Broncos fans: "Look what we did to Tom Brady."

[pantherking15]

Those Broncos fans don't realize that the Panthers offense is polar opposite of the Patriots offense in 3 main areas: line play, scheme, and QB.

1. Line Play

I know a lot of people are very skeptical of PFF's grades. After casually following PFF stats for 3 years now, I've noticed they are pretty accurate with their offensive linemen and defensive linemen grades. Their grades match what you see on the field. The skill position grades tend to get skewed because those positions are heavily influenced by scheme and line play.

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2016/01/20/pro-ranking-all-32-offensive-lines-this-season/

Patriots pass protection was 2nd worst in the NFL:

The Patriots had a lot of inexperience on their O-line and very little chemistry, with 37 different offensive line combinations throughout the season (from MMQB).

Panthers pass protection is 4th best in the NFL:

A huge part of that excellent ranking is due to the chemistry on the O-line. The current 5 offensive linemen have been working as a group since training camp.

 

2. Scheme

The Patriots pass-happy dink and dunk offense plays right into the hands of the Broncos defense. Tom Brady passed the ball 56 times in the AFC Championship. The Patriots were forced to do this because of a depleted RB corps. They were relying on a 32 year old Steven Jackson (who was on his couch a few weeks ago). Without having to respect the run game, the Broncos could pin their ears back and go after Tom Brady, which helped their secondary big time.

On the other hand, the Panthers run the ball the most in the league (over 50% run plays). No one has a more sophisticated, multidimensional, dynamic rushing offense than the Panthers. A great rushing game neutralizes the opposing pass rush and keeps edge rushers/LBs/CBs honest and also opens up play-action passes downfield. The Patriots had none of this in the AFC Championship.

 

3. QB

Just as the Panthers have been built to beat the Seahawks (our nemesis in the NFC), the Broncos have been built to beat the Patriots and Tom Brady. The closest thing they've played to Cam Newton is Alex Smith and Andrew Luck. The Chiefs had 24 and 29 points in their 2 games and the Colts had 27 points vs the Broncos.

A lot of Broncos fans are saying they will follow the Falcons game plan to defend Cam Newton. The Falcons, and Dan Quinn in particular, have a ton of experience defending our read option plays and deceptive running game. They conveniently forget we beat those same Falcons 38-0 just 2 weeks earlier and didn't have Stewart (who is an elite pass protector) that game. The Falcons were able to hold the Panthers to their lowest points scored mainly because of a ball control offense that dominated TOP. The Falcons had the O-line to use that game plan. The Broncos don't.

             

 

 

[Hammerin'Cameron34]

Denver is fixin to get an ole fashioned Super Bowl beat down, worse than what Seattle gave em

[Nomad82]

5 minutes ago, Hammerin'Cameron34 said:

Denver is fixin to get an ole fashioned Super Bowl beat down, worse than what Seattle gave em

..and even worse than what San Francisco gave them a generation ago. 

Seriously, I could see them hanging 58 or more pts on Denver.

[the butch]

Fans don't make the best business decisions. Analytics are plucked and self-fulfilling to confirm their bias. All fans do it. I appreciate you taking the time to poke holes in their argument. 

[BrownianMotion]

NE was missing two quality starters on the Oline from the 2014 SB winning team. They went down with injury and placed on IR. Not only that, but NE had injuries to backup offensive linemen too. So essentially, they were playing 3rd stringers at some positions.

NE was also missing their top 2 RBs. Dion Lewis was the most dynamic player in the league before he went down, and was on pace for over 1300 total yards from scrimmage and 9 total TDs.

Despite that, Brady still put up over 300 yards against them, and the game would have gone to OT if it wasn't for a missed XP. More importantly, the final Pats TD would have been the game winner if Belichick hadn't made the mistake of going for it on 4th down the first time instead of taking the FG.

Broncos fans are in for a rude awakening against a team with a very good and healthy Oline and a team that has the best running game in the NFL.

[TheWiz]

Thank you. This was actually worth reading. Seems like the monkeys from Jumanji were let loose on the Huddle as of late.  

[Toolbox]

Like my boy jeff mitchell says it's gonna be a boring superbowl :)

[tiger7_88]

4 minutes ago, Nomad82 said:

..and even worse than what San Francisco gave them a generation ago. 

Seriously, I could see them hanging 50+ pts on Denver.

Denver's defense is top notch.  I don't think they'll be able to stop our offense, but I *do* think they easily have the ability to possibly hold us under our average.  (Prediction: 27 points by our offense.)

Now Denver's offense against our defense?  Unless somehow the defense, between now and Super Bowl Sunday, loses their goddam minds and lay one of the hugest eggs ever, I just don't see Denver's offense scoring that much.  (Prediction: 13 points by the Denver offense.)

[MVPccaffrey]

Broncos literarily had to have the most QB hits in the last 2670 games played in the NFL to win by two, at home, against one of the worst O-lines in the NFL, who missed an extra point.

 

Good luck replicating that.

[PhillyB]

19 minutes ago, Nomad82 said:

..and even worse than what San Francisco gave them a generation ago. 

Seriously, I could see them hanging 58 or more pts on Denver.

on the number one defense? lordy you guys are confident.

if i'm honest i see us putting up an opportunistic 27-31 points on them and holding them to maybe 20ish. pull away by a score in the 4th.

they didn't get there by mistake.

[MVPccaffrey]

9 minutes ago, PhillyB said:

on the number one defense? lordy you guys are confident.

if i'm honest i see us putting up an opportunistic 27-31 points on them and holding them to maybe 20ish. pull away by a score in the 4th.

they didn't get there by mistake.

Actually they did.  Two mistakes.  The fumble when Pittsburgh was about to extend their lead late in the 4th, and the missed gimme XP by Gostkowski.

[truthjuice]

Arizona thought they had it figured out too. That was supposed to be a tight game, so they said. But it wasn't. Denver's defense is good but Carolinas offense is great and they're fast. The quicker they play the game, the more the defense will wear down. Thinking what they did to Brady is nothing and they should get it out of their minds now. This is Cam Newton. They have their work cut out. 

[tondi]

I don't know about 50 pts but I could see a final like 34-13, or something similar, as long as we protect the ball and don't allow anything negative to happen on special teams.

[L-TownCat]

32 minutes ago, BrownianMotion said:

NE was missing two quality starters on the Oline from the 2014 SB winning team. They went down with injury and placed on IR. Not only that, but NE had injuries to backup offensive linemen too. So essentially, they were playing 3rd stringers at some positions.

NE was also missing their top 2 RBs. Dion Lewis was the most dynamic player in the league before he went down, and was on pace for over 1300 total yards from scrimmage and 9 total TDs.

Despite that, Brady still put up over 300 yards against them, and the game would have gone to OT if it wasn't for a missed XP. More importantly, the final Pats TD would have been the game winner if Belichick hadn't made the mistake of going for it on 4th down the first time instead of taking the FG.

Broncos fans are in for a rude awakening against a team with a very good and healthy Oline and a team that has the best running game in the NFL.