Speaker 1: Check it in with our guy Ryan Michael at the
Speaker 1: Ryan Michael on Twitter? Ryan, how you doing this evening?
Speaker 2: Doing well? Then? Nick? How are you guys doing pretty well? Guys?
Speaker 2: Bon Nicks has.
Speaker 1: Done basically a complete one eighty from the first four
Speaker 1: weeks of the season what looked like a bust to
Speaker 1: some people after a couple of games to possible offensive
Speaker 1: Rookie of the Year candidate now through twelve games are Listen,
Speaker 1: are you ready to apologize with Sean Payton hate that's
Speaker 1: been sizzling out of your Twitter account?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: My goodness, listen. I am the biggest Sean Payton fan
Speaker 2: in the world and nothing would make me happier than
Speaker 2: to continue to see us winning football games, scoring points.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I try to be fair and everything that
Speaker 2: I do. So we're a team that's trending upwards. Certainly,
Speaker 2: seven and five is well above expectations. I think the
Speaker 2: overunder before the season started with five and a half.
Speaker 2: So doing well, super and is quickly developed into a
Speaker 2: player showing signs of becoming a franchise quarterback. Even better,
Speaker 2: he was the guy who I had second on my
Speaker 2: draft board coming into the season. I think he's had
Speaker 2: one of the most impressive college football resumes of any
Speaker 2: quarterback prospect we've seen over the last decade. So he's
Speaker 2: trending in the right direction, so much so that if
Speaker 2: we shrink the windows that since Week three, he took
Speaker 2: his per game average and put it over a seventeen
Speaker 2: game pace, you'd be looking at four thou ninety total yards,
Speaker 2: thirty four total touchdowns, only three picks, zero loss fumbles
Speaker 2: all season. So sure it was spectacular the offense, though,
Speaker 2: Ben still ranks nineteenth in Portsberg game scored. And you
Speaker 2: want to guess where we ranked last year.
Speaker 1: I know the answer to this would already, but I'll
Speaker 1: let you dazzle us.
Speaker 2: In ranked nineteenth in points per game scored last year.
Speaker 2: So you know, if you look at what we're doing
Speaker 2: this year with flooring points in very different ways. Both
Speaker 2: accounted for twenty one of our twenty five offensive touchdowns
Speaker 2: and for the four supportive Russian touchdowns on the ground,
Speaker 2: one was one yard, another was five, another was eight.
Speaker 2: Three of those four were you know, close in the
Speaker 2: red area. So we're doing it a bit differently. And
Speaker 2: I was talking on Twitter earlier today a little bit
Speaker 2: about this. Russell Wilson was very underappreciated for what he
Speaker 2: was able to accomplish our structure. Last year, he led
Speaker 2: the AFC touchdown pass percentage of five point eight. That's
Speaker 2: very high, and he produced just one fewer touchdown pass
Speaker 2: and one hundred and fifty fewer attempts than Patrick Mahomes
Speaker 2: to trade off as I feel like we talked about
Speaker 2: this third week, he finished twenty seventh in sack percentage,
Speaker 2: so Bow is the antithesis of that. He's seventh in
Speaker 2: the league right now. He's technically third if you narrow
Speaker 2: down the quarterbacks who started ten or more games, but
Speaker 2: he's twenty first in the league in sack percentage. So
Speaker 2: bo style is death by a thousand paper cuts, right timing,
Speaker 2: rhythm efficiency, a Sean Payton offense, perhaps without the weapons
Speaker 2: that we saw in New Orleans, and b Nix isn't
Speaker 2: quite true abreziate. So he's showing great development. We're doing
Speaker 2: the best we can in salary cap held, but yet
Speaker 2: was still nineteen from the league in scoring. Now.
Speaker 3: Coaches like people are creatures of habit, and what I
Speaker 3: mean by that is when they live and die by
Speaker 3: their system and they have players or they look for
Speaker 3: players to kind of fit their previous system with their
Speaker 3: current system. Now when you look at Courtland Sutton and
Speaker 3: you look at Devon Belay, those two are now emerging,
Speaker 3: in my opinion, as wide receiver number one and why
Speaker 3: receiver number two. Do you see how they're being deployed
Speaker 3: similar to maybe what Sean Payton has done in the
Speaker 3: past with other receivers.
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean we're right now New Orleans Saints light
Speaker 2: and they mean that effextionllently. So you could say that
Speaker 2: Courtland Sutton is a poor man's Michael Thomas and Devon
Speaker 2: you know, the comparisons this week from Marcus Coulston, I
Speaker 2: could see that. You know what, we could used Nick As,
Speaker 2: we could use Jimmy Graham, because right now, amongst the
Speaker 2: tight end position, Lucas called the team of ten receptions
Speaker 2: Troutman just one hundred and fifty eight yards Nate Adkins,
Speaker 2: who hadn't scored a touchdown even in college football and
Speaker 2: longer than I can remember most touchdowns by a tight
Speaker 2: end on Broncos this year with too So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: there's this similar deployment and they're cut of the same
Speaker 2: mold of Sean Payton kind of eyes. We're certainly seeing
Speaker 2: a roster that built in his image this year. So
Speaker 2: I like what I'm saying so far, and I believe
Speaker 2: I said this last week. We have arguably, if not
Speaker 2: the best rooky quarterback in the NFL, arguably the best
Speaker 2: offensive line in the NFL, and arguably the best defense
Speaker 2: in the NFL. So in salary cap hell, we're not
Speaker 2: going to necessarily have assassins at the skill position. I
Speaker 2: like what I'm seeing with what.
Speaker 1: We have with Ryan Michael at the Ryan Michael on Twitter.
Speaker 1: The offense has been steadily growing, but the defense has
Speaker 1: been consistently elite. How much credit do we give Sean
Speaker 1: Bayton for the fact that the defense is elite and
Speaker 1: carrying this team.
Speaker 2: I think that, you know, we have to give him
Speaker 2: credit for the change of culture beyond that this is
Speaker 2: really vanced justice defense. And I think we have to
Speaker 2: be fair then, because Sean Payton was also the overlord
Speaker 2: of New Orleans Sames teams that produced defenses that finished
Speaker 2: thirty to thirty first and thirty second in points per
Speaker 2: game surrendered, And if you think back to that time,
Speaker 2: nobody was typically critical of him for those awful defensive
Speaker 2: finishes because on the offensive side of the ball, they
Speaker 2: were top ten, often top five. So if we were
Speaker 2: going to be leaning on him when the defenses weren't
Speaker 2: bad under his botch, can we really give him more
Speaker 2: credit relative to the criticism that we gave him when
Speaker 2: they were bad in New Orleans? I don't think so.
Speaker 2: I think at the end of the day, we need
Speaker 2: to give a lot more credit to Vance Joseph. And
Speaker 2: what I'm seeing on that side of the ball is
Speaker 2: an exotic aggressive defensive schemes were blitz heavy. I think
Speaker 2: around forty five percent of the staffs or blitzes, and
Speaker 2: our guys get to the quarterback even when we're not
Speaker 2: sending experments of the personnel. This year has been very strong,
Speaker 2: and the unique thing about the Broncos pass defense is
Speaker 2: they're winning in other ways, you know, compared to other
Speaker 2: defenses that have been good. Take the Texans, for example,
Speaker 2: they lead the league with seventy passes defended. We're down
Speaker 2: to twentieth with only forty two. What we are are
Speaker 2: the NFL's leader in sacks. We have forty four. We're
Speaker 2: sacking the quarterback on nine point six percent of the play,
Speaker 2: so one out of every ten plays results in a sack.
Speaker 2: You know that we're doing well. We're second only to
Speaker 2: Baltimore and quarterback hits we already have ninety, so we're
Speaker 2: doing it in a very different way. We're second in
Speaker 2: the league in yards per attempt allowed on the positive
Speaker 2: end of it, so we're only allowing six point four
Speaker 2: yards per attempt. Our dbs aren't swatting down a lot
Speaker 2: of houses. We're allowing completions. We're around league average. I
Speaker 2: think we allow roughly sixty five percent completion percentage. But
Speaker 2: they're tackling machines and they're not traveling very far distances.
Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, we can bend
Speaker 2: a little bit. We're not breaking. We're not giving up
Speaker 2: points short of the league points per game surrendered. I
Speaker 2: love what I'm seeing from the defense.
Speaker 3: Well, you may love what you're seeing from the defense
Speaker 3: as much as I love what I'm seeing for the defense.
Speaker 3: But my counterpart, you know, Benjamin Albright, he has this
Speaker 3: thing for clock management, and we've spent you know, some
Speaker 3: time at nauseum talking about this, but I'll allow to
Speaker 3: get you your take on the situation. Is three minutes
Speaker 3: thirty eight seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, and the
Speaker 3: Broncos throw three passes. Do you feel the same way
Speaker 3: about clock management as one Benjamin Albright?
Speaker 2: I do? And at this level, Nick, it really is
Speaker 2: a beautiful There are season Madden players better. So you
Speaker 2: have three minutes thirty eight seconds on the clock, you
Speaker 2: hear us three times in a row, so you shaved
Speaker 2: a few seconds. That got him down to three minutes
Speaker 2: twenty three seconds. So the fact that we won the
Speaker 2: game means that we're going to overlook that kind of
Speaker 2: clock management completely. But it's the kind of decision making
Speaker 2: and a competitive, somewhat competitive game, at least towards the end,
Speaker 2: they shot that could cost you a football game. So
Speaker 2: just because we win doesn't mean that we should overlook
Speaker 2: bad clock management. It makes my head, well.
Speaker 3: You know what, It's very interesting because not often do
Speaker 3: you come on and you agree with Ben on end.
Speaker 3: Because Ben was celebrating, he threw his hands up like
Speaker 3: he's on the steps of Philadelphia and he was Rocky Balboa.
Speaker 3: And then you mentioned, you know, Madden Football, all the
Speaker 3: things that Ben loves to play. And I told him
Speaker 3: immediately when he had his comments, he was reverting back
Speaker 3: to his Madden days where he just loves to run
Speaker 3: the ball. But here's what I would say. I said
Speaker 3: this to Band, and you tell me what you think.
Speaker 3: Do you think that coach Payton did what he did
Speaker 3: knowing is though he has one of the top defensive
Speaker 3: units in the league, you can.
Speaker 2: Take more chances when you have an elite defense on
Speaker 2: the other end of the football. But this kind of
Speaker 2: brings me back Nick to Ben's question a few minutes ago.
Speaker 2: How much credit do we give Sean Payton for the
Speaker 2: elite defensive performance if you are now taking irresponsible shots
Speaker 2: on offense, the kind of chances that could lead you
Speaker 2: to losing a football game that shouldn't have even been
Speaker 2: as close as it was. And if your excuse for
Speaker 2: that is that vance Joseph from the defensive side of
Speaker 2: the ball has us lockdown, I still think that that's inexcusable.
Speaker 2: I understand the personnel that we have to work with
Speaker 2: in the ground game, it's not strong, but you've got
Speaker 2: to at least give it to a running back on
Speaker 2: one of those three plays.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to me, And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's not about gaining yardage or anything. You want to
Speaker 1: get a first down, but even three negative rushes would
Speaker 1: have been better than three incompletions. Agreed, at least you're
Speaker 1: taking time off the clock or taking time outs away
Speaker 1: from your opponent. I do want to give Sean Baks
Speaker 1: some credit, though we can't just sit here a bag
Speaker 1: on that, especially after a win. We can all see
Speaker 1: the offense approving what specifically has impressed you about what
Speaker 1: Sean has done the let's sell the ball.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm seeing with bone Nicks is we're
Speaker 2: continuing to tailor the offense to his strength, so that
Speaker 2: would be quick, complete, structured yards after the catch. And
Speaker 2: as he's becoming more comfortable, he's opening up the playbooks.
Speaker 2: He's been able to more efficiently attack the middle of
Speaker 2: the field. These are the kind of things that we
Speaker 2: saw at Oregon, and we knew that we weren't going
Speaker 2: to see instant success. I believe I said before the
Speaker 2: season even started, the twenty twenty four should be about
Speaker 2: getting bone Nicks acclimated to the system. So here we
Speaker 2: are two thirds through the season and he's already playing
Speaker 2: the position at an elite level, hitting some highs. We
Speaker 2: put up one hundred and forty five passer riding the
Speaker 2: week before last second highest in the history of the
Speaker 2: franchise higher than John Elway ever hit, although we've got
Speaker 2: to adjust for eras, so take it with a grand salt.
Speaker 2: I love what I'm seeing and as bone, it's a
Speaker 2: quarterback driven offense, and I don't say that to take
Speaker 2: any credit away from what Sean Payton is doing. We
Speaker 2: understand that he doesn't have Campa Bay twenty twenty roster,
Speaker 2: he doesn't have the two thousand and seven Patriots, so
Speaker 2: none of us should have or have expectations for the
Speaker 2: offense to be a top three, top five offense. We
Speaker 2: still want to produce more points, and slowly but surely
Speaker 2: we're doing that. We have to be patient. We're rooting
Speaker 2: for him every week again and not trying to sell
Speaker 2: short the progress that he's made with bo Nicks. But
Speaker 2: at the same time, guys, when you see these issues
Speaker 2: with clock management and you see the lack of points
Speaker 2: produced over the grand sample size of here we are
Speaker 2: at seven and five, twelve games in, there's still plenty
Speaker 2: of room for improvement.
Speaker 3: When you look at the Broncos run game, and we
Speaker 3: haven't really talked about it in great detail because it
Speaker 3: hasn't really been that explosive. Now we're moving into the
Speaker 3: back half of the season, colder months. What can we
Speaker 3: anticipate from the Broncos offense from a run game standpoint,
Speaker 3: You think.
Speaker 2: Channing out so far through twelve games, like Toronte Williams,
Speaker 2: who is at one hundred and twenty carries only averaging
Speaker 2: three point seven yards per rush, that's not great success percentage,
Speaker 2: which is an efficiency metric for Pro Football Reference, very
Speaker 2: six point seven percent not tremendous. I do like what
Speaker 2: I'm seeing out of all your estimains, averaging four point
Speaker 2: seven yards per carry equal to that of Bonix, and
Speaker 2: I believe I said this a few weeks ago when
Speaker 2: we were trying to predict what the second half of
Speaker 2: the season would look like for Bonnicks, I had a
Speaker 2: feeling they would take him out of harms when we
Speaker 2: wouldn't see as much of the quarterback design runs as
Speaker 2: we saw in the first half of the season. I
Speaker 2: think that's smart. We need to keep Bonius healthy. But
Speaker 2: you know, the more that we can rotate these running
Speaker 2: backs in and generate momentum, I feel frustrated saying the
Speaker 2: same thing week after week after we because we don't
Speaker 2: have Derrick Henry in the backfield. We don't have shake
Speaker 2: on bar play in the backfield. If we did with
Speaker 2: the offensive line that we have, you'd be saying much
Speaker 2: better games. So I don't think the objective should be
Speaker 2: for us to become a run first team or to
Speaker 2: have any crazy sort of expectations. We just want to
Speaker 2: get better, and slowly, but surely we're getting inner. Tyler R.
Speaker 1: Michael at the Ryan Michael on Twitter, Ryan, Pat Mahomes
Speaker 1: didn't look like a scrub versus Carolina. Are you ready
Speaker 1: to eat some crow on your Mahomes criticism from a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks back.
Speaker 2: I mean he played Carolina, the second to loss in
Speaker 2: the league. They give up one hundred and five point
Speaker 2: six passer rating nearly seventy percent completion percentage, their second
Speaker 2: to last in the league and SAT League fifteen sixteen
Speaker 2: seventeen something like that, and their last in the NFC
Speaker 2: in terms of touchdown passes surrendered was twenty one. So
Speaker 2: Pat Mahomes is trending upward as bo Nicks has been.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day here he is.
Speaker 2: Eleven games in his season, he ranked twenty first in
Speaker 2: the league in the just Vate yards per tenth after
Speaker 2: last year he was fifteen in the league, so right
Speaker 2: around league average, from the moment he started his first
Speaker 2: game against less than twenty seventeen. All the way through
Speaker 2: the end of twenty twenty two Hiss MVP campaign, he
Speaker 2: ranked number one in the NFL. So when you look
Speaker 2: at one of the best overall efficiency metrics to go
Speaker 2: from it half decade running number one in the league,
Speaker 2: dropping down the fifteenth last year, and he's twenty first
Speaker 2: this year despite playing really well against Carolina. Well, I
Speaker 2: love Pat mahons, he's the future first ballot Hall of Famber.
Speaker 2: But if we're pretending that the totality of his value
Speaker 2: of work our last two season is gonna comparable to
Speaker 2: just do the best runs we've seen in the history
Speaker 2: of the position from twenty eighteen twenty twenty two, I
Speaker 2: think what we're doing is we're unintentionally selling short how
Speaker 2: great he was for that first half decade. Don't do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, we don't want Understell. We've got Cleveland Browns
Speaker 1: coming up on Monday night.
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 1: What's your prediction?
Speaker 2: Real quick? Twenty eight to seventeen Denver.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Okay, I'm a little concerned about this one.
Speaker 1: He's he's confident though he comes out to twenty eight
Speaker 1: to seventeen. Well, we'll certainly I'll hold you to that,
Speaker 1: and if it doesn't happen, we'll weill mercilessly roast you
Speaker 1: for twenty minutes next week immediately following the game. For
Speaker 1: those are the rules, so I don't make that much
Speaker 1: as follow I'm here for brother. Take care, Ryan Michael
Speaker 1: let the Ryan Michael on