Denver Broncos vs. Tennessee Titans Review | PFF Grade Release Show

Denver Broncos vs. Tennessee Titans Review | PFF Grade Release Show

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Ghost your losses, get your payout in partnership with DraftKings Sportsbook. The crown is yours. Next one is Titans Broncos. Uh Broncos win this game 20 to2. Sure. Uh we’ll take a look at the top five greatest players that we have for the Denver Broncos. This is a strange game, man. And they play there are some players that played really well for Denver and I want to highlight him. This we start with Nick uh Nick Bonito, their edge rusher. Uh fresh off his contract extension, a 91.5 elite uh game from him as a pass rusher. Quarterback Jaquan McMillan with an 87.2. Linebacker Justin Shernard with an 85.3. Quarterback Riley Moss a 78.7. Offensive guard Ben Powers a 76.9. Bon Knicks in this game, 40.5. And the passing grade was worse than that. The Tennessee Titans in this one, safety Xavier Woods with an 87.2 to lead all Titans players. Quarterback Roger McCreary uh with a 84.0. Liveback Cedric Gray, who had a great preseason, translating that into the regular season. I love to see that. A 77.0. Offensive guard Peter Scransky a 73.8. And then defensive tackle Sebastian Joseph Day with a 70.4. Cam Ward 57.4 grade in this one. Um, you know, I really think that the only thing that matters for Cam Ward is essentially do you know you have the right guy in clutch situations. To me, that’s going to come down to how I’m going to judge Cam Ward this entire season is when he has a chance and like if it’s a one-sore game in the fourth quarter down the stretch, is he clutch for you? And I don’t really have a doubt that he’s going to be. And in this game, I thought he absolutely was clutch and his wide receivers really let him down. And so this was a Cam W obviously not a win on the scoreboard, but like I’m good with this. I’m good with this game. It’s a darn good defense on the road and he was under a ton of heat all day. And you don’t often say that with a guy who has a 57.4 overall grade and his passing grade wasn’t great in this game. But I’m cool with this game. I don’t really care about the rest. You were in Denver playing what could be the best defense in the NFL. your I I talked a little bit earlier about uh who was it? Which offensive line was I talking about with with seven? The Houston Texans. Their offensive line had seven plays where they gave up a pressure in less than two seconds. The Titans had nine. They led the NFL this past week in nine. Dan Moore Jr. was unfortunately the victim of a couple of those at the left tackle spot with Nick Bonito rushing him. And then JC Leam was given up a couple as well at offensive tackle, too. They just straight up were not good enough. uh four of their six offensive linemen uh who played in this game a significant amount of snaps in this game had a pass blocking grade of 41.5 or less. That’s bad. Yep. That’s really bad. So Cam Ward, Cam Ward this year is the ultimate wins are not a quarterback stat because the Titans are going to lose in my opinion a lot of ball games because they don’t have the offensive line to be able to win. But Cam is going to have at least two or three games this year. maybe that he will turn those into wins where he looks like he’s the man. And so I thought even with that stat that told the story because the offensive line just straight up was not good enough for him. The drops hurt too. Um I thought that Cam was good down the stretch and to me that’s all that mattered for Tennessee. Tennessee’s got to be better up front because even for a guy like Cam Warden, he’s fearless. That’s the number one word for me with him. You just don’t want him getting those bad habits of feeling like he’s under pressure all the time. So they absolutely I mean yeah Brian Callahan knows it. They need to be better upfront protect but Denver’s defensive line is full of monsters. So I I mean that’s a big story. My most impressive guy is Nick Bonito. Fresh off a contract extension. Also six pressures, a sack, 43% pass rush win rate. That’ll do. That will do. That’ll do. Nick Bonito freshy. He must He must like making that money, man. Geez. Doing a good job of it. But 91.6 pass rush grade. All right. I I’m going on my rant here with I’m flipping sides of the ball, though. Denver most disappointing Bicks. I’ll get into that. The story that’s the for of this game for me is turnovers on both sides. Yes, there was six combined, but four for Denver, four turnover worthy plays from Bo Knicks. Watching this game back, this offense back kind of irritated me because I I I’ll be honest, this there are games where, okay, maybe you don’t take a a relatively bad team seriously enough, right? And you kind of it’s the trap game thing, right? This Denver team offensively didn’t even they didn’t look ready to play at all at all. There was missed assignments. There was receivers who didn’t know what route they were running or what the timing was. I don’t know what in the world Bo Knicks footwork was in this game. But that’s not Well, he’s trying to be Superman. Bo’s trying to be very very clearly he’s trying to be a version of himself that he’s never been because over the last Oh, he’s been that. He’s been that at Auburn and that’s not the one that got him here. No, no, no. And that’s and that’s a that’s a good that’s a good point. But the two versions of Bonix that was at Oregon, the senior year at Oregon I thought was was better at blending, you know, the big- time throw ratio with the turnover worthy play ratio. But last year, Bonix wanted to take care of the football, right? It was he was starting things out first year and Shawn Peyton system, rookie year in the NFL. very clearly because this is not just him. Very clearly both him and Shawn Peyton got into the lab this off season and they said, “You’re going to throw the football and you’re going to be somebody who throws for more than 4,000 yards and we are going to win off of your arm because you can do it.” And I think we saw him attempt passes in this past week that I haven’t seen him attempt since Auburn, right? and and and off platform and and the footwork all over the fundamental the thing at least with Bo at at Oregon and what he had figured out was the fundamentals and just doing the easy things right and I thought the best thing he did last year was not beat himself right that was like that was the best thing this Broncos team did on offense was they didn’t beat themselves they’re not talented enough across the board to go out and just walk out somewhere and dominate win and and score 45 points at will he’s not Josh Allen they don’t have a loaded offense like the Bengals do or whatever. They’re not this I’ll be honest, the way they played the offense in this game felt arrogant to me. No, 100%. Like it was just, oh, we’re going to walk out here and we’re better than this team. And and I I got again I got guys missing assignments. The offensive line was still okay because that’s best part of this team. I got guys missing assignments. I got receivers who don’t know their routes. I got Bo I sometimes I don’t know what he’s looking at in in this game at least. It felt like last year he just wanted to be super aggressive and honestly told him throw the football and I know I know I know you’re gonna get into this specific play at the very end of the game we had Courtland Sutton about walking across the field just just read it out and let Sutton win man coverage. I I mean there’s just certain plays some of these turnover these are plays these are plays and throws and inaccuracies and footwork that I did not see from Bon Knicks all of last year are it’s great you want to be Superman you want to take the next step fine but you can’t throw the fundamentals out the window and this game from Denver’s entire off I I I would bet money that Shawn Payeyton in in whatever film session they’re having today is just lighting into this team. They cannot play offense the way they played yesterday because against any other team they would have lost yesterday. No question. I I just I this I I don’t I don’t even know what happened to this offense and maybe it’s a oneweek thing where they just didn’t take the Titans seriously. You play like I think there’s even if you if you go into Indie this week and you play like that, I agree with you. They will lose. That’s a wrap. They will lose. No, they will they will lose. But I think that Bo I think that Bo Nicks and Shawn Peyton went into this off season and he said, “Look, we’re going to have one of the best defenses in the NFL, okay? We’re going to get turnovers. we’re going to hold the team low to points. We can’t be Super Bowl champions unless you open it up. And I think Bo’s down with that because he’s got the arm to be able to do it and he wanted to do it when he was at when he was at Auburn. Well, if he’s down with it now. No, I mean I think that look I obviously I think that he went overboard in this past game, but I don’t think this mentality is going to change unless they really start losing games because they won this game and they wanted him to be aggressive. I think he’s going to be aggressive throughout the first half of the season and they’re going to see where they’re at because if they’re at the top of the division with him being aggressive, you better believe it’s going to continue. And if they’re not, obviously they might dial it back a little bit. But I don’t think they’re just shooting for the division this year. I think they’re shooting I think they know they could have the best defense in the NFL. And with that comes potential AFC Championship dreams. And the only way you get there, especially because they don’t have Derrick Henry to hand the ball off to, they don’t have Jonathan Taylor. They don’t have Josh Jacobs. They don’t have a running back like that. They know they have to throw to win. And this was the perfect game for them to try a bunch of stuff because they knew that they were they were going to be better than the Titans anyways. Now, they almost weren’t, which is dangerous, but I think that th this is what I thought we would see from I I am not shocked at all that this is what we saw from Denver. I’m I No, this was shocking to me. This team doesn’t This team doesn’t turn the ball over. And if you’re going to They didn’t turn it over last year. And if you’re going to do this, they’re not trying to be the same team they were last year. If they’re trying to be this type of offense. Yes. Why’d you take a corner instead of a receiver then? Well, a Matthew Golden, a Luther Burden, a a whatever. Like what what are what are we doing then? I think they could have taken a receiver. I just don’t I don’t The best thing they did was not beat themselves. The best thing they can do with their defense is play compliment. Look, and there are moments. It’s moment. But this is the same ing pain is if you’re going to go through this is the same problem this but this that problem if that becomes a habit of we’re going to go back to gunslinger bow this is the lesson that Anthony Anthony Richardson’s learned a very hard way that Will Levice has learned a very hard way that Jordan Love has learned that Trevor Lawrence is learning you can’t you’re you can’t swing for the fences all the time in the NFL. Yes. And if Bo’s going to do that especially with I don’t know what this footwork he was showing yesterday because it’s nothing like I thought he was Brett Favre like yesterday. yesterday can’t be. I’m not saying he needs to do I I’m not saying that he needs to play like he did yesterday, but the mentality of what they’re going to try to go for this year is going to continue to exist for this team. I don’t I don’t think that next week against the Colts, we’re all of a sudden going to see junior year Bo Knicks at at Oregon again. I don’t think that we’re going to see that. I think they’re going to throw the football then. Well, then I don’t love it. They won You got to go through your growing pains. They won so many games last year because they didn’t make big mistakes. They didn’t turn the ball over. Yeah, but how many games did they win last year? What was it? Then they went in 10. They went 10 and seven. They’re trying to win and they were way ahead of the curve, which is fine. They’re trying to win more than that. They will get there, but if you’re going in, you got to go through the growing pains. This isn’t growing pains to me. They played this. Their offense played bad. If if you’re living in a one floor house and you want to add a second floor to it, guess what you got to do, Dalton? You got to blow up the roof. You You force it. you end up like Jacksonville and what they’ve been doing with Trevor Lawrence. Not anymore with Liam Cohen. Not anymore. But, you know, I I Anyways, what I actually don’t like the most about this game was the late fourth quarter decisions by the Broncos. I hated kind of this entire process. And normally I don’t. I’m a big Shawn Peyton guy. I think he’s a great head coach. I still think he is. I’m not trying to say that he’s not. But what? Okay, so let me let me run through let me run through these drives really quick. So it was where are we here? The Broncos score a touchdown to go from up 13-2 to 12-9. Okay, at that point there was 7 minutes and 37 seconds left in the game. Why wouldn’t you go for two? I I say this all the time. Going up nine should be a premium in any game. Why wouldn’t you go for two? And again, like Shawn Peyton is is a coach who I I would think would be on the cutting edge of a lot of this stuff. If if you kick a field goal, you’re up eight. So, in theory, of course, you’re forcing the Titans to not only score on you, but then convert a two-point conversion. Is that difficult to do? Yes, it’s difficult to do. You know what’s more more difficult to do? do that and then have another possession where you have to score again. Score twice. Yeah. If you if you get it now of now I want to be very fair when I say this. I think that we have a discussion the way that we talk about two-point conversions is very in a vacuum. And the reality is the Broncos, I’m not saying that they are. I’m just using them as an example. They might suck at two-point conversions. They might have run two-point conversions all summer, sucked at it. And if that’s the case, yeah, if I’m Shawn Bay and I’m saying, I’m not going to go out there and run a play. We suck at this. So, that could absolutely be be an example here. But if all things are equal and in a vacuum, go for two and make it a nine-point game. Y, you force the Titans to have it to score on two possessions at that point. You got the best defense in the NFL. What are we doing? So, I didn’t like that. I did not like that they did that, obviously. and it ended up working out for them. Next possession, the Titans punt. Next possession, the Broncos have a turnover on downs. The next possession, the Titans punt. So then the Broncos take over. There’s four minutes left in the game. Where are they here for this one? They are at their own sixyard line. There’s four minutes left in the game. They have a long 10play drive. There is one minute left in the game. They’re at the They’re at the Titans 36. This is a what? 50 yard field goal. 53 52 yard field goal. Yeah, Will Lutz has got that in him. You’re up eight. It’s been backtoback punts for the Titans. Kick the field goal. A 52 yard field goal. Cuz then again, it’s a two possession game. And it was what? Fourth and one, fourth and two. It was fourth and what was it? It was fourth and eight. No, no, no. That one. That one, that one was a fourth and eight. You’re you’re talking about the one before where they they end they ended up going for it. They didn’t get it. Whatever. This was a fourth and eight. Why would you do that? And then obviously like the one what was the one before? Uh no, it was on that play. So instead of kicking a field goal, that was the one where they hiked the ball. Bonix looks to his right, chucks it to the moon like as if they were wasting time for the clock to be Well, yeah. I mean, well, the worst part about that call is I I think actually Payton, if he was going to do that, made a pretty darn good play call. And again, I don’t know what Bose’s going for. He had Courtland Sutton on a deep like that. I don’t know what Bo was thinking on that one, but it was as if he was doing the thing that you do where you’re like, “Hey, we got to kill six seconds and the game’s over.” So, you hike the ball, you look one way, you look the other, and then you just throw it super high. and he did that and the ball fell in front of Mims, but like you it’s almost like he wasn’t even trying on that play. It was just a very very very strange last seven minutes that fourth quarter for the Broncos. So, they win this game, but it was very strange. Very strange. There was just not a lot about the Broncos offensively that I like that occurred in this game. And they’re lucky that they were playing a team like the Titans who just couldn’t couldn’t capitalize on a to me a poor offensive football game. They they need they need to play a lot better than that if they’re going to go to India and win next week.

PFF’s Trevor Sikkema and Dalton Wasserman review the matchup between The Denver Broncos and The Tennessee Titans.

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