Know Your Enemy: Denver Broncos

As the 2013 season is about to begin, it’s time to debut our next All-22 series. Each week, either Dan or I will look at the Ravens’ upcoming opponent. We’ll go to the tape and break down a few plays that exemplify the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses on both sides of the ball. The goal, in the immortal words of Rage Against the Machine, will be to Know Your Enemy.

This game, of course, is a special one. Thursday isn’t just opening day for the 2013 NFL season, and it’s not just a game we’ve waited impatiently for since February. After all of the tedious offseason news, from the draft to training camp to the preseason, the time has finally come. The beginning of the Ravens’ title defense. What more needs to be said?

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Is Manning Better Than Ever?

Peyton Manning had a transcendent year in 2012. After coming off numerous neck surgeries and dealing with questions about his age and durability, Manning silenced even his most skeptical critics. For a quick and dirty look at Manning’s 2012 season compared to past years, let’s look at ProFootballFocus (PFF)’s Passer Rating.

It’s easy to see that last year was a great year even by Peyton’s standards. And with some key additions to the Denver offense, I see no reason why he won’t be even better this year. Some quick notes about what I saw from the Denver offense in the preseason (only snaps where Manning was at the helm):

– The Broncos integrated the Pistol into their offense, but the majority of snaps were shotgun formation. I’d say it was about three parts shotgun, one part pistol, and just a drop or two of Manning under center.

– As is usual with Manning, the majority of snaps came from 3WR singleback sets. The Broncos were also using 4WR sets a good bit, and occasionally an empty backfield. We all knew it, but it’s very apparent that the Baltimore secondary will be tested. There will be few, if any, snaps when the trio of Demaryius Thomas, Decker, and Welker aren’t all sharing the field.

– Manning looks much healthier than a year ago. He looked mobile in the pocket, he was putting throws in tight windows and his deep ball was much more accurate than a year ago. His overall accuracy is so good it’s just annoying.

– TE Julius Thomas, a college basketball player and former fourth-round draft pick, looked like a beast on film. He is tall, fast, and catches nearly everything Manning throws his way. He had a bad fumble in PreWeek2, but overall his tape was very impressive. He’s been slated to start and he will be a handful for our linebackers, to say the least.

I decided to break down a play from PreWeek 3 because it exemplified much of what will be good about the 2013 Denver offense. The Broncos face 4th and 2 in the red zone against the St. Louis Rams.

(For more on the China concept above, see this article here).

Denver comes out in a short shotgun set. Manning sees the SS in the box and audibles his RB from the left to the right side, a seemingly simple change but something that Manning does so well. Like I said, I thought this play had a lot of telling aspects about the Denver offense, and Manning’s ability to move his pieces around and put them in the right spot is just one example.

The Rams are in Cover-1 here with a single high safety, and the offensive play call is going to put a lot of pressure on FS Rodney McLeod. He has to sit in his zone and watch both of the outside receivers, then break on the ball once he figures out where it’s going. This is an extremely tough assignment, especially against Manning. Meanwhile, Demaryius Thomas is going to use speed and leverage to get a step on his man and find a hole near the corner of the endzone.

Here, you can see Demaryius Thomas turning toward the corner of the endzone. The cornerback, playing him inside, will have a tough time defending a well-thrown pass. You can also see how far out of position the FS is – he has no chance to break up the play. Meanwhile, Manning is rolling out to his right, and his line is giving him great protection. There is no defender within five yards of him. If the line can keep Manning this clean all season long, it will spell disaster for Denver’s opponents.

A beautiful pass sails just over the outside cornerback and lands in Thomas’s hands. Manning shows really impressive athleticism on this rollout pass (for a supposedly immobile 38-year old quarterback). To his credit, Thomas reaches up and makes a strong-handed catch, not allowing his man to put a hand in and break up the touchdown.

A Different Broncos Defense (For Now)

Denver will be without it’s two fearsome pass rushers, Elvis Dumervil and Von Miller, and that’s probably Baltimore’s biggest advantage in this game. Obviously Doom now plays for the Ravens, and Von Miller is facing a six-game suspension. But the Broncos won’t be without pass rushing options, and the rest of their very-good defense is still intact.

Most notably, the Broncos picked up ex-Charger Shaun Phillips, a strong pass-rusher in his own right. He has somewhat quietly amassed 69.5 sacks since he entered the league, averaging nearly 8 sacks a season. For comparison’s sake, Suggs averages 8.45 sacks/season. Phillips joins a strong Broncos front seven that includes Robert Ayers, Derek Wolfe, Nate Irving, and Wesley Woodyard (see below).

The Broncos will have to get creative to get pressure without Miller and Dumervil, and in the preseason they were already hard at work. Below, Wesley Woodyard gets a sack on a B-gap blitz. The Broncos only had to bring four here to take Bradford down, and if this happens on Thursday it will be a long night for Flacco.

While Woodyard blitzes the B-gap, the LDE and the SAM linebacker drop into coverage. In the second image, you can see that the LG is double-teaming one of the defensive linemen, but has failed to pass off the block and pick up Woodyard. Bradford makes an effort to spin away, but Woodyard uses strong hands to hold onto Bradford’s jersey and ultimately bring him down.

What the Ravens Need to Do

You’ve heard Dan Bryden talk about “shot” plays in some of his preseason film reviews. These plays will be particularly important against Denver for two reasons. One is that, without Boldin and Pitta, the Ravens could struggle to sustain long drives with short gains. The last time the team played Denver, Flacco turned to Boldin whenever the team needed five yards for a first down. And it was Boldin and Pitta who made tough catches against press coverage and consistently moved the chains throughout the postseason. Without them, I have a feeling the offense will see a lot more stalled drives.

So what can Baltimore do? For starters, they can try to take advantage of a Broncos secondary that has a lot of the same pieces from a year ago. Denver added Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, and it appears that Duke Ihenacho, who’s had a highlight reel preseason, may have unseated Mike Adams at the SS position. But the rest of the pieces, including Champ Bailey, Rahim Moore, and Chris Harris, are all the same.

In particular, I think the Ravens need to take advantage of their matchups against Champ Bailey and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie in single coverage. Torrey Smith was clearly too fast for Bailey to keep up with in single coverage last year, and something tells me Bailey isn’t getting any faster with age. Though DRC may end up taking the primary receiver (in our case, Torrey Smith), the concept of calling plays that create mismatches still applies.

Because this play call so aggressively attacks the deep middle of the field, the Ravens are able to get Torrey into single coverage against Champ Bailey with no safety help over the top.

When Boldin, who is playing in the slot, crosses over top of Jones near the Bronco emblem at midfield, it causes confusion in the secondary. Of course, it’s always difficult to tell exactly what the assignments in the secondary were. But to me it appears that FS Rahim Moore screws up here. He fades to his right, following Boldin as he crosses over top of Jones. But the SS and the corner on that side of the field also stay home, meaning three people are covering Boldin.

That leaves the slot corner covering Jones and Champ Bailey one-on-one with Torrey. All Torrey has to do is kick it into top gear and haul in the arcing throw from Flacco, and the Ravens get on the board for the first time. If Baltimore can overload the deep zones and create matchup problems with their play calling, they can get their speedy receivers in good one-on-one situations against Rogers-Cromartie and Bailey. That should be enough for a long TD or two.

In Conclusion

This is going to be a very tough game for Baltimore, arguably the toughest all year. Much like they were in the Divisional playoff game, the Ravens are a big underdog, currently by 7.5 points. That may seem a little unfair considering the Ravens are defending Super Bowl champs. But much of the pessimism likely stems from the large roster turnover in the offseason. There are a bunch of fresh faces on Baltimore’s defense, and a few holes on offense that weren’t there eight months ago. Meanwhile, Denver added several new facets to an already-stellar offense, and with Manning at the helm, the Broncos have the ability to outscore anybody.

However, the Broncos defense is a bit hamstrung right now. And I personally think the Ravens front seven is going to be a force right out of the gate. With the right game plan and some good execution, there’s no reason the Ravens shouldn’t be in the game late – possibly with a chance to pull out another big upset over Peyton Manning in Denver.