been an incredible career.

Arizona Cardinals @ Carolina Panthers

This is going to be a cold game, with the east coast storms freezing an already torn up grass field. It is into this environment that the Cardinals come after playing three straight games in the warm dome that they call home.

More worrying for the Cardinals is that quarterback Carson Palmer was clearly having problems throwing the ball last week. It may be that his finger will feel better for another week of recovery, or they can make further changes to the taping of it, but balls were consistently sailing on Palmer lat week. Not only that, but he didn’t look quite as poised or as aggressive as he has for most of the season, and the long ball is a big part of Bruce Arians’ offence.

They are going against a team whose defence has been excellent, but with the injuries in the secondary, you might be able to get at the Panthers with the deep passing game. However, in Star Lotulelei and Kawann Short the Panthers have two defensive tackle that could really cause the Cardinals problems with pressure up the middle, which stops a quarterback from stepping up and Carson Palmer was never the most mobile of quarterbacks. The defence also features one of my favourite player sin Luke Kuechly, one of the best linebackers currently playing who is equally effective making a tackle in the run game as he is when dropping back in coverage. The Panthers will be hoping their predominantly zone coverage will hold up against an offence that loves to attack a defence at multiple levels.

The Panthers power running game might be well suited to counter the aggressive Cardinals defence, particularly as the Cardinals play with a converted safety at linebacker, relying on the speed of their extra secondary players, which might struggle on the Panthers’ turf. However, the Panthers have been making their passing game work with a less than stellar group of receivers, and Arians has been talking about how the Cardinals’ focus will be stopping tight end Greg Olson. Whether this will be enough with Cam Newton’s deep passing game causing many teams problems, particularly as you have to respect the dual threat that Jonathan Stewart and he present in the running game when they run play action, is yet to be seen.

I think this is likely to be my favourite game of this week. I have so much respect for both coaches, and it will be great to see an unfamiliar team going to the Super Bowl from the NFC given the recent stretch of dominance from the Seattle Seahawk.

Most of all however, we should be savouring both of these games as there is so little football left. Sure we will all be pouring over the offseason moves as every fan base transitions into the hopeful offseason part of the year, but the games are what it is all about. More on that next week.

Week 2 Broncos at Chiefs

20 Sunday Sep 2015

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I really enjoyed this game, and for most of it felt comfortable in my pick of the Chiefs over the Broncos, but let’s take a look at how it went for both teams.

The Broncos came out running the ball, with Manning under centre much more than in recent years, but after an initial good run through a big hole, the offence started having problems. Through most of the half they seemed to struggle, and whilst Manning’s timing looked off and he missed long balls, he was not as bad as was made out to have been in week one. That said, whilst things did improve as the Broncos moved more into the offence we more normally associate with Manning, they were never that convincing and it still seems strange to me that the Broncos were so willing to tinker with their offensive line when they have a thirty-nine year old quarterback who even in his prime was never known for his mobility. However, things did improve for Manning over the course of the game, and he found Emmanuel Sanders a lot early, and Demaryius Thomas frequently towards the end of the game, despite the o-line really hampering them, but he did not look like the Manning of old, and he was not able to win them this game.

In fairness, part of the problem for the Broncos was they were going against a very good Chiefs defence, with Justin Houston making plays all around the defence as well as getting his two sacks and three quarterback hits. The Chiefs’ rookie corner back Marcus Peters was also impressive, apart from intercepting Manning and taking it fifty-five yards for a touchdown, he showed up in coverage repeatedly, deflecting another four passes and is already beginning to look at home in the NFL.

The Chiefs offence did enough in this game to win against a Broncos defence that looks set to be near the top of the defensive rankings all year. The addition of Jeremy Maclin has not exactly transformed their passing offence, but he caught four balls from seven targets, and helped open up the offence by offering a genuine threat. I’m sure people will still be talking about this offence not throwing a passing touchdown to a receiver, but Travis Kelce still offers a good threat from tight end, and I am sure the receiver stat will change this season. What hasn’t changed is the Chiefs’ commitment to running the ball, and with a back like Jamaal Charles why would it? He ran for one hundred and twenty-five yards in this game, and looked good doing it. The offence punched the ball in twice on the ground, and the game looked like it was going into overtime until it finally unravelled for the Chiefs.

The Broncos defence looked good all game again. They have a no obvious weaknesses, managed to get four sacks and seven quarterback hits, plus has one of the best starting corner tandems in the NFL who managed to get an interception each. In this game they also managed to get an unlikely looking win when Brandon Marshall forced Jamaal Charles’s second fumble of the game and Bradley Roby returns it for a game winning touchdown.

The Broncos are now 2-0, despite rather than because of their offence, and it will be interesting to see how far they can go playing like this and how Manning will develop across the year as he and the new coaching staff continue to adjust to each other. However, with the way their defence is playing, they will be in a lot of games.

As for the Chiefs, I think they have improved on offence, their defence looks really good, and they should be in the playoff hunt come the end of the season, but this loss will hurt them. They were on top for most of the first half, but Alex Smith’s first interception allowed the Broncos to go into half time level, and they weren’t able to put the game away in the second half.

I shall finish, with one last piece of film study, as I could not work out how Emanuel Sanders was open for the Broncos first touchdown when watching the condensed game. The Broncos use 11 personnel in an empty backfield shotgun set with running back CJ Anderson lining up as a slot receiver on the right side, and tight end Own Daniels motioning from the right of the formation to wide left, becoming the outermost receiver on that side. I’m no entirely sure of the personnel, but the Chiefs look to have lined up in nickel, and certainly pass rushed with five, playing man coverage with no safety cover behind them. Justin Houston drops into some kind of zone on the left side of the deffence, but behind him CJ Anderson and Emanuel Sanders (who lined up as the outer receiver on the right side) run crossing routes so that Anderson just disrupts the Chiefs’ corner covering Sanders enough that he gets an easy catch and dives into the end zone. If Houston had rushed Manning he might have been able to get a sack or disrupt the pass, but as it is, all the pressure from the defence is coming from Manning’s left and he has an easy passing lane right to get his first touchdown of the game.

NFL Conference Championship Preview

18 Sunday Jan 2015

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My overriding emotion after last week’s games was one of sadness, and not because there are now only three competitive games left, but the way Peyton Manning and the Broncos played left me feeling down. I’ll take a look at the teams leaving us before examining the Conference Championship games.

The were a lot more points scored in the first game of the weekend than I was expecting, but to take a fourteen point lead, have the Patriots level the score, get another fourteen point lead, the Patriots level once more, then take another lead, and yet finally lose the game must really hurt. The Ravens were able to move the ball well, running for over a hundred yards and passing effectively, but Joe Flacco threw two interceptions. On both of these, the safety came down to intercept balls thrown to Torrey Smith. What I didn’t know was that the first interception came whilst the Ravens were running a play that had worked in the first quarter, but flipped to the other side. If you get a chance, watch this video on the Patriots website with Belichick breaking down some key plays from the game, it’s one of the more fascinating tape segments you’ll see all year, and I owe a thanks to the excellent Michael Carlson for tweeting the link. The part that surprised me about this game was the defence, with the Terrel Suggs and Elvis Doomerville having quiet games, but whilst the Patriots were very pass heavy, Brady was getting the ball out of his hands before the pass rush could get there.

The Ravens are going to be a very good football team again next year, they have a lot of players already in place, are keeping their coaching team in tact, and they can reinforce the secondary as well as get players back. I’m getting worried already.

The Panthers gave a really good account of themselves in a really difficult place to play, but this game demonstrated that they are a team on the up rather than one pushing for a championship. There was more scoring in this game than I was expecting, but at the end of the day they simply were not talented enough to compete with the Seahawks when it mattered most. This will be an interesting offseason for them as they will have a little more cap room to play with, but the Cam Newton contract will be key, and to a large extent determine how they continue to build this team going forward.

The Cowboys benefited from officiating in their Wildcard game, and then suffered in this one, although the rule as it is currently written was enforced correctly. I thought Dez Byant had made the catch, although the bobble at the end made me think he was down inside the one. However, as soon as I saw the ball move on the replay I thought it would be overturned. This is the problem with replay, as whilst you want calls to be right, and replay helps you get this, as fans we want to see football plays and Dez Bryant made an excellent play. In fact, the Cowboys played really well in this came and could have won it.

There was not a lot of pressure up the middle from the Cowboys’ defence, but Rod Marinelli really took advantage of Rodgers limited mobility and there were several times when you could see huge spaces that he couldn’t run into. However, once the Packers adjusted in the second half, putting more receivers on the field to spread the defence, Rodgers was able to move the ball through the air and finished the game with over three hundred yards passing.

The Broncos fell out of the playoffs with a limp display that has led to the firing of Jon Fox. There are questions surrounding Peyton Manning’s arm strength, the extent of his leg injury, and whether he will come back next season. Selfishly I would like to see him come back as I still enjoy watching him play, when he’s not facing the Bengals, and as recently as three games ago he managed a terrifying third quarter in Cincinnati that makes me think that if can get injury free, he can still be effective. However, whether he can get that healthy, stay there, and still has the will power to go through everything required to play football only he will know. As much as anything, I would like a better end to his amazing career than this damp squib of game.

Whilst Manning struggled, so did the rest of the team. One of the few bright sparks was CJ Anderson who managed eighty yards on eighteen carries, and whilst there several drives that consisted of short runs on first and second down with a missed fade pass on third down, given Manning’s struggles in the pass game and these figures, a commitment to the run game could have kept the game closer. The big surprise for me on the other side of the ball however, was how little pass rush Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware managed as they managed no sacks and barely any pressure. This is a good team, but with so many free agents and now coaching upheaval, in addition to the status of Peyton Manning, the offseason could be something of a soap opera in Denver.

But enough of the teams that have left us, there are three more games to go so let’s get to the Conference Championship games:

Packers @ Seahawks

DVOA                                    Packers                        Seahawks

Overall:                       4th                                1st
Offensive:                   1st                                4th
Defensive:                   18th                              1st
Special Teams:            30th                              17th

The Seahawks very much took care of business last week, scoring more points than I thought they would whilst conceding more. In truth they got less out of Marshawn Lynch in the running game than I was expecting, but Russell Wilson was solid in the passing game and added twenty-two yards of rushing. They may not be a unit full of high-powered names, but the Seahawks skill players are playing very solid football and Russell Wilson continues to impress as a quarterback. They will be hoping to have a better day in the run game, but the Packers defence is not as fearsome prospect as the Panthers have been in recent weeks and they could have some success.

The Packers defence had some worrying moments last week, and whilst it was a great play by Julius Peppers to knock the ball out, it did look like DeMarco Murray was about to rip off a huge run with the defence opening up before him. In fact the Cowboys moved the ball pretty well and were certainly able to run the ball. This is perhaps not surprising as they were only ranked twenty-fourth in rush defence by DVPA through the regular season and this could be a real problem for them in Lynch get going.

The Packers are constructed for their defence to do enough to win, relying on their excellent offence, but in this game they are facing the best defence left in the playoffs, and probably the best in recent week. The Seahawks got some of their linebackers back and have been playing great defence for weeks now. Their secondary is incredibly strong with Kam Chancellor having an amazing game last week, demonstrating amazing agility to leap over the line in an attempt to block a field goal as well as getting a pick six. It will be interesting to see how they do against a Packers team who did not throw to Richard Sherman’s side of the field in their meeting on opening day back in September, but who have come on a long way since then. I would expect them to be aggressive early in the pass rush to test Aaron Rodgers movement and see if they can disrupt him in the passing game.

The Packers offence is different to where it was at the start of the season. Their o-line has coalesced and changed since the start of the season and has been playing excellent football. However, there is marked difference in the Packers home and away performance, and it has been talked and written that at home they are able to go through a number of plays to find the right one due to how quiet the stadium is. This is very much not going to be the case in one of the loudest stadiums in the NFL. The other problem for the Packers is that Aaron Rodgers played brilliantly last week on one leg, but it was clear that his calf injury was forcing him to play a different game, and whilst he could get away with this against the Cowboys defence, I’m not sure he will able to this week. You might think that it would be a good idea to rely on the run more to protect him, but although the Seahawks defence is famed for its secondary, they are still ranked second by DVOA in rush defence, which is in fact one place higher than their pass defence. There were some moments from Eddie Lacy, but he didn’t look that impressive for stretches of last week’s game and the Packers could do with a big game from him. However, in the passing game, whilst they did not get a strong game from Jordy Nelson last week, this didn’t matter as they got one hundred yard games out of Randall Cobb and Davante Adams so if they can spread the field again, maybe they can find a matchup they like,

This will be a fascinating game that I suspect the Seahawks will win due to their home field advantage and the difference in the way the Packers play away from home.

Colts @ Patriots

DVOA                                    Colts                            Patriots

Overall:                       13th                              2nd
Offensive:                   19th                              3rd
Defensive:                   7th                                12th
Special Teams:            15th                              7th

There have been talks of a possible second passing of the torch game for the Colts this week, with Andrew Luck having beaten Peyton Manning and now facing Tom Brady.

The matchups in this game will be interesting because the Patriots as a team are so mutable, you never know what Belichick and his staff are planning. Last week they abandoned the run game in the second half, ran plays with four linemen, and dusted off an options play the type we haven’t seen from them in years. That said, earlier in the year they pounded the Colts using extra linemen and racked up 246 rushing yards that included a two hundred yard, four touchdown day for Jonas Gray who has barely been heard from since. We don’t know if Belichick will revert back to the run attack this week, or if he will try to do something else, so from a tactical point of view this will be a fascinating game.

The Patriots offence had to rely on deception to get the win against the Ravens last week, but the Colts are a different proposition. They have looked very good in the playoffs so far, but the Patriots will offer a far more balanced challenge, Although talk of his demise were premature, Tom Brady doesn’t have the same ability to go deep he had when Randy Moss was running those go patterns, but he does have receivers that suit this offence, and Rob Gronkowski is a matchup nightmare for every team in the NFL. That said, they will miss their centre Bryan Stork, and one of the first things to look for is whether the line problems the Patriots suffered at the start of the season will resurface as they have to shuffle this unit.

The Colts defence has looked excellent for two weeks in a row, but the Bengals were missing too many receivers for Andy Dalton to excel, and the Broncos were strangely limited even taking into account the issues affecting Peyton Manning. The Patriots may be shuffling their line so there could be issues, Brady has his weapons and this could stretch this defence. They played great as a unit last week, and Vontae Davis was all over the field, but the Patriots don’t really have a single threat for him to man up against and at six foot and two hundred pounds, he doesn’t really match up with Gronkowski. This has been a tough tackling unit that has been really well coached, but I wonder if they get exposed against the Patriots like they were earlier in the season, two hundred yards is a lot to give up in the running game.

The Patriots defence has been a talking point for its fans as it has been as good as they have had for a long time, but it didn’t exactly catch the eye last week. The secondary that has been much improved did manage to get two interceptions last week, but as unit they gave up a lot of points and go against another good unit this week. That said, the Colts offensive line is not as good as the Ravens and so there is more chance of the Patriots getting a sustained pass rush. It will be interesting to see how much of this will come from Jamie Collins who is excellent at both pass rushing and coverage. What he is doing could well be a key as to what the Patriots think is the priority in this game and how they plan to get to Andrew Luck.

This leads us nicely to the Colts offence, which is only slightly more than Andrew Luck. Up until a couple of weeks ago I was only really impressed with four Colts players and three of them play in this offence. I don’t know if Andrew Luck will supplant our current great quarterbacks as some have been saying, as there are just too many variables, but he has certainly started his career in spectacular fashion. The throw he made to Donte Moncrief against the Bengals with defensive linemen round his feet was nothing short of spectacular. I have been pretty impressed with two of his targets, but whilst TY Hilton has an amazing knack of getting open, he drops too many balls, and Luck’s numbers would be even more impressive if Hilton had held onto some more of the very catchable balls that he has dropped. That said, I have been very impressed with his tight end Coby Fleener who has caught fifty balls for seven hundred yards this season, and seems to be good for several big plays a game whenever I’ve watched the Colts. However, the problem is that their o-line is not very good and whilst they could triple team Carlos Dunlap against the Bengals, I think they will be challenged more this week. But then again, I thought that last week and it didn’t materialise against the excellent pass rushers of the Broncos so only time will tell.

I am not sure how this game is going to go, as my instinct says that the Patriots should take care of business at home, but their o-line shuffle worries me and the Colts have been on a real run recently. That said, I’m not that impressed with the talent spread against their roster, and whilst they have been coached really well and are playing very tough football, I can see them coming up short against the elite teams in the league, and the Patriots are very definitely one of those.