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Congrats to Broncos CB Aqib Talib, who was named AFC Defensive POW. No NFL player has more "Pick Six's" than Talib (7) in last 7 years.

— Patrick Smyth (@psmyth12) September 16, 2015

:-)
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According to Pro Football Focus, three of the Broncos starters along the OL had negative grades last week.

:-)
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Only 3?
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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2015/09/16/b...-antonio-smith

Denver’s ‘Serious Six’ Wreaking Serious Havoc

While most NFL teams frantically search for a good pass rusher or two, the Broncos are unleashing six of them on opponents. (How’s it working out? Just ask Joe Flacco)


Edge rushers and penetrating three and five techniques are becoming the most sought-after positions in football, because if you can pressure without blitzing you can get by with sub-optimal corners and safeties. However, if you have both consistent pressure and a good secondary, and then you blitz anyway ... well, the rest of the league had better look out.

Before free agency and the draft, we at Pro Football Focus were approached separately by three of our 19 NFL team customers, each of whom wanted different views on how to locate just one of these rare items. On Sunday the Denver Broncos unleashed their rotation of six.

If getting pressure on the QB is the goal, then the Broncos over-delivered on expectations that were already high. With new defensive coordinator Wade Phillips blitzing on 74% of plays, Denver pressured Joe Flacco on 22 of his 34 dropbacks (or 65% of the time he wanted to throw). To put that in context, the NFL average last year was 34%, and the most pressured quarterback in football was Russell Wilson at 46%.

Of those 22 snaps under duress on Sunday, Flacco was sacked twice, completed just 10 passes for 65 yards and threw an interception. This gave him a passer rating of 36.5 when pressured.

So who are the “Serious Six” that we are going to hear so much about this year? Let’s introduce them:

1. The Vet: DeMarcus Ware, ROLB

The star of Sunday’s show. Many (myself included, unfortunately) thought he left his halcyon days behind him in Dallas, but against the Ravens, Ware put together his best display since a 2010 Week 2 demolition of the Bears. Tormenting overmatched backup James Hurst, Ware had a sack, three hits and seven hurries on only 24 rushes, remarkable production for the 33-year-old veteran.

2. The Superstar: Von Miller, LOLB

The fact that this two-hit, four-hurry beat-down of one of the best right tackles in football (Ricky Wagner) was only the young linebacker’s 11th most productive performance says something about his consistency since entering the league in 2011. After J.J. Watt, he might be the most complete defensive player around.

3. The Crown Prince: Shane Ray, ROLB

The most productive pass rusher in the NCAA last year, Ray was the Broncos’ first-round draft choice. Although he wasn’t hugely productive in his six pass-rush snaps (he beat Hurst once on a bull rush that didn’t pressure Flacco), if his preseason is any indication he’ll be fine. The fourth-most productive rusher in the preseason, he picked up three sacks, a hit and six hurries on 68 rushes.

4. The Man from Nowhere: Shaquil Barrett, LOLB

So if Ray was fourth, who was the most productive pass rusher in the preseason? That would Barrett, a 2014 UDFA. In Week 1 he was only given four snaps to get after the QB, but what a four snaps they were. This is how they went: unblocked pressure on a bootleg, beat Wagner to the inside for a hurry, bull-rushed Wagner back into his QB, beat Wagner around the edge for a hurry nullified by a penalty elsewhere.

5. The (Massively) Underrated: Malik Jackson, three technique

While I was doing the aforementioned pass-rusher analysis for NFL teams, an unfamiliar name kept popping up alongside the J.J. Watts and the Justin Houstons of the world: Malik Jackson. Playing primarily in nickel last year, Jackson accumulated a huge 44 QB disruptions in only 409 attempts. For someone rushing mostly from the inside, that’s a tremendous rate. He’s now playing in base too, and maybe the larger workload affected him slightly; he didn’t have the best game rushing the passer Sunday (just a single hurry in 14 attempts), but he did play very well against the run.

6. The Specialist: Antonio Smith, three technique

Let’s be clear here: Smith is something of a one-trick pony. He’s one of the least robust run defenders among interior linemen you’ll see, and for the Raiders last year he graded a -20.0 in that facet of play (81st out of 81 graded players). But if your one trick is great then that shortcoming can be overlooked, and at the other end of the spectrum we ranked Smith third out of the same 81 interior linemen, with 43 QB pressures. That’s better than Aaron Donald and Ndamukong Suh. Now clearly those guys are hugely superior run defenders, but in Denver that’s not what Smith is going to be asked to do. He’s a specialist with little run responsibility, and that can only be good for both him and his new team.



:-) :-) :-)
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Remember when Knowmo was pimping Evan Mathis as the highest rated G of the last 3 years?

-3.3 grade after week 1 :-)
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I bet Mathis is one. Ultimately we started 3 rookies and 1 guy who had never played with the line in a game. 4 new starters in essence.

But really most of those sacks were on Peyton because he didn't read the delayed blitzes...and how can he? It's a new system and he's had less reps than he'd like with his receivers and backs in game situations.
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So did KC.

Stephenson was the swing tackle when we started PS with Fisher and Allen as the starting tackles.

Grubbs is in his first year in KC

Morse is a rookie

LDT is in his second year after only playing 3 years of OL IN CANADA.

We signed Jah Reid on Monday and he started for us on Sunday.

Our line was graded as the third best in the NFL, even taking all of that into account.
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I really question that ranking. Smith would have gotten killed if he hadn't been getting the ball out quickly. Very few running lanes opened, also.
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Baltimore was the 7th rated pass blocking OL in the NFL last season. Denver handed them a -24 pass blocking grade on Sunday (Baltimore is ranked last in the league in pass blocking right now).
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The Broncos took full advantage of Eugene Monroe leaving the game. The Broncos got 10 pressures off of Hurst and demolished a backup.

They still had a pretty good performance if you take away the struggles with Hurst (1 sack, 3 QB hits and 10 hurries) but make no doubt about it, James Hurst got his ass whooped and the Broncos looked all world bc of destroying a backup LT
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And THAT's what concerns me. Our whole right side of the OL are back-ups. To add to that on defense we'll start a ROOKIE CB against PM. I'm more concerned with our deficiencies adding to a + for Denver than I am about Denver on stand alone talent, because we have talent of our own that can match up with them.
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Monroe wasn't doing well before he was out. Baltimore's RT was the 3rd best RT in the NFL last year and got absolutely destroyed. He actually had a lower grade than Eugene Monroe's backup.
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Obviously you form your roster to win the division so you can go to the playoffs. Yes Andy loves big athletic fat guys, but I don't think it's any coincidence that our 5 best players for the job are guys who have excellent size, athleticism and solid strength.

I'm every anxious to see how Stephenson fares.
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Wagner gave up 6 pressures in 35 snaps.
Hurst gave up 10 pressures in 31 snaps.

Almost half of the total pressures given up came from Hurst and he didn't even play all game.
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