Scouting the Colts

The Colts counter punch better than anyone in the NFL. Try one tactic against their offense, and they seem to immediately recognize it. They’re willing and able to adjust.

Teams have tried to back up and take away the pass by putting more people in coverage. The Colts are good enough to run the ball repeatedly against that strategy. Blitz Peyton Manning? Indianapolis doesn’t mind. Manning’s stats against the blitz are staggering. From 2004 through his great game against the Broncos’ defense in Denver’s seventh game last season he had a streak of 336 attempts against the blitz with 39 touchdowns and no interceptions.

So what is a team to do? The best answer seems to be to get a pass rush with the defensive line and hope the cornerbacks can hold up in coverage. The Broncos seem capable of doing both. Stopping running back Joseph Addai seems to be the biggest problem for Denver’s struggling run defense.

Indianapolis’ defense seems improved, using last year’s startling playoff success as a springboard to this year. The Colts shut down the Saints in the season opener and are fifth in the NFL in yards allowed through three games. They are good at rushing the quarterback, especially on the turf at the RCA Dome, and are decent against the run, allowing less than 4 yards per game.

The Broncos will need a great game plan to figure out how to exploit Indianapolis’ weaknesses on offense and defense.

Not so fast

Chicago Bears quarterback Rex Grossman is an interesting case. Through 10 games last season, Grossman had 18 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, seven of which he picked up in two bad games. He was leading the Bears to the top seed in the NFC, and eventually the Super Bowl. Not perfect, but not bad for a quarterback who had 17 career starts.

Three games into this season, he is a villain in Chicago, a quarterback who can’t make a good decision to save himself. Bears fans will never forgive him for, in their opinion, blowing the Super Bowl against Indianapolis. They were chanting for Brian Griese on Sunday night, which should be pretty rich to Broncos fans.

Don’t forget, Griese had some decent seasons for the Broncos before he was run out of town. For all his faults, Jake Plummer was not a terrible quarterback his first three seasons in Denver. He was bad in his fourth season, but that was after fans and coaches lost faith in him. Remember, Plummer led Denver to an AFC Championship Game and had a solid season in 2005. In 2006 he quickly fell out of favor and was replaced. Sounds pretty similar to Grossman, doesn’t it?

Here’s the lesson – even though Jay Cutler is on top right now, is a favorite of Broncos coach Mike Shanahan and hasn’t endured a fraction of the post-Elway scorn of his predecessors, things can change very quickly. Especially for a NFL quarterback.

Icing the kicker

Even the biggest Raiders basher had to chuckle at how Oakland beat Cleveland on Sunday. Raiders coach Lane Kiffin was obviously paying attention in Week 2 when Broncos coach Mike Shanahan called a timeout just before Sebastian Janikowski hit a 52-yard field goal in overtime. Janikowski missed on the re-try and Denver won the game. Kiffin did the same thing to the Browns on Sunday. The first attempt was good, but voided because of the timeout, and the second attempt was blocked.

There’s nothing in the rules that says a coach can’t call a timeout at the last instant, which basically forces the kicker to attempt the field goal twice. To use an example from another sport, a runner stealing second base on a 3-2 pitch can’t look back and see if the pitch is a ball or strike. He has to keep running. A kicker can’t assume the whistle is going to blow – he has to kick it.

That seems a bit unfair, but unless the competition committee comes up with a solution this offseason to avoid last-second timeouts, there will be more of it in the NFL. Coaches like stealing ideas from other coaches, and this one has worked twice already.

Week 3 prediction

The consensus seems to be this week’s game will be close, but it probably shouldn’t be.

Jacksonville played two mediocre to bad teams at home. Tennessee beat it, with 175 yards on the ground from Chris Brown. Brown had 34 yards on 12 carries last week. Then the Jaguars, thanks to two missed field goals by Atlanta, squeaked out a 13-7 win over an Atlanta team that won’t win more than a few games this year.

Denver has been painted as a lucky 2-0 team. Indeed, the Broncos were very close to being 0-2. But they’re leading the league in yards, and allowing very few. Their 437-yard differential is astounding. That is a pretty good indicator of how good a team will be in the long run. One way Denver could lose is if its rushing defense is gashed by Jacksonville running backs Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew, but the Jaguars’ rushing offense hasn’t done well in two games this season.

There is some concern that the Broncos didn’t put away either Buffalo or Oakland – two other teams that probably won’t win more than a few games this season. But at home, the Broncos should control the game against the Jaguars.

Prediction: Broncos 20, Jaguars 10

Scouting the Jaguars

Jacksonville’s first-week loss was strange, its second-week win was closer than expected. Even though the Jaguars are 1-1, they’re not coming to Denver with much steam.

They were upset by Tennessee on opening day, when Chris Brown ran for 175 yards. Last week they beat a dismal Atlanta team 13-7, keeping it close to the end.

“We like the fact that we were able to get our first victory under our belt – we would have preferred it happened in Week 1,” Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio said. “We’ve been in a couple of close ballgames and we split them.”

The Jaguars in recent years have been built around stopping the run and running the ball. The run defense bounced back from a bad outing in Week 1. Del Rio’s explanation was simple: Jacksonville didn’t play very well in Week 1.

The problems with the rushing offense are tougher to explain. The Jaguars have two dangerous tailbacks, Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew, and they have 135 yards combined. Jones-Drew is averaging 3.5 yards per carry and Taylor is averaging 3.3.

Quarterback David Garrard, who was named starter when Byron Leftwich was cut just before the season started, has played well. But for the Jaguars to win at Denver, they will have to run the ball effectively. Based on how well Jacksonville ran the ball last year, they should end up near the top of the league in rushing offense.

“They’ll get back on track, hopefully not against us,” Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said.

Janikowski's great miss

Normally, there aren’t any reflections on the impressiveness of a missed field goal. But there was still some buzz Monday about how far Oakland kicker Sebastian Janikowski hit a 52-yard attempt that rang off the top of the left upright on Sunday.

Janikowski nailed a 52-yard attempt in overtime, hitting it high on the net behind the goalpost. But a timeout was called before the snap and Janikowski had to kick it again. The second attempt might have gone even further had the upright not gotten in the way.

“That would have been good at 75, no question,” Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said.

Cornerback Dre Bly’s rush from the edge might have thrown off Janikowski just a bit. Shanahan said he thought the kick was going to go wide left, then it came back and almost went in.

“What do you call that, a slook?” Shanahan said, combining golf terms. “It sliced initially and came back in.”

Week 2 prediction

The only way the Denver Broncos will lose Sunday is if they turn the ball over. That could happen – the Oakland Raiders have a solid defense. But Denver’s game plan should reflect their superiority over the Raiders.

There will probably be plenty of Travis Henry carries, a few well-timed shots downfield in the passing game and not much gambling. The Broncos defense should put up a better effort defensively than the Lions did last week, when Detroit allowed 375 yards. Oakland is better offensively than last year, but still not good enough to go up and down the field against Denver.

Maybe when the teams meet again in Oakland on Dec. 2, the Raiders will have a clear answer at quarterback and enough confidence at home to challenge the Broncos. But it probably won’t happen at Invesco Field at Mile High this weekend.

Broncos 23, Raiders 9