Denver Broncos Film Study – Preseason Week 3

I watched a bit of game film this week from Preseason Week 3 from the Broncos game. 

A few initial thoughts to follow on two big things that stuck out at me. 

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

1. Peyton Manning is throwing ducks. Like all over the place, all the time. There’s no zip on his ball, it’s not tight. It doesn’t look good. Now this might be a one week anomaly but his ball looked ugly. There’s no way he’s in the league for more than one year. He looked timid and afraid to be hit out there more than a few times.

2. Sanders didn’t play in this game, so it’s hard to say if it’s a philosophy thing for the Broncos, but it was lots underneath and dinks and dunks until they had to go deep. I think this might be tied to the arm of Manning or they could be hiding it. But I’d force Manning to try and beat my CBs deep early in the game.

3. Maxx Williams, please don’t try and hurdle Talib. K, thanks.

4. Trestman, please no man to man blocking of Von Miller with a TE. I think you can guess how this play ends. Make a note of it now…

On to the film. 

If you didn’t think CJ Anderson was legit, take a moment to appreciate him now. Because he’s going to be good and a meaningful test for this team. In the sequence below, you might recognize this blocking scheme. Six blockers, vs six defenders. Den. motions to clear out some space and adjust the ILB’s to the right. The LG passes the ROLB to the LT who cuts him. And then pulls into the hole, while the C passes the NT into the RG (both OL in red), flash out, don’t get great blocks on the OLB, but Anderson is decisive and quick. He makes his move and cuts right through the middle of the field for a 10 yard gain. 

Brandon Williams is going to have to hold his ground against the C and not let him pass him off on a play like this. It’s worth nothing, the Niners are in nickel here, hence the only 2 down lineman to protect against the pass. This will be the mismatch fight of the game next week. And I’ll be really interested to see how we combat this. 

Anderson impresses me again later. Easy flare toss for Manning. The Niners should have this. They’ve got two linebackers on the right side in a zone that are keyed in. In fact the outside guy passes his man to the safety behind him and plays Anderson and meets him 3 yards behind the LOS. 57 takes a terrible route to the ball to back him up and over pursues. 92 gets his head turned around and knows the play is behind him for good awareness and should be able to close that gap. All three guys just flat out miss in the open field. And a 4 yard loss results in nearly a first down. It’s just a really really nice play for Anderson. 

 

So what do you do to slow down this attack? We’ve all hear the Broncos line is weak. They cut Gradkowski…attack the middle of this offensive line and get him off his spot. This one is just a missed assignment. Hillam gets caught trying to help the LG gap on a misread (though it’s probably smart because he knows the assignment is for the LG to help the RT meaning there will be a hole on that side) but the RE is out pretty wide and he misses it. And Bowman blows by Hillman for a sack. This could be easily replicated by the Ravens. Look at Manning by the way, he’s down before Bowman even gets there. I’m not sure if this is a touch thing for preseason and he just wants to stay healthy or if Manning is genuinely scared for his health. Either way, I’m dialing up that A – Gap Blitz for this game and bringing it early. These guys need tested. 

 

The Niners do it again later in the game. This time they just simply overload the right side again. They are rushing 4 against 4 blockers. I’m not sure if the TE is supposed to pick up on this or if this is on Manning for not making the audible. But Bowman again, blows through the line and gets to Manning. The OL shouldn’t look great, and we should want and need to bring some exotic blitzes to the table in this game bringin pressure up the middle if we want to slow them down.