Risk versus Reward

As of November 1 2009 the Denver Broncos are no longer undefeated. I had enjoyed the fact the team had gone six games without losing but I was far from satisfied. I had known all along a serious loss was on the horizon. A loss that would expose some serious problems on the offensive side of the ball. Yes I know the defense allowed a large amount of points today but most of those were late in the game. Those late game points are a result of the defense becoming tired.

The offense had been successful up to this point because of short quick passes out of the shot gun formation, short screen passes and just throwing a quick ten yard pass to Marshall and hoping for a miracle. . The team might have utilized an occasional run just to keep the defense honest. Winning this way was not going to last forever.

Here is where the risk versus reward title of this blog comes into play. Imagine for a second you are a defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens. You still have a great front seven on defense. You have big fast down lineman and big fast linebackers. In fact your weakness is your secondary with the exceptions of your safeties. The probablem with making a decision about how you will defend another team comes down to what type of risks you want to take. The NFL is notorious for being a play it safe league. Most NFL teams find themselves stuck in a Cover 2 and are deathly afraid of deviating from the norm. Most of that has to do with fear of losing your job if your defense is not successful in its risk taking.

In this particular case the defensive coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens made a risk-reward assessment of the way to play the Denver offense. The Ravens defensive coordinator didn't find a risk in this particular match up. I cannot think of single game were the Broncos maintained a series of drives that were predominantly passes of 15 or more yards. There have been a handful of plays that have gone for a touchdown from beyond the red zone but not many. With the risk eliminated from the equation the reward was there for the taking.

The Baltimore Ravens set out to stop everything within 15 yards of the line of scrimmage. Denver's offense to this point has been about the 15 yard play or closer. Something was going to give in the end. There was no risk in this risk-reward assessment because Denver never made anybody pay for being aggressive by beating them deep (expections for few player here and there). Denver basically threw over the first wave of penatration and expected their recievers to make plays on linebackers and safeties who were backpeddling into coverage. That wasn't going to work today. The Ravens linebackers were ready for those short passes, swarmed to the reciever and tackled. Denver better learn to use the whole field because this dink and dunk will not work in the NFL for long. I am not panicking about the season at all. I just think its time to open up that play book and start thinking vertically. I like Josh McDaniels as a head coach but he got out schemed today. Welcome to the NFL young man!



In this rough sketch we have a scene from today's game. The Denver Broncos are in the shot gun formation with a halfback to the right of the quarterback. The Broncos have two receivers to the right a tight end and receiver to the left. The Ravens have a free safety in Cover 1, three linebackers, the safety in the box and a pair of corners. Most teams in the NFL play a Cover 2 which means they drop that other safety back. In this case the safety is in the box. So what does this do for your defense? Step one is to get penetration from your defensive line. Considering the small size of the Broncos offensive line this shouldn't be a problem. At this point the Broncos should be able to exploit the Ravens aggressive defensive line by running misdirection or screens or quick passes. However the next step taken by Ravens is where it goes wrong for the Broncos. The linebackers or safeties in the box are instructed to play the run or stay shallow to play the short pass. Denver's counter move should have been utilizing match up advantages of a linebacker or safety on a tight end or on a slot receiver. The area to the right, left or behind free safety could have been exploited until the Raven pulled back their safety or those linebackers were forced to drop back a little more into cover. For whatever reason the final counter move never happened today. The offensive line did have a lot to do with it but I hope it is not a problem that show up later in the year.

The State of Sports in Arizona Dan's Life.

I am going to start off today's blog with a little fluff. My daughter's soccer team has their last game on Saturday. My daughter also start her first day of pre-ballet on Saturday. My step-son Anthony will begin the winter session of his flag football league within the coming weeks.

The Arizona Wildcats currently have a record of 5-2. The Wildcats currently stand #23 in the AP Top 25 poll, #24 in the USA Today poll and #20 in the all important BCS standings. The Wildcats are in a bye weekend. The Wildcats play the Washington State Cougars on November 7th at 1:30 pm. A win versus Washington State give the Wildcats 6 wins and bowl eligibility for the second straight year. I predict a very easy win for the Wildcats on the 7th. The score prediction is Arizona 42 and Washington State 17.

The undefeated Denver Broncos are ranked #4 in Espn's Nfl Power Rankings. The Broncos travel to Maryland to face the Baltimore Ravens. Although, the Raven have a better offense their defense isn't very good. Denver's offense isn't as good as Baltimore but it can score against anybody. I believe the Broncos #1 ranked defense will slow the Raven Offense just enough to win the game. My score prediction is Denver 27 and Baltimore 24.

As for Mlb, its still going on. Unfortunately for Mlb nobody really cares unless you are a Yankees, Red Sox or Dodgers fan. I am not a fan of either of these team and support the D backs because they are the home team. Sadly, there is no passion in my heart for the D backs because baseball is so boring when compared to football and basketball.

In conclusion, the state of sports in Arizona Dan's life are pretty damn good. Go Broncos and Bear Down Arizona!

Denver Broncos AFL Legacy Throwback Uniform

The 2009-2010 NFL season marks the 50th anniversary of the American Football League. For those of you that don't the story of the AFL I will sum it up for you in a few lines. In the beginning there was the NFL then in 1960 came the AFL, a competitor league with a wide open scoring style of play. The league had 8 teams. The eight teams were the Boston Patriots (New England Patriots), Buffalo Bills, Houston Oilers (Tennesse Titans), Miami Dolphins, New York Titans (New York Jets), Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Texans (Kansas City Chiefs), Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers (San Diego Chargers) and the Oakland Raiders. The league played between 1960 to 1969. In 1966 it was determined that the upstart league would merge with the NFL but that did not happen until 1970. In 1970 when the league did merge the AFL became what is known as today's AFC and most of the NFL became known as the NFC. Together the AFC and NFC make up the modern day NFL.

In order to celebrate the birth of the AFL the NFL has allowed (forced in Denver's case) the original AFL teams to wear their throwback AFL uniforms. During the 1960-1962 season the Denver Broncos wore a mustard yellow and brown uniform that included striped vertical socks. The good fans of Denver tolerated those monstrosities for two seasons until Broncos ownership allowed the fans to burn them and adopted the orange and blue which represents the Denver horizon during sunset. Decades later the Broncos decided to go with the modern day darker blue and orange combination.

I have read many articles, blog and message boards regarding the throwback jerseys of the AFL teams. I have found that everybody including myself are in complete agreement that the Denver Broncos throwback jersey is by far the worst. I was surprised to find out that some people prefer the second generation orange and blue jerseys when compared to today's version. I wholeheartedly disagree with the notion of the second generation jerseys are better than our modern day jerseys. I am far form being a superstitious person but let me add the Broncos did not win a Super Bowl until they made the switch to the latest version of uniforms. If I am not superstitious then why is what I just typed important? The answer is perception. The brown and mustard uniforms were a joke as was the team. The bright orange and royal blue was likeable and safe but the team just couldn't win the big one. The modern day jerseys bring up memories of John Elway holding up the Vince Lombardi Trophy not once but twice. The perception of success breeds expectations and expectations breed success.

Arizona Wildcats vs Washington Huskies10/10/2009

I am unintelligent, brainless, dense, dim, dull, foolish, gullible, half-witted, idiotic, mindless, moronic, naive, senseless, simpleminded, slow and witless. I still understand enough about football to know that Washington would eventually become desperate enough to jump that bubble screen route. I was pretty sure it would happen on the drive they needed to stop us the most. If anything the Stanford game two years ago in Tucson taught me that other teams like to defend the play you have been showing them all game long when the have nothing to lose. I seem to recall a similar situation with the inability to score touchdowns on the goal line in that Stanford game too! I think we just kept running up the middle with an immobile quarterback a lot that game. I am pretty sure our coaches wouldn't dare try that again or at least try it once and move on if it didn't work.

The strangest part of it all wasn't the weird bounce the ball took off the foot (ground) into the hands of the Washington defender. The strangest part of the game was the reaction of quarterback Nick Foles when he noticed the Washington defender had jumped the bubble screen lane. Smarter people like to refer to that reaction as surprised. Was the possibility of the defender jumping into the passing lane discussed before the drive took place? Was an emergency course of action not contemplated before the offense took the field? Was Washington expected to allow simple short passes to be completed and give us the game without a fight?

I may be unintelligent, brainless, dense, dim, dull, foolish, gullible, half-witted, idiotic, mindless, moronic, naive, senseless, simpleminded, slow and witless but I am not a buffoon. This means I am not every going to be hired on Mike Stoop's coaching staff. So if you really like unimaginative red zone play calling, unnecessary personal fouls, the coach yelling at the refs instead of his team and assistants, cornerbacks playing zone with no safeties behind them, thousands of excuses by low expectation having fans and the word "potential" then stick around the season isn't even half way over.

Are the Denver Broncos for real?

Are the Denver Broncos for real? I have heard that question a million times this season. The answer depends on what this question really means. Are the Denver Broncos really Super Bowl contenders? Are the Denver Broncos playoff contenders? Are the Denver Broncos really not as bad as the mainstream media thought they would be?

Let me answer the question about being Super Bowl contenders first. The answer is probably not. The reality is they could get hot like the Arizona Cardinals last year and find themselves in the Super Bowl. It is more likely that Denver lacks an explosive enough offense to make it to the Super Bowl. However, it may become more explosive as the season progresses.Are the Denver Broncos really not as bad as the mainstream media thought they would be? The answer to this question is they are way better than the media thought they would be. There are two reasons for this improvement and both reasons are based off logic and knowledge of football fundamentals. The first reason is that Kyle Orton is not that bad of a quarterback or that good of a quarterback. He doesn't make any mistakes and allows his teammates to be the play makers. The passing scheme is that of the New England Patriots and we have decided to keep the Denver Broncos zone blocking running scheme. Mistake free offensive execution will help any team win a few games.

The second reason the Broncos are better than expected is the play of their defense. Last year's defense was awful. It lost us game after game and was rated the 30th defense in the entire league. So what has changed that has made this a good defense? The first thing is the actual players on this defense have changed. Nine of the eleven starters are completely new, and all of them signed via free agency. The age of these new defensive starters signed are between their late twenties and mid thirties. Their age means they are experienced and professional. The second major defensive change is the new defensive coordinator Mike Nolan. Most people who recognize the name may think of him as the head coach of the 49 ers prior to the reign of Mike Singletary. This may be true but I prefer to remember his as defensive coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens team that won the Super Bowl in the early 2000's. I think Nolan's reputation as defensive coordinator stands for itself.

Are the Broncos playoff contenders? You bet your ass they are playoff contenders. The reason being is because the Chargers, Raiders and Chiefs are a mess. I am not going to go over reason why the Chiefs and Raiders are a mess, if you don't know why you will never know football. The Chargers defense looks porous at best. Denver should be able to run the ball against them. If the Chargers were able to stack the line to stop the run, I am confident enough in our defense and offense to make the plays to win that game.

Are the Denver Broncos for real? No. They aren't as bad as people thought they would be and will probably go to the playoffs. They are as real as any other playoff contender out there. When its all said and done the "real" teams are the two that play in the Super Bowl in February. If you know with 100% certainty who those two teams are please meet me in Vegas ASAP!

CIS133DA

I have created this blog in accordance with my CIS133DA Internet/Web Development Level I course at Rio Salado Community College. I will probably blog a few things from time to time as I get more interested and used to blogging.