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Bills vs Broncos: postgame review
Yet another superb game from Bledsoe, as he continues his aerial dominance of NFL DBs in his quest for D. Marino's most heralded passing records. Oh wait, the Bills did loose didn't they? Too bad our D hasn't lived up to Bledsoe's standard isn't it? Well, here follows my report of the game (as I saw it).
The positives:
1) Bledsoe throws for over 280yards and 2 TD's against a very strong Broncos defense. What is most amazing about his performance is that he actually didn't have that great of a game, with a multitude of passes falling incomplete due to both under and over throwing. He also has the team believing in their own ability to come back, narrowing the gap in the closing minutes of the 4th quarter, with what should have been a game winning TD, unfortunately it was a makeup for the one the D allowed during a 7min long Bronco drive.
2) Coy Wire, as I said after week 1, just gets better every time he steps onto the field... today, he was all over the place, and was real solid in pass coverage too.
3) Riemersma is finally found, as he was incorporated into the Bills passing game with 4 receptions, more importantly he didn't have any drops.
4) The pass rush continues to roll up the sacks, as the Bills D-line proves that it is good for something. Both Ahanotu and Schobel had good pass rushing games, and Williams pushed the pocket.
5) Special Teams came up with some big plays on both sides of the ball, and only allowed one good return all game. Too bad we didn't recover the onsides kick.
6) The O-Line continues to look good in pass protection, as DB consistently had the time to stand for 4 to 7 seconds in the pocket. The few sacks Denver did manage were not due to a consistent flaw in the Bills line schemes, as three of them were simply fine athletic plays by Denver linemen (or in one case a missed assignment by TT), and one was a simple overload blitz (Denver sent 7 men and buffalo blocked with 6). In general the Denver D was unable to reach Bledsoe with either the blitz or with a standard rush.
7) Special kudos to Mike Williams for controlling everything the Broncos threw at him, today he was the best linemen on the field (that holding call was garbage, as Big M buried his block with pure brute force, there was no hold there, just overwhelming size, too bad the refs threw that flag, it was a good run by Henry).
And now the Negatives:
1) Bills run D: Once it became quite clear (early in the game) that the Broncos had game planned to run out of passing formations for most of the game (and it worked too, as the bulk of their yards came from those formations), and once this became apparent, I realized that this was going to be a long game for the Bills. And while our LBs were able (in general) to reach the QB consistently, their consistently bad gap assignment coverage and shoddy tackling continued this week, as all three LB's were out of position on numerous running plays. Fletcher distinguished himself (finally) on the score sheet with 7 tackles and 1 sack, however nearly all of those tackles were 5-10 yards downfield in the passing game. The problem the Bills run D had this week were numerous. Primarily they stemmed from poor penetration by Schobel and Edwards, as the Bills attempted to stop one of the leagues finest running attacks with only 2 serviceable run stopping d-linemen. Throw in shoddy tackling, and the Bills were unable to slow down the Broncos when it was needed.
2) Bills running attack: While the numbers would suggest this was a disaster on the O-line, in general I thought they blocked fairly well. What undid them was the speed of the Bronco LBers and some inconsistent play from some of their members. The only success the Bills did have was when they ran their counter tre, and when they ran the inside delay. Other than that, most of our run blocking was too inconsistent to gain many yards on the ground. On a related issue I'll have to include K.Gilbride with this critique for taking 1 quarter too long to start running between the tackles (as he wasted the first quarter running outside against a very fast D).
Conclusion:
Well, another loss, but another step forward for the Bills. We went into Mile High and nearly knocked off the Broncos as 9 point underdogs. There were good things in nearly every aspect of the game. Here’s hoping Bledsoe and company keep it up, and maybe our D will step up to help us win a game or two when our O only scores 23. BTW, for you gamblers out there, I'm now 2-1 against the spread and 3-0 against the over-under this year.
The positives:
1) Bledsoe throws for over 280yards and 2 TD's against a very strong Broncos defense. What is most amazing about his performance is that he actually didn't have that great of a game, with a multitude of passes falling incomplete due to both under and over throwing. He also has the team believing in their own ability to come back, narrowing the gap in the closing minutes of the 4th quarter, with what should have been a game winning TD, unfortunately it was a makeup for the one the D allowed during a 7min long Bronco drive.
2) Coy Wire, as I said after week 1, just gets better every time he steps onto the field... today, he was all over the place, and was real solid in pass coverage too.
3) Riemersma is finally found, as he was incorporated into the Bills passing game with 4 receptions, more importantly he didn't have any drops.
4) The pass rush continues to roll up the sacks, as the Bills D-line proves that it is good for something. Both Ahanotu and Schobel had good pass rushing games, and Williams pushed the pocket.
5) Special Teams came up with some big plays on both sides of the ball, and only allowed one good return all game. Too bad we didn't recover the onsides kick.
6) The O-Line continues to look good in pass protection, as DB consistently had the time to stand for 4 to 7 seconds in the pocket. The few sacks Denver did manage were not due to a consistent flaw in the Bills line schemes, as three of them were simply fine athletic plays by Denver linemen (or in one case a missed assignment by TT), and one was a simple overload blitz (Denver sent 7 men and buffalo blocked with 6). In general the Denver D was unable to reach Bledsoe with either the blitz or with a standard rush.
7) Special kudos to Mike Williams for controlling everything the Broncos threw at him, today he was the best linemen on the field (that holding call was garbage, as Big M buried his block with pure brute force, there was no hold there, just overwhelming size, too bad the refs threw that flag, it was a good run by Henry).
And now the Negatives:
1) Bills run D: Once it became quite clear (early in the game) that the Broncos had game planned to run out of passing formations for most of the game (and it worked too, as the bulk of their yards came from those formations), and once this became apparent, I realized that this was going to be a long game for the Bills. And while our LBs were able (in general) to reach the QB consistently, their consistently bad gap assignment coverage and shoddy tackling continued this week, as all three LB's were out of position on numerous running plays. Fletcher distinguished himself (finally) on the score sheet with 7 tackles and 1 sack, however nearly all of those tackles were 5-10 yards downfield in the passing game. The problem the Bills run D had this week were numerous. Primarily they stemmed from poor penetration by Schobel and Edwards, as the Bills attempted to stop one of the leagues finest running attacks with only 2 serviceable run stopping d-linemen. Throw in shoddy tackling, and the Bills were unable to slow down the Broncos when it was needed.
2) Bills running attack: While the numbers would suggest this was a disaster on the O-line, in general I thought they blocked fairly well. What undid them was the speed of the Bronco LBers and some inconsistent play from some of their members. The only success the Bills did have was when they ran their counter tre, and when they ran the inside delay. Other than that, most of our run blocking was too inconsistent to gain many yards on the ground. On a related issue I'll have to include K.Gilbride with this critique for taking 1 quarter too long to start running between the tackles (as he wasted the first quarter running outside against a very fast D).
Conclusion:
Well, another loss, but another step forward for the Bills. We went into Mile High and nearly knocked off the Broncos as 9 point underdogs. There were good things in nearly every aspect of the game. Here’s hoping Bledsoe and company keep it up, and maybe our D will step up to help us win a game or two when our O only scores 23. BTW, for you gamblers out there, I'm now 2-1 against the spread and 3-0 against the over-under this year.
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