Not predicting a win against a seemingly suddenly strong Denver team offense, on the road.
What WILL be super fascinating is how we gameplan.
Again, we're up against an elite (arguably Top 2 or 3) secondary. We schemed well in the first half with Cook, using the run to set up the pass, and in the second half (less successfully) leveraged Richard as well as Cook.
Broncos have seen that tape, and imagine in addition to ensuring Chris Harris and Bradley Roby lock down on Cooper and Nelson, will also scheme to keep Cook under control as the Broncos were torched by Dissley, of all TEs. So will be interesting to see how Gruden gameplans for this -- is Martavis Bryant playing? I can definitely see him and Cooper working on deep routes as Russell Wilson had 3 TDs and nearly 300 yards, mostly from long bombs to Dissley and Lockett. Will be dependent on Carr's ability to deliver the long ball with accuracy, which seems very specious.
We're definitely up against a poor run outlook against the league's best run defenders. Either MArshawn/Martin have to shine in the straight-line game, or we need to mix up much better PA and misdirections to keep Denver on their toes (something I didn't think we did well last week aside from that great Lynch delay play). OUr Oline will have to play with discipline and nastiness and step the f up to blow holes for our runners for a full 60 mins.
We need our Dline to play all 60 mins as well -- they were solid in the first half against Gurley, but were clearly getting pushed around in the second half as they got gassed from being on the field, and not having the same elite talent as Gurley. And there was little pass rush, which we need to generate. And we need to do it all this week at altitude, which doesn't bode well for the gas factor.
We need Conley to start to emerge to help out Melvin and Hall and allow Nelson (who runs hot and cold) to focus and not get behind plays.We did fairly OK limiting GOff to under 200 yards and just a TD, but we gave up critical 3rd downs and weren't able to tighten up to prevent chains moving.
Will be a great game to watch as if we can adjust and play to our strengths an minimize mistakes, we'll have a shot.
If we can't...this season might be over before it had a chance to begin. You can't come back from an 0-2 start in this division and expect to contend.