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Preseason is just that, preseason. Furthermore, this was only the first preseason game. But there were a couple of things that concerned me. I plan to pay particular attention to these concerns as the preseason continues and the real games begin.
I had the distinct feeling that Jake and Co. defeated themselves more than Buffalo's Defense disrupted them. We'll just have to wait and see if things improve over the next 3 preseason games.
1) Pass coverage was not all that great. Plummer's targets had 4 dropped balls. These targets were open. If those balls were caught, Denver's Offense would have rolled down for a TD. As Terrell Davis explained, it's a rythme-based offense. Dropped balls and penalties destroy that rythme.
2) As it's been stated, against the run, there were issues. Without too much rehash, I'll leave it with Sam, Pat, Spikes, and Fletcher should not have this much trouble with the middle runs.
3) I'm also concerned about the pass rush. The first play was a sack, yes, but it took 5 or 6 seconds for that to happen. I'm not so sure it was due to "blanket coverage", either, based upon what I saw in the following plays. We still seem to require elaborate blitzing in order to get pressure on the QB. The D-Line plus one LB should be able to get more pressure than they did.
Noteables:
Lawyer Milloy lost his shorts on a juke during an RB sweep to the left.
Coy Wire looked awful in both pursuit and in tackling against the Denver scrubs.
I'm sure preseason had much to do with some of this. But these problems existed last season. Perhaps some of this is just a matter of putting in the correct schemes for "real" games. But individual matchups are still individual matchups. I'm just still not sold on this D being top 5 material quite yet. I felt that last year's "rating" was misleading. Stats are fun, but do not tell whole stories. We'll see how the rest of preseason pans out.
I had the distinct feeling that Jake and Co. defeated themselves more than Buffalo's Defense disrupted them. We'll just have to wait and see if things improve over the next 3 preseason games.
1) Pass coverage was not all that great. Plummer's targets had 4 dropped balls. These targets were open. If those balls were caught, Denver's Offense would have rolled down for a TD. As Terrell Davis explained, it's a rythme-based offense. Dropped balls and penalties destroy that rythme.
2) As it's been stated, against the run, there were issues. Without too much rehash, I'll leave it with Sam, Pat, Spikes, and Fletcher should not have this much trouble with the middle runs.
3) I'm also concerned about the pass rush. The first play was a sack, yes, but it took 5 or 6 seconds for that to happen. I'm not so sure it was due to "blanket coverage", either, based upon what I saw in the following plays. We still seem to require elaborate blitzing in order to get pressure on the QB. The D-Line plus one LB should be able to get more pressure than they did.
Noteables:
Lawyer Milloy lost his shorts on a juke during an RB sweep to the left.
Coy Wire looked awful in both pursuit and in tackling against the Denver scrubs.
I'm sure preseason had much to do with some of this. But these problems existed last season. Perhaps some of this is just a matter of putting in the correct schemes for "real" games. But individual matchups are still individual matchups. I'm just still not sold on this D being top 5 material quite yet. I felt that last year's "rating" was misleading. Stats are fun, but do not tell whole stories. We'll see how the rest of preseason pans out.
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