Did Bengals get schedule break over Pitt?

[Shake n Blake]

Honestly, I do believe the Broncos won the SB with smoke and mirrors last year. They're not going to go 13-3 and contend for a SB with poor QB play again. I'd compare it to the 2000 Ravens. The Ravens thought they improved when they picked up Elvis Grbac, but they slumped to 10-6, lost in the WC and didn't win another playoff game until 8 years later.

It's really hard to win consistently without a good QB.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(04-15-2016, 08:20 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: Honestly, I do believe the Broncos won the SB with smoke and mirrors last year. They're not going to go 13-3 and contend for a SB with poor QB play again. I'd compare it to the 2000 Ravens. The Ravens thought they improved when they picked up Elvis Grbac, but they slumped to 10-6, lost in the WC and didn't win another playoff game until 8 years later.

It's really hard to win consistently without a good QB.

If you play 3 games against Roethlisberger, Brady, and Newton, and you allow 44 points while getting 14 sacks, 3 INT, and 6 FF, you'll win more often than not with most anyone at QB.

That said, I don't know if their defense will be that dominant again, but I don't know if I would call that smoke and mirrors either. If you don't allow teams to score and you give QBs no time, you win. Even with all these ridiculous rules made lately to increase scoring.

Their division is getting pretty tough though with the Raiders on the rise.

[Atomic Orange]

The Broncos proved that defense still wins championships and i loved it even though it was at our expense because with Andy the only team better than us was the Pats and even then we take them at our place outside of PT and PO.

We just need to become animals at night this year no excuses. We can do it, we have done it. (see Broncos 2014). The defensive performance during "the debacle" was encouraging. Hopefully that broke the ice so to speak like when Rocky cut Drago.

[Benton]

The Broncos game shouldn't be as bad as some people are making out.

But the Steelers by far got the best AFCN schedule.They get us without Burfict, no further away than Dallas, host two of three final divisional games (Baltimore and Cleveland), open the season at Washington.

I'm not complaining, ours is manageable (although I still think the loss of a home game is crap). But the Ravens come back after the bye and run the gauntlet. Us and Pitt twice, at Foxboro, at Dallas, hosting the Eagles. Their first half is doable, but the second half stinks. The Browns isn't horrible,, but a late break and they have to play teams better than the Jags.

[Shake n Blake]

(04-15-2016, 08:37 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: If you play 3 games against Roethlisberger, Brady, and Newton, and you allow 44 points while getting 14 sacks, 3 INT, and 6 FF, you'll win more often than not with most anyone at QB.

That said, I don't know if their defense will be that dominant again, but I don't know if I would call that smoke and mirrors either. If you don't allow teams to score and you give QBs no time, you win. Even with all these ridiculous rules made lately to increase scoring.

Their division is getting pretty tough though with the Raiders on the rise.

When I said smoke and mirrors, I'm thinking of how they pulled a 40 year old QB off the bench in a desperate move to spark their offense...and it actually worked for a minute. Also how they had to hide their lack of a QB with running and epic defensive play. Obviously we haven't seen many teams with similar QB situations win the Super Bowl. 

You have to go back to the 2000 Ravens to find a similar situation (Trent Dilfer took over for Tony Banks). It's just not likely that the Broncos will be able to sustain that level of play without a good QB. It's more likely that they'll come down to earth a bit, ala the pre-Flacco Ravens.

I'm sure their defense will be good but like you said, I don't know if it will be that dominant again. Plus the Chiefs and maybe the Raiders are looming. Imo, the Broncos could realistically finish anywhere from 6-10 to 11-5, but I don't see them as a top 3 team in the AFC anymore.