Denver’s receivers piled up yards after catch, and the Colts’ beleaguered secondary still has a ton of work to do.
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All is well in the city of Denver.
The defensive score was the second of the game for the Broncos and all but guaranteed the win.
The loss drops Luck to 3-2 in his career against the Broncos.
Luck after a great Week 1 will look to bounce back against San Diego for Indianapolis’ first win while Denver looks to remain undefeated against Cincinnati. Tom Brady completed less than half of his passes, got picked off twice and sacked four times in the AFC Championship game. It is definitely a club worth being a part of. It was a different story on Sunday.
The “No Fly Zone” held Luck to only 197 yards passing on his way to a mediocre 64.3 passer rating.
We knew the Broncos had a good defense – we just didn’t know when it was going to explode. Any time you have to face a quarterback like Andrew Luck, you could be in for a long day, but the Denver defense was able to hold him in check for most of the game. To say the Broncos’ defense was suffocating might be an understatement.
Andrew Luck leads the Colts to an early season (1st two games of a season) loss for the eighth time in 10 tries.
Intercepted by Aqib Talib the IN 35And Talib is going to take it to the house for a 46 yard interception return touchdown!
The defense wasn’t done there. His narrative unfairly hinged on how his right tackle handled the Super Bowl MVP, but that has more to do with how we treat QBs than anything else (too much of the success, too much of the blame). Second-year linebacker Shane Ray then returned the fumble for the second defensive score of the day.
“Actually, he did [compliment me]”, Miller said.
Finally, seventh-round pick Trevor Siemian completed 66.7 percent of his passes for 266 yards Sunday as he outdueled a QB counterpart drafted No. 1 overall for the second straight game.
The tandem of C.J. Anderson and Devontae Booker has provided a platform for the Broncos to have confidence in their running game this season. Denver also out rushed IN 134 yards to 83, courtesy of their most reliable running back, C.J. Anderson.
A year ago, the Colts ran for 120 yards against the Broncos, and there was some thought they could do it again, especially up the middle.
Phillips, Talib and Miller have returned, and they keep repeating the same actions, and I keep writing the same sentences. “We converted it, got some big yards and got into scoring range”. Please. The Broncos’ best player is Miller.
The Broncos are riding high once more. And after that field goal, the Broncos did not prove to be very convincing. “It’s what I’m supposed to do”, Miller said. “I think the question is going to be: Is it something that he might be able to play with that you rest or something that we go fix right of way”. We can all agree that he is arguably one of the best kickers in the league, but the Broncos need to start capitalizing on their offensive drives and stop settling for field goals.
The Colts got a field goal on the ensuing drive and went into the half trailing 13-6. The Colts managed to make it a game despite being outgained by almost 150 yards.
But it shouldn’t come down to that. There was nothing standing between Butler and the end zone. “They were obviously a little bit better than us today and made more plays”. They defend well in man, they defend well in zone, and they defend well in blitz and dog.
It may be a short ride with rookie Paxton Lynch waiting in the shadows, but the Broncos have found their quarterback for the 2016 season. That certainly showed in Week 1 against Carolina, and it showed again against the Colts.
There has been nothing statistically intriguing about Siemian.
“There was a lot of good stuff in that ball game”. Thomas had a step on the defensive back, and just needed a pass leading him.
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I am definitely not saying that Siemian is in the upper echelon of quarterbacks in the National Football League, but he has now shown in back-to-back weeks that he has the tools to be a threatening quarterback. This might be the quality that truly separated him from that of Mark Sanchez. In 2015, the Colts lost on the road to the Bills and then at home to the Jets to start 0-2.
