Yeah, Maxwell has been great. There's been some lip service about how DThomas usually lines up on the offensive left, away from Sherman, so he'll have it easy. Good luck with that. Lord Byron Maxwell will be there to greet you. The Arizona game kinda stands out as one where it looks like he blew it, but that one TD he gave up required an absolutely perfect throw and a phenomenal catch. He was in great position on the play and could have made a play on the ball with anything less.

You're right but at least it's pace-adjusted and includes both halves, unlike looking at first-half points. Any kind of complete analysis will just result in a FO-type model, which favors Seattle and thought Denver's defense 7% worse than an average defense would against New England. FO's model had Denver's defense as being 6% better than average (9th) at the end of the wildcard round but after two rounds of playoffs, has them as being only 4.2% better than average (13th).

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvo...0-dvoa-ratings

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvo...8-dvoa-ratings

This doesn't take anything away from Denver's overall performance, but their offense played much better than the scores and their defense played much worse. I don't think there's evidence that supports the narrative that their defense turned things around in the playoffs - Peyton Manning's long drives keeping the defense off the field is the primary reason why NE and SD struggled to score, given per drive stats. Denver's defense was average-ish during the regular season and look like the same unit that lost some key players.

When a guy with soccer avatar comes into NFL threads the hilarity usually follows.

His pocket awareness has definitely gotten worse as the year has gone on, which I think is due to him getting lit the hell up so much in the first half of the year, and the fact that his OLine is just poor at pass blocking in general. I'd also agree that his dropbacks are geared toward "one read and go," which I'd imagine is the scheme Bevell/Carroll have laid out for him, but fortunately he can make it work, because unlike Kaep he's still looking to throw it after he bails out of the pocket.

The difference in Denver's defensive performance had nothing to with long drives and mostly to do with playing a defense that's giving up the middle in order to chew up the clock because you're up by 3 scores. When the game was in balance, Denver's opponents couldn't score. Granted there were some very lucky breaks, particularly in the AFCCG.

How much of Maxwell and Browner looking good is due to Sherman and Earl Thomas though? As a casual fan watching the game, I don't think it's possible to tell, but Browner's been around for a long time before anyone thought he was any good and if Maxwell looks just as good in that spot, I'm not sure how much credit really goes to these guys.

Some dumb post needle video q's

From watching that, it is clear that Seattle offense made a ton of little mistakes in the SF game. Wilson made several really poor decisions, most of which weren't MEGA costly besides the 1st play of the game.

How much of that is going to be exploitable by Denver?
How much is attributed to SF just being amazing on D?
And how much will Percy Harvin playing open things up?

One thing that struck me from the breakdown is that SF seems to be a bit undisciplined on defense. I mean they have crazy athletes but the were outside of their responsibility on more than a few occasions...

Oh and all those pick plays they allowed for 10 yard receptions in succession.

The Seattle defense is set up in a pretty awesome way in the sense that each player is playing a very specific role without having much help elsewhere(which is why they can be so great against the run by having 7-8 guys constantly in it). Earl Thomas isn't as much of a factor on his fellow CB's as other safeties because he isn't so much playing help defense as he is playing his zone. If guys start running down the sidelines Thomas isn't crashing at them before the ball is thrown as he has to make sure his zone isn't left uncovered.

Again, but doing this it allows for more freedom in blitzing and a strong run defense as well as having the top passing defense in the league. The team has done a tremendous job evaluating and developing their talent and found guys that fit exactly what Carroll and when he was there, Bradley wanted to do.

Kam Chancellor really is the most intriguing guy when watching the tape though because he is all over the field asked to do so many things and cover up for all the interior players. He lines up at WLB, at nickel, close to the line as an edge rusher. His abilities this year seem to outshine what he was doing last year and allowed for the team to have Thomas play that FS position full time.

Probably able to answer the Denver one after reviewing their tape.

San Francisco deserves all the credit you can give them due to the play of their guys up front. The controlled their gaps extremely well and overall was able to contain when they needed to. They took risks and it got broke a few times but I'd say it was a pretty stellar performance overall. Wilson's mobility for the most part was held in check, it just was unfortunate for them that there was once or twice he was able to find free gaps and dump a pass off, one for a 1st down, another was a poor read by Wilson throwing across his body instead of hitting the wheel route.

Percy potentially moves a man out of the box and Denver is stuck trying to matchup with only 6 or 7 against Seattle's zone blocking. I don't have much faith in Del Rio to do anything but sit in cover 2 and pray his DL makes plays but that might be years of pain. Though, probably makes sense for another Jaguars ex-Coach to ring just to turn that knife ever so more.

Either way, I apologize for the meh posts. What might be obvious is this is a very stressful time until next Wednesday(well...all day Wednesday I'll probably be a mess). I'll try to breathe and think before posting until then. =\

While true JDR sucks POT ROAST is going to handle it just fine.

Once you start removing the drives that supposedly don't matter and the plays that supposedly don't matter from a whopping two-game sample, you may as well concede that we haven't learned anything new and look at the entire regular season + post season sample. The prevent-defense effect has been affecting both teams all season since Denver and Seattle have both been blowing teams out all season.

What we're prone to forgetting is that prevent defense often works. Sometimes they generate turnovers, sometimes they are able to chew up the clock, sometimes they are able to get punts/TO-on-downs. Denver's defense, on the other hand, had very little success of any kind, gave up a bunch of quick TDs and needed their offense to run out the clock while scoring to win each game. New England's TD drives took 2:36 and 3:53 and SD's drives took 3:08 and 2:29 each. Only New England's second TD drive was kind of neutral for Denver's defense - the other TD drives were all disasters.

http://scores.espn.go.com/nfl/drivec...meId=340119007

http://scores.espn.go.com/nfl/drivec...meId=340112007

The drives that "supposedly" don't matter, actually don't matter though when you're attempting to project how a team is going to do in a theoretically close game.

Unless your point is DEN has a terrible prevent defense. I grant you that point.

I got 200 on denver at evens with friends so broncos prob screwed now

Very interesting team totals considering it's still sitting at -2

Over 48.5 -104
Under 48.5 -106

Seattle Seahawks
Over 23.5 -110
Under 23.5 -106

Denver Broncos
Over 24.5 -105
Under 24.5 -111

In theory, lots. Having 3 legitimate WRs (plus Kearse) will enable the Seahawks to run some 4WR sets, which the Broncos will pretty much be forced to respond to with a single high safety, since running a cover-2 would force a 5-man box, which is a recipe to get owned by Lynch and the running game. This should create one-one-one matchups for the other receivers, since the single high safety will have to honor Percy more than the other guys.

This is a 3WR/2RB set, but similar principle (Percy lined up in the slot, Baldwin on the outside):



The more frequent personnel grouping the Seahawks will trot out is 3WR/1RB/1TE, which the Broncos will probably respond to with a cover-2. Again, the safety shading toward Percy gives at least one receiver a chance for a one-on-one like this:



These 3WR or 4WR groupings help the run game by creating more 6-man boxes, which are especially susceptible to the run game and specifically the read option:



So expect to see a little more of that this game.

Finally, having Percy on the field should force the safeties a little deeper, which also helps the run game:

Biggest difference is if Percy can go we're going to really miss Chris Harris.

If Percy isn't Percy then we're ok, but if he can take more than one hit it's gonna suck being down Harris.

Was Needle starting to hedge that Wilson not checking out of runs into a 9 man box was by design (and potentially less bad as a result) because SEA is confident in their OL and Lynch making big plays against it anyway?

Isn't this the kind of slicing and dicing that leads to absurd proclamations that Peyton Manning can't win the big game and regular season games don't matter in projecting big-game performance? Or that Peyton Manning can't win in the cold weather or some nonsense? As long as you're doing aggregate evaluation, more data is generally helpful. Whether Denver's defense is talented enough to accomplish goals like "chew up the clock, prevent big plays and don't allow quick TD drives" reliably should be strongly correlated with whether it's good enough at other aspects of the defense. It's about cohesiveness, scheming, overcoming numerical disadvantage in some part of the field, and taking advantage of numerical advantage in other parts of the field, adjusting to what the offense is trying to do, balancing the strategy, etc. It seems obvious to me that good defensive teams will be better at prevent defense than bad defensive teams.

Different situations will stress different aspects of the defense, but once you start accounting for that at a detailed level - the sample size becomes too small to matter and you have to rely on subjective analysis. You might as well say Denver's performance against NE and SD doesn't matter at all because Russell Wilson and Seattle's offense play a completely different game, and requires a completely different defensive gameplan to stop. This is probably more accurate than saying somehow the first halves against NE and SD matter but the second halves don't.

+1 ldo

Thoughtful post, sorry my last was so short.

The thing is, for better or worse (the answer is worse) JDR employs a completely different type of scheme and defense when they are in the 4th quarter with a big lead (and we're not saying 1h vs 2h, we're saying first 75% of game vs final 25% with a big lead). It's just a different defense than they'll play earlier and when the game is close. While I'm sympathetic to the thought that you want the biggest sample size possible, I tend to think that it's more important to look at "really trying to play them right" vs "JDR sucks and goes soft early in the game".

Now, I'm not arguing that "JDR sucks and goes soft too early in the game" doesn't matter -- because it does. I'm surprised that didn't cost us a game, and it could cost us this game. But I don't think it's very valuable in looking at how the defense played the entire game. I feel that the 6 quarters of football against good (great) offenses where the game is close is more predictive than 2 quarters when they go soft and game isn't close.

edit: Also, the point SDC started doing well is when they realized Harris went out, and lolJammer started playing full time. That's been corrected and they don't have Jammer trying to cover 1 on 1. Again, not real predictive since that scenario will not come up Sunday.

Brady throwing to Edelman, Vereen, Collie, Hoomanawanui, & Dobson is a great offense now?

also the Denver D was greatly aided by the fact that the Chargers decided to bring back Norv Chilly in that divisional round game for whatever reason (WOAT gameplan)

but 'grats on the massive 24-17 & 26-16 wins tho, got Denver winning the SB 56-3

Pats have #1 Offensive weighted DVOA (or at least did a few weeks ago). So I'd say the way they were playing was pretty great as the season wound down.

But 72o eyetest clearly is the answer.

yeah i guess Gronkowski & Thompkins being out and Amendola being useless was irrelevant

Scores since Gronk went out and before they played DEN:

20, 41, 34, 43.

They were 7th offensively when Gronk went down, to #1 in the league by the time they played DEN.

They were playing really great offensively by the time they played DEN.

Clearly they would have been even better with Gronk. But lol at questioning if they were playing really good offense.