Broncos-Packers Q&A: Exploiting Denver’s weaknesses

On Sunday, the Green Bay Packers face the Denver Broncos, an uncommon opponent with a familiar head coach. Joe Rowles of Mile High Report kindly volunteered to answer our questions about the Broncos and provide some insight into their strengths and weaknesses.

APC: If you were game planning against the Broncos, how would you attack them on offense? On defense?

On offense I’d attack the edges in pass protection with fire zones and designer blitzes. Flacco was disappointing when it came to identifying pressure pre-snap the first two weeks and the Broncos are weak at tackle. Because of an injury to Ja’Wuan James the Broncos have Elijah Wilkinson starting on the right and Garett Bolles is playing his way out of the league on the left.

The best way to move the ball on Denver is probably to follow the quick strike blueprint that’s happened each of the first two weeks. Get the ball out quickly and make the defense rally to the ball. 26 of the 53 passes the Broncos have faced came out in less than two seconds, which has effectively neutralized Von Miller and Bradley Chubb as pass rushers.

It’s a bit hard to say for sure right now though, health makes the Broncos a bit of a wildcard defensively. They’ve been pretty poor on the second level in both the Oakland and Chicago games, but should see Todd Davis return to action. That will help in coverage and run defense as he’s a huge step up from Corey Nelson. Combine that with Bryce Callahan’s return causing Kareem Jackson to shift back to safety and things may look a lot different on Sunday.

We’d like to thank Joe. Be sure to check out the rest of our Q&A session with Mile High Report over the course of the week as well as our Q&A session over there. As always, keep your internet machines tuned to Acme Packing Company this Sunday for our comprehensive game-day coverage of Broncos versus Packers.