Never has a posting title quote ever been more appropriate. The piss-poor performance by the special teams yesterday was completely erased by perfect execution on Elam's last second field goal. It was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Gus Johnson was screaming that Denver couldn't get it off in time, but fortunately he finished up his day by screaming "It's good!" Seriously Gus, relax a little bit - it's week 1, not the Sweet Sixteen. You're going to give yourself a aneurysm if you keep up that pace for 17 weeks.
Cutler made a mistake by throwing it over the middle in that situation with no timeouts, but we were able to run the entire offense off the field, run the kicking team on and snap the ball with two seconds left on the clock. Earlier in the game, Jason had pushed one from 50+, pulled a potential game winner with less than 4 min. on the clock from 43 and had a 48 yarder doink off the right upright and in. Luckily, the one that mattered was dead letter perfect, and I guess that's why he's still around even though his leg has gotten considerably weaker and his accuracy has been a little off over the last few years.
Special teams was a joke until the last play. Roscoe Parrish took Sauerdoughbrun's first punt of the year to the house, his net punt average was an embarrassing 11.7 yards (thanks to Parrish), his gross average wasn't much better at 41 and he didn't even sniff the goal line on kickoffs. I try not to hate players on my own team, but I fuckin' hate Sauerbrun. Hate him. Our own return game wasn't any better. Hixon looks like he's concentrating with every fiber of his being just on making the catch. I guarantee he'll will muff at least a couple of kicks this year if they let him keep the returning job. So the special teams sucked, flat-out sucked, they were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked...until it really mattered.
For the most part, the D played pretty well. Excluding the third quarter drive where Marshawn Lynch picked up first downs on back to back third and longs....on the ground (and destroyed Jeff Shoate in the process on the one that went for 6). Buffalo was giving up on both of those plays, but we let him bust out. Otherwise Denver was solid on D, Lee Evans had 2 catches for 5 whole yards. Champ and Dre dominated, DJ looked vastly improved and the D line was able to get a little bit of pressure on Losman. Clearly Bates was showing us absolutely nothing in the preseason.
The O put up some yards, but didn't put up the points. I know I said they wouldn't win any games 13-3, but I may have to re-think that. Cut made some monumentally stupid mistakes, a couple of them drive killers. The brainless lateral to Selvin Young as he's being taken down(smart veteran-type of play by Young to knock it out of bounds rather than try and pick it up), the underhand flip as he's being taken down, the red-zone pick on a terrible under or overthrow (the throw was so bad you couldn't tell who the intended receiver was). He looked like a rookie, but again he put a nice drive together and got it done when it counted. The media is sucking his dick hard for this game, but they need to tone it down a bit.
Travis Henry had a nice game (139 yds), he ran tough and looked very quick. He did look like Tatum Bell on his first couple of carries, but he finally figured out to cut it back instead of stretching it too far wide. I'm concerned about his fragility - he went out limping on a couple of series. I don't think he's going to be able to carry the load for the full 16 this year. Selvin should get a few more carries in the upcoming weeks.
They got the win, and a win is a win.
Quick hits: Sucks to hear about Buffalo's Kevin Everett, who was taken by ambulance off the field after the opening kick of the second half. Guy might never walk again and that's a tough break. The Patriots and Colts look unbeatable, the Chargers got lucky and the Chiefs and Raiders are as bad as everyone thought. Finally, a hearty "fuck you" to Brett Favre as he ties John as the winningest QB in league history. Here's to a snapped femur in a week 2 loss.
3 comments:
Other than getting a piggyback ride from Lynch, I thought Shoate played well. And this was from a player that when I first saw him on Sunday, I was like "who is that Shoate dude?"
You're right, Shoate was solid. I think he and Foxworth are essentially the same player.
He got abused on that Lynch TD though.
John who?
Post a Comment