Well, it worked last week, so let’s keep this up!  Rickomatic provides us with his keys to victory for Week 12 vs the Raiders.

Key 1

The Broncos found a running game in the second half of last week’s game against the Falcons. The dreaded running back by committee worked and this week the Broncos need more of the same. Hillis had a very good game and overall when you average over 4 yards a rush, you will win agames. Pope is dinged up this week, but Hillis and Bell should be utilized. I am not saying abandon the passing game. Eddie Royal had a great game in Oakland and this time B-Marsh will be along side. Establishing a running game will allow Jay to sell play action and bootlegs. Another part of the offense to watch is turnovers, the Broncos have had 3 or more turnovers in the four losses so far this year. So ball protection is a must. Last week Tatum Bell had TWO hands on the ball. Keep it up

Key 2

Last week the defense slowed down one of the best running games in the league. Only once did Turner break away from the front seven, which was a 28 yard TD run. Thanks to last week, holding Turner to 81 yards, his season average dropped from 99 yards a game to 97 a game. This defense must be hardnosed. Bend but don’t break. They can’t allow anything to get behind them. I feel these guys are showing that if they can keep things in front of them, the other team will make a mistake and there will be no long drives. Force the other team to try field goals while the offense is scoring touchdowns; it is a great trade.

Key 3

The special teams didn’t allow a break-away last week. Norwood had one 26 yard return. The Broncos still rank low (30) in allowing an average of 26.2 yards per kickoff return and this must be and can be contained. Make sure tackles and don’t let a head fake shake you out of your assignment.

Do you think we missed anything here?  Have your own keys to victory?  Join us in the forum and let us know your thoughts!

Rickomatic offered up his thoughts on the Broncos Keys to Victory this week vs the Atlanta Falcons.   Have your own thoughts on the matter?  Join us in the forum and let us know!

1. Find some way to force the Falcons to respect a running game. Everyone in the league knows that Cutler has a gun and there is a wide out or two that can get down field. But without an honest attempt at a running game, more turnovers than TDs will be seen going deep. Turnovers have killed this team in each of it’s four losses.

2. Stop the Falcons running game. Run blitz, put eight in the box, jam the gaps, do whatever it takes to force the rookie QB to rely on his arm as the only way to move the ball. Just like with number one, the more the ball is in the air the better chance there is for mistakes and turnovers. If nothing else it is harder to make a third and ten than it is to make a third and two.

3. On third down and long, get to Ryan. Rattle the rookie and make him have happy feet in passing situations. Doom has to be a monster. Someone else needs to push and force the pocket to collapse besides Doom. Maybe a Crowder or Moss can help Doom. But this line needs to stand up and be accountable. At the same time bump the wide outs and tight end so that their timing is off. That will give the rush time to reach the rookie.

4 and final point, make the tackle on special teams. Don’t go for the ESPN highlight reel hit. Just make the tackle and get on with the game. Most fans don’t watch football for the special team plays. They want to see a team that is executing well in every facet of the game.

The Broncos, when executing to their highest level in every facet of the game, are one of the better teams in the league. But, when the individuals put themself above the team, well lets just say that we have seen too much this year and the results were on the scoreboard.

Given that we are just past the half way mark of the 2008 season, we thought we would put together some mid season awards.   We tried to look past simply statistics, but with some positions (o-line), I’ll be the first to admit it is difficult to be up on every player in the NFL!

Offense

QB: Drew Brees…they may not be winning, but Brees is putting up huge numbers
RB: Clinton Portis…amazing year
WR: Anquan Boldin…10 TDs…with a messed up face
TE: Antonio Gates…still has it..it’s a shame Scheff hasn’t played more games, has a crazy 17.6/catch
OT: Ryan Clady…call it a homer, but 346 pass attempts, 7 sacks (2%) 2nd in the League
OG: Chris Snee/Rich Seubert…Giants are dominating the line 5.2/Carry and only 11 Sacks
C: Kevin Mawae - I have to give the Titans some love here, 5 Sacks with Collins…and a big running game

Defense

DE: Mario Williams…is proving he deserved #1 pick
DT: Kris Jenkins…has transformed the Jets’ D
OLB: James Harrison…wish we had this guy
ILB: Jon Beason…guy is a beast…7 pass defends, fumble recover, 2 picks…and 79 tackles
CB: Nnamdi…gotta respect a guy who wants out of Fader-Ville
S: Nick Collins…ball hawk

Special Teams

K: Prater - 5/5 outside 50…17 touch backs to lead the league
P: Koenen - nearly 50% of his punts have been inside the 20…and only 14 return yards against!
KR: Allen Rossum - 28 returns > 20 yards
PR: Reggie Bush - even if he’s not around…3 TDs…21/return.

Other Awards

Best GM: Parcells/Ireland - bringing in Porter & Pennington & Sparano..
Worst GM: Millen anyone?
Best Coach: Jeff Fisher - Undefeated…
Worst Coach: They’ve all been fired already..
Best Owner: Blank - I don’t care for the guy, but he made some ballsy moves this year
Worst Owner: Greasy Al - duh
Rookie of the Year: Ryan Clady/Eddie Royal! - yeah…probably Matt Ryan
Rookie Bust: Glenn Dorsey/Vernon Gholston
Best FA Signing/Trade: Chad Pennington
Worst FA Signing/Trade: Everything the Faders did this offseason

Have your own opinion on this list?  Think some of these selections were off-base?  Come post your own Mid-Season NFL Awards in our forum!

BroncosFreaks Member SoTxBroncFan tackles this question in our second post on the BroncosFreak blog.

I wouldn’t have even considered this before the season. But with the emergence of Eddie Casino Royal, and the much improved play of the OLine this offense looks unstoppable right now.

Here’s my opinion of how the Broncos stack up to some of the better offenses in the league.

San Diego Chargers

QB - Edge to Denver. Though it’s closer to a push than I’d like to admit. Rivers is a good QB, he just doesn’t have the tools and cool that Jay has.

RB - Big Edge to SD. LT is a top 3 RB when healthy, and even with him hobbled right now It’s clear that Sproles is more than adequate when needed.

WRs - Huge edge to Denver. Marsh, Casino, and Stokely are far and away better than Chambers, VJax, and Buster Davis. Marshall could be the best WR in the league before the year is over.

TE - Edge to SD. But it’s much closer than most would think. Gates is still the man when fully healthy. Scheff closes the gap this year, and Graham is the best blocking TE in the league.

OLine - Push. Neither unit gives up many sacks, and both open plenty of holes to run through. Both good young lines.

Overall - Push. Just too close in too many areas. Both great offenses. And young.

Dallas Cowboys

QB - Push. Romo throws a great ball, and makes a lot of things happen with his feet. He’s been known to choke in December and the playoffs, but Jay hasn’t even been there yet so I won’t deduct too much from Romo.

RB - Huge edge to Dallas. Barber and Jones are the best thunder and lighting tandem in the league. 

WR - Edge to Broncos. Marshall and TO are much closer to each other than most around the country would ever imagine. Marshall should never be called baby TO ever again. He’s just Brandon now. Royal, Stokely, and Jackson > Crayton, Austin, and ?. Broncos have more weapons.

TE - Edge to Cowboys. Witten is the best TE in the league.

Oline - Edge to Cowboys. They’ve been together longer, and dominate the trenches with their big bodies. Hard to get to Romo.

Overall - Edge to Cowboys. Witten and the Barion/Jones tandem give them the edge.

Indianapolis Colts

QB - Edge to Colts. Peyton is still Peyton. Give cutler 3 more years and he could be at that level.

RB - Push. Addai had a good first half last year, but hasn’t shown much of anything this yera. Broncos RBBC matches is his output.

WR - Push. Wayne is one of the best in the league. Gonzalez and Harrison (though he’s on his last legs) are pretty darn good. Marshall cancels out Wayne and the Stokely/Royal duo matches the colts 2/3 guys. Harrison 2 years ago and this isn’t even close. 

TE - Edge to Broncos. Dallas Clark is a great TE, but he’s hurting right now and there isn’t much backing him up. Scheff matches his numbers this year, and they don’t have anyone that matches Graham’s blocking

Oline - Huge edge to Broncos right now. The Idny line is in shambles. Too many injuries.

Overall - Edge to Denver. Manning looked frazzled behind that line on Sunday. Cutler has been sacked once this year (and it wasn’t even a sack). Cutler with time runs a better offense than Manning behind that line.

Philadelphia Eagles

QB - Push. When Mcnabb is healthy like he is now, he’s a terrific QB. But Cutler is matching him in all categories, and doesn’t have the injury history.

RB - Huge edge to Eagles. Westbrook is out of this world good. Broncos RBBC can’t match all the things he can do.

WR - Huge edge to the Broncos right now. Eagles #1 and (maybe) #2 guys are hurting right now in Reggie Brown and Kevin Curtis. But even with those 2 guys healthy I’d give the Broncos a small edge. Marshall is head and shoulders above anyone the have. Royal is just as good a rookie prospect aas Desean. 

TE - Edge to the Broncos. LJ Smith is a good pass catcher. But the Scheff/Graham duo gives the broncos the edge.

Oline - Push. Cowboys had Donovan running all night but that is a good pass rush defense. Eagles do have a good oline, but Andrews got hurt last night and he’s their best blocker. Edge to Broncos if Andrews isn’t healthy soon.

Overall - Push. Westbrook is that good.

What do you think?  Come let us know in the Forums.

Tags: chargers, colts, cowboys, eagles, Offense

Let me start by saying welcome to all the old freaks and new freaks alike. It has been a long strange trip, but here we are, a new Freak has been born at BroncosFreaks.

If you are new to BroncosFreaks, welcome aboard, register as a new user and start posting! If you are an old time Freak, get back in the game and start posting up! If you were a member of The Bronco Nation, unfortunately most of the old ‘Nation’ posts and data was lost.

How did this happen? Who runs this show?

Well let’s see if I can help explain a little…and now…onto a little history of BroncosFreaks…

Back in 2002, John (aka The Head Freak), started BroncosFreak and a few of his buddies who formed the original Mod team. In early 2003 I had joined the site, and maybe a year later I started pitching in to the community by donating web hosting space and took on a share of the administrative duties of the site. In late 2005 I had decided I wanted to work on a mock drafting tool and needed a place for it to run. I really didn’t think it would be much of a tool at first, but because of technical requirements, I couldn’t use vBulletin at the time, so I had to find a Microsoft based tool to use.

In steps The Bronco Nation and Community Server. I needed a community based tool that would give me some things like forums and user authentication, on which I could build the mock draft tool. Well, I figured I could attract more users and have a little more credibility if the tool were involved in an active NFL community, so The Bronco Nation was born. A couple guys from The Freak came on over and helped out with that. Around the same time, BroncosFreak traffic had been growing, and a dedicated server was in order for the old vBulletin site. The Head Freak decided to make the move around that time in early 2006, and I continued to try and be active in an admin/freak on BroncosFreak.

Well in comes 2007. The mock draft tool had been somewhat successful in 2006, so I made a push to turn it into a stand alone community: MyMockDraft. By the end of 2007 MyMockDraft was ready for prime time, and we made a big push for the 2008 draft. This left The Bronco Nation by itself in late 2007, pretty much a shell of a Broncos site. Some nice photos of cheerleaders, but no real members.

Around that same time The Head Freak decided to move BroncosFreak from a forum style format to a digg/news style site (it’s current format). He asked Derek (CanuckBroncofan a Mod/Admin on BroncosFreak) if he wanted to take over the old forum, and Derek approached me about hosting/helping him administer it. Well, I had The Bronco Nation sitting around doing nothing, so I said, sure, why don’t we give it a try, see if people want to head over there and post. Well, that wasn’t very well thought out. People obviously were not pleased having their Broncos Freak Home stripped away from them and then be herded into some new confusing forum format. Unfortunately, at the time, I was pretty divided between trying to get MyMockDraft up and running and looking great for the 2008 draft, and helping Derek out with BroncosFreak. A few people stuck around and tried to help keep The Bronco Nation populated, but it fizzled out through the summer. Most of the Freak Regulars circa 2007 moved onto BroncosForums and have since made themselves comfortable in their new digs.

Well in late July and early August there was a little surge in activity on The Bronco Nation, and some of the regular members there (HD, obi, rickomatic) started making some noise. They complained about various features of CommunityServer and the lack of membership. Well, CommunityServer had taken a turn for the worse, it had been a great open source development project, but now they seem to cater to corporations looking to run professional communities (they don’t even publish prices on their site anymore…that’s how expensive it has become). Given the fundamental flaws (like taking forever for new posts to show up), we decided to try and bring The Freak back. I had an old backup of the old BroncosFreak site from my days of hosting the site, so I bought a vBulletin license, and put that up on The Bronco Nation, and everyone seemed to love it. (To clarify here for those of you who may think this was used without permission, John gave Derek permission to take over the old forum. We would have used a more recent backup, however, John was unable to get a good dump of the old freak website database).

And that nearly brings us to today. The Bronco Nation was not a fitting name for the old freak, so we had a look and BroncosFreaks.com happened to be available….clickity click…and presto blammo, and here we are BroncosFreaks.com!

Derek (CanuckBroncofan) and I (Harkov) are the administrators of the site and at the moment there are no moderators (contrary to some public belief!)

So, I hope that helps explain a little bit about what happened along the way. Certainly there were tons of other details that went along with this, I could probably have typed 300 pages, but we’ll leave that for the forums. So get out there let everyone know that the RAIDERS SUCK!