Seahawks@Broncos
I would call those two scoring drives by Denver a masterclass in play calling, and I would say Payton outcoached McDonald. Yes, the Seahawks shutdown the Bronco offense after that, but I feel like part of that was a more conservative approach by Payton–i.e., protecting the football at all costs was the primary objective.
The play calling on those two drives stands in stark contrast to the Seahawk play caller and pretty much any of their drives. The former shows an example of great playcalling and its impact. The latter is an example of mediocre play calling and its impact. The thing is, Nix and the Denver offense has not looked good–similar to the Seahawks. And yet if you only those two Denver scoring drives, you’d think they were a good offense–or at least not a bad one. Fleury just doesn’t have the capacity to do the same for his offense, and right now I’d say the offense, and Sam Darnold, are broken.
Darnold is Winston. They can make so many plays/throws. Yet, they are willing to put the ball in harm’s way. His two INTs are inexcusable. He just got bailed out for the first one.
I’m not as clear what you saw in those two drives, but Seattle couldn’t or was not willing to use its resources to stop the run. Once Seattle stopped the run, Nix and Broncos was horrible. Nix is borderline benchable. Nix had a decent run end of the regular season and against the Bill in the playoffs, but man this guy has been terrible this year and early last year as well. He holds the ball way too long. It’s like he has trouble seeing stuff. He doesn’t know where to go with the ball.
The Broncos talent might be bad, too. I really thought they would have a top five receiving group with Waddle, Sutton, and Bryant Jr. Sutton seem like he was true number one at some point in his career, but now he doesn’t even seem like a starter. I was never a fan of Waddle, and he’s showing why I shouldn’t be. The only receiver they got is Bryant and he’s been hurt.
The thing is, Darnold wasn’t Winston last year. No way. They wouldn’t have won if he was essentially like Winston. Now, he did have a lot of turnovers, but for most of the season, the most problematic turnovers were the ones that involved defenders knocking the ball out of his hand or popping it up. If you took away those turnovers, his decision-making and accuracy was very good. (The Rams game where he had 4 INTs was an exception, though.)
But, yeah, he’s playing like Winston this year.
Payton mixed the pass and run really well, and he seemed a step or two ahead of Macdonald. When Seattle blitzed, they were totally ready for it. The Seahawk defense seemed like they were on their heels for those two drives, and the Broncos offense actually looked transformed. Prior to those two drives, the offense was close to terrible, relying on checkdowns a lot.
The Hawks defense dominated after those two drives, but I do think some of this was partly due to Payton choosing a “prevent offensive” approach. Basically, his main goal was to protect the football, and he was willing to sacrifice yards and points for this. The Broncos defense also stayed away from blitzing at some point, just to make sure they didn’t give up explosives.
However, I agree that Nix is horrid. I didn’t think he was great in his rookie year, but he looked promising, and I assumed he’d improve in year 2, especially since Payton wanted him. Right now, he looks really bad. He was not good last year as well, but he caused damage with his legs. This year, maybe because of the injury, I don’t really seeing him run the ball. At this point, his ceiling might be Alex Smith, and it’s possible he doesn’t reach that level.
I’ve heard people say they have the most talented OL. For sure, Waddle has been a disappointment. I had the same impression of Sutton as you, but he kind of looks like a RB that has little tread left. (They have that receiving TE, but he’s always hurt, and he might not have much tread left, too.)
I definitely think their RB room is lacking. That they thought…what’s his name, the guy who played for the Ravens and Chargers….could be an RB1 surprised me. That guy is not that good.
I thought I heard that Darnold led the NFL in “interceptable” passes last year. I couldn’t find it online, so maybe I could be just making it up.
Yeah, Sutton may just be “old”.
I would be surprised if Darnold lead the league in turnover worthy passes. I feel like his biggest problem was getting the ball stripped or tipped into the air, when he was in close quarters. Towards the end of the season, he started eliminating these plays (but his sacks went up).
In terms of turnovers from just poor decisions or inaccurate throws, he didn’t have enough that it was a pervasive tendency. (And I would include throws that put the ball in jeopardy.) I could be remembering this wrong, though.
As for Sutton, I feel like he’s taken some punishment as well, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the effects of this are now starting to manifest itself.
Jaguars@Texans
The Texans offense did well and won the game for them today (although Stroud’s boneheaded INT near the end of the game could have cost them). I don’t know if the Jaguars had injured players on defense, but they played below my expectations.
The Jaguars still look like a good team, though, especially on offense.
Bears@Falcons
Two fumbles on returns killed the Falcons.
I’m impressed with the Falcons defense, especially since they’re missing two of their best pass rushers. Ulbrich’s doing a really good job.
Bills@Raiders
This was a big game for me and, I think for the Raiders in some sense. Last week they looked liked the bad Raiders of old. Were the weeks before that a mirage? Win or lose if the Raiders played well today, that would suggest it wasn’t a mirage and that last week was an outlier for this year. The answer seems to be the latter.
I thought Kubiak did a lot to help the offense. He mixed things up fairly well, and the pass protection was often very good, especially since they were missing a starter and the Bills have a good pass rush, especially Rousseau, and the Raiders OL contained him for most of the day. (Cousins’s INT was unfortunate and costly).
Early on the Bills seemed to easily move the ball down the field on the Raiders defense, but the Raiders held them to some field goals, and later, they got a little better.
Overall, I’m really happy with the way they played.
Cardinals@Rams
The Cardinals played well, especially the run game in the second half. They kept pounding the Rams defense, and I think their defense got worn down a little.
The Cardinals defense also did a good job of containing the Rams offense.
It looked like Mike LaFleur and his staff took what they knew about McVay and basically created a really good gameplan.
I will say that roughing penalty on the Rams was a really bad call.