The Broncos really are among the best cornerbacks in the league. There's not a team in the league that's more capable of great coverage from just their secondary. They haven't blitzed much all year. Tom Brady had a ton of time in the pocket against Denver... just nobody ever got open. It was the same case with Steve McNair and pretty much any other quarterback. Look at past examples of how teams have beat the Colts. The Patriots put pressure on Manning. The San Diego Chargers were able to beat the Colts because Shawn Merriman was in Peyton's face all game. Same can be said for Pittsburgh with Joey Porter.
If you give Manning all day, he will beat you. Reggie Wayne and Marvin Harrison will eventually get open if you give them enough time to. I'm not suggesting they didn't beat us because they have a great offense -- I'm saying we never gave our defense a chance, and it showed. I have two problems.
- The gameplan goes against all previous examples of how to beat the Colts. In the two times we met them in the playoffs, when we gave up 41 and 49 points, we blitzed the hell out of them and we didn't have the players in the secondary. Now we have the players in the secondary. We have three great corners, when the last few times we were relying on guys named Roc Alexander. Even if what we did seemed like a great idea, don't you, at some point after Peyton is torching us, think about switching. It was obvious to everyone but the people in charge that that gameplan wasn't working. We didn't disguise anything or create any confusion. If we disguised blitz's from Wilson, Gold, and Williams, we'd have had guys at the line of scrimmage to stop Addai. As it was, I've never seen LB's play so far back from the line of scrimmage. The people in charge of the defense, namely Coyer, were scared of the Colts and it showed in the gameplan.
- According to Darrent Williams, he was told to give Reggie Wayne a big cushion to not get beat deep. So Reggie tore us apart on short routes. If we blitzed and played physical with Reggie Wayne, Darrent Williams is a lot faster than him and could make up ground so as to not get beat deep. I blamed Darrent, but Darrent never had a chance with how they told him to play. Even then, Domonique Foxworth should've started. He embraces the challenge of facing top tier WR's and is better than Darrent, in my opinion. I remember him practically begging Shanahan to let him cover Randy Moss and he did a great job against Jimmy Smith last year, save for one big play that wasn't even against him.
Oh well, Mike Bell was pretty god damn impressive, eh? I can only imagine what Maroney does...
We have a cocky defense that holds grudges, though. After giving up a TD on a 18 yard or so drive against the Browns, they proceeded to record more sacks (2) than the Browns did first downs (1) for the last quarter. They'll come out and they'll be pissed off next week.