Denver Broncos at a very deep level

Today, the struggling newspaper industry claimed another piece of Denver's mainstream media pie.

Frank Schwab, the Gazette's Broncos jerseys beat writer, announced via Twitter today that the CSG will be closing its Broncos beat. Schwab will remain with the paper but move over to cover the Air Force beat.

Schwab, who has covered the Broncos since 2003, served as the AP's Denver-based NFL awards voter (for honors such as MVP and all-pro), meaning the committee will have to select a new representative in 2011.

It's a curious decision by the bigwigs at CSG. The Gazette's online Broncos coverage tops its sports page views, and one would assume it does its fair share in the hard copies. If a beat had to go, why cut your paper's most popular?

 I consider the games before bye weeks absolute toss up games. Teams are still getting used to off season personnel and scheme changes, and we don't really see the "true" team until later on in the season.

    Denver's first six games were won both on Knowshon Moreno luck and hard work. Week 7 was our bye week and then we went into Baltimore which was the catalyst for the demise of our season. The advantage to a bye week for teams facing a hot team is that they have time to really study up on why that team has been hot. Baltimore made all the right adjustments, offensively. They went into a no huddle offense and didn't give Denver's defense any time to rest or strategize. Denver didn't give itself any time to rest on defense either as the offense struggled. For the first time in the season, Baltimore exposed the weakness in our front three on defense, and from there on out, teams that pounded the ball inside eventually wound up breaking through for a big play. The Broncos never recovered from that loss.

     I don't want to say that the first six games were all smoke and mirrors. It's just that opponents made the correct adjustments to their game while the Broncos didn't, nor did they have the personnel to. Now, with a bigger and more experienced defensive line, I believe that we've eliminated a lot of our problems on run defense.

What Kim is saying is that Denver "jumped" people early on. The 3-4 defense and the blitzes from anywhere idea took advantage of people still trying to find their game. It was after enough film on Denver was available did people figure it out. Denver had weaknesses.  Zoltan and I have been saying for months, Jack better have his team buttoned up and ready day one. Denver is coming.

On paper, the defensive secondary looks like a real strong unit. Are there holes in the secondary the Jaguars can exploit?

    Sure, there are always holes you can expose in a defense even with Champ Bailey and Brian Dawkins in the secondary. I wouldn't recommend throwing in Bailey's direction, however. If the Jaguars can get their run game going, it's going to open up the field, maybe even cause the Broncos secondary to cheat up a bit. That's when the Jaguars could try throwing in Andre' Goodman's direction. Don't mistake him for a hole in the defense, however. He had 5 INTs last year and we couldn't have asked for a more complete corner to play opposite Bailey.

     I'd say your best chance of exposing the Denver secondary comes from balancing the offense.

This is so true it should be read to the entire Jaguar team. Read her words again and let it sink in. David Garrard under center, double tight end set, Brian Dawkins edging up in run support, can you see it?  Play action pass, Dawkins bites, Marcedes is open over the middle. This was done by the other teams. Maurice Jones Drew will scare Denver into letting Marcedes get open. She is telling us the game plan here. Run the ball, be effective running and the passing opens up wide.