The Mile High Salute

VS

Denver is 6-1, I predicted them to be 5-11 on the season.  You would think that I wouldn’t be upset about the record but I am.  Denver lost today, and was virtually embarrassed by a final score of 30-7 at the hands of the Baltimore Ravens.  The Ravens had a lot to prove, the Ravens need this one, yadda yadda yadda.  I can handle losses, what bothers me is what I saw today…or didn’t see to be more exact.  The bottom line is, the Ravens were the better team today and I am upset at the loss because Denver didn’t show up for all intents and purposes.  Hats off to the Ravens though, seriously.  They showed the type of teamwork that they are capable of and got it done.  Here is what I noticed from the game.

Positives

The absolute only positive that I can take from the game was that Denver played defense well enough to keep them in the game for the most part.  The numbers on either side were not really flashy, it was actually a great “grind it out” style game.  The defense held the Ravens to 2 field goals in the first half (more on that in a second).  They held the Ravens to 292 net yards and even notched a couple sacks.  The line showed a lot of intensity and really seemed to have the running game in check.

Negatives

Where to even begin.

Although the Ravens only had 2 sacks in the game, they seemed to be in Orton’s face the entire game and flushed him out of the pocket more than a few times.  They batted down passes, they almost forced a couple interceptions and generally they dominated the Denver offensive line.  Going into the game I thought the one chance Denver had was to attack the Baltimore secondary.  Unfortunately, Kyle Orton didn’t get a lot of time to do so and settled for an extraordinary amount of short passes that amounted to very little.  One positive I guess is that Ben Hamilton should have a budding career as a bull fighter.

Joe Flacco had all day to make decisions today and we paid for that, plain and simple.

Our secondary was flat out exposed today.  Champ and Dawkins seemed to be the only ones that showed up, everyone else was just not in the game.  Missed tackles, terrible coverage positioning and just plain bad play really killed the team today.  The Ravens converted on 61% of their third downs today, and it proved pretty costly.

Special teams continue to concern me and it was costly in this game.  (This is the part I said I would get to) Denver held the Ravens to 6 points in the first half offensively.  Unfortunately, they managed to return a kickoff to the house in the third quarter.  This is the second week in a row that Denver has allowed this, the difference being Eddie Royal was virtually shut down this week.

Knowshon fumbled again.  Yes it was a nasty Ed Reed hit but come on…hold on to the ball rook!  That was the sole turnover, so Denver lost the battle there which normally equals a loss.

In case you are counting, all of the negatives add up to the polar opposite of the San Diego game.  A failure in all 3 phases of the game.

Injuries

The only notable one for Denver was right tackle Ryan Harris leaving with a toe injury.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

This was a really frustrating game for me to watch.  I honestly for the first time this season started to question the Broncos game plan.  I really think they made a mistake by not going down field more often than they did.  In this case, the Ravens dictated what Denver did and it worked out well for them.

The game was over when Flacco hit Mason to take a 23-7 lead in the fourth quarter.  My heart sunk at that point to be honest, I realized a comeback was more than just improbable.

I blame myself for the loss.  I wore my Elway throwback for each game to this point.  Last night, the Mrs. was nice enough to get me a Dawkins jersey which I wore today.  Elway 6-0, Dawkins 0-1.  Sorry.

Stay tuned for a special blog.  Against my better judgment I accepted a bet from Lee (co-owner of Tailgate365.com).  The loser agreed to:

1. Allow the winner to blog on their site to recap the game in their words.  Lee contributes to The City That Reeds, so look forward to his blog this week here.
2. We will post an image of the scoreboard on the Tailgate365.com front page.
3. The loser would paint their family members.  In my case I have to paint my kids’ faces black and purple and take a picture.  Had Lee lost, he would have painted his wife’s pregnant belly orange with “Neckbeard” written across it.

Bastard

Player(s) of the Game

Offensively: I refuse to pick one, sorry.  Nobody deserves it this week.

Defensively: This is relatively close.  I am giving the edge to Andra Davis who was all over the field.  8 tackles and a sack is what he finished with.  Honorable mention goes to DJ Williams (8 tackles) and Brian Dawkins (7 tackles) who were both playing solid defense and made some nice plays.

Coming up Next Week

Next week Denver hosts the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday night.  The second of 2 pretty brutal tests in a row for the Broncos.

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