Mile High Report
I am still stunned by what I watched yesterday afternoon! There have been 226 games this century where a team trailed 19-0 or worse at the start of the 4th quarter and teams who were being shut out are 2-224 in those games. In an odd twist of fate, the Giants have been the team to blow both leads. The other game was the 2006 Titans over the Giants.
There have only been four games in the history of the NFL where a team scored 33 or more points in the 4th quarter and one of them happened in 1925 between two teams that don’t exist now (you could argue that Chicago Cardinals do since they became the St Louis, then Phoenix and now Arizona Cardinals).
The Broncos did just about everything that they could to give this game to the struggling Giants who came into the game 2-4 and who have a rookie QB who had 3 starts under his belt. The Broncos had two busted plays that turned into Giant TDs (one blown coverage in the passing game and one in the run game). The Broncos had 12 accepted penalties for 127 yards. Seven of the Giants’ first downs came via penalty. They came into the game with 13 first downs by penalty in six games, then had SEVEN in one game.
On the flipside the Giants were called for 8 penalties, but not a single holding penalty. I saw at least five and three of those were blatant like the take-down of Alex Singleton by Cam Skattebo on the Justin Strnad interception. That could have either been holding (you can’t pull the defender down on top of you if you get trucked) or tripping (you throw your legs out or up to trip the defender if he runs you over).
The refs in this game did a poor job, but they also apparently didn’t want to call offensive holding on either OL. There were only two holding penalties called in the game (one on JL Skinner on a KOR, and one on Garett Bolles).
Speaking of the offensive line, while they weren’t doing much to run block in the first half, they were giving Bo Nix a very clean pocket most of the game, but part of that was how short the passing game was for the first three quarters. Still Nix dropped back to pass 52 or so times (not sure how many times he scrambled – not designed runs) and he was only pressured four times according to NFL.com. The Giants’ DL is for real. Brian Burns now leads the league in sacks with 9.0 as well as in TFL with 12. Dexter Lawrence is a beast against the run, Kayvon Thibadeaux is an above average pass rusher and Roy Robertson-Harris is an above average run stuffer.
The Broncos have the third best pass blocking in the NFL allowing pressure on only 13.9% of dropbacks. Only the Bucs and the Falcons are doing better. The...
