There was a very good football game in Denver. The Denver Broncos defeated the Minnesota Vikings 23-20. The difference in the game was a field goal with just under two minutes to play and a ferocious Broncos pass rush.
The Broncos are undefeated at 4-0. The Vikings dropped to 2-2 as they head into a way-too-early bye week.
After the Broncos field goal to take a 23-20 lead, the Vikings had time to do something about it. 1:51 and two timeouts. Things were looking pretty good when quarterback Teddy Bridgewater had the team near midfield with :50 to play. Two plays later it wasn't looking pretty after a T.J. Ward sack of Bridgewater and a Von Miller fumble recovery. It was only fitting that the Broncos defense secured the win.
Despite the constant, harassing pass rush Bridgewater played great. Not getting much from the run game didn't help matters. That lack of production on the ground allowed the Broncos to really get after Bridgewater. They got him to the ground seven times, hit and hurried several more times. Despite that Bridgewater moved the team in the right direction more often than not. He completed 27 of 41 passes for 269 yards and a touchdown.
Bridgewater ran three times. All three resulted in first downs.
At 81 yards on 16 carries, Adrian Peterson's game looked pretty good. A 48-yard touchdown burst on 4th-and-1 in the fourth quarter helped those greatly helped those stats.
The same came be said for the Broncos running game. They had a robust total of 144 rushing yards. Exactly half of those yards came on a 72-yard touchdown explosion by Ronnie Hillman.
Hillman's touchdown was the most significant blow during a very unfortunate sequence of plays for the Vikings. They had the first promising drive of the game on the possession before it. That promising drive ended with another missed field goal by Blair Walsh. This one from 38 yards. That miss gave the Broncos the ball at their 28-yard line with a 3-0 lead rather than a 3-3 tie. Hillman was then off to the races and it was suddenly 10-0. The Vikings offense handicapped with a start on their own 5-yard line thanks to a penalty on the kick return. A three-and-out, a punt, and the Broncos are sitting nicely with terrific field position and an opportunity to blow the game open. Fortunately the Vikings defense limited Peyton Manning and the Broncos offense to a field goal. The Vikings were down 13-0 and reeling.
That 72-yard touchdown run was the real dagger but that whole sequence was a blow to the Vikings chances. The good is that it was only 13-point swing. It could've been a lot worse.
Bridgewater responded with a 13 play 60-yard drive that ended with a field goal. They were still down 13-3 but they were finally on the board late in the first half.
Manning tried to get some more points before halftime and it was a mistake.
Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr baited Manning into a pass he shouldn't have made. Barr is so big, athletic, and fast that this could happen to a lot of quarterbacks during a hopefully very long Vikings career. He's only played 16 NFL games and he's already a defensive force. He intercepted Manning's pass to Andre Caldwell at the Vikings 41-yard line and returned it to the Broncos 27-yard line.
Two Bridgewater passes to Mike Wallace later and the Vikings were in the end zone for their first touchdown of the game and some momentum before the half.
That Vikings momentum took a serious hit when Manning led the Broncos on an efficient 80-yard touchdown drive to open the second half. That set the Vikings back 20-10.
The Vikings followed that efficient Broncos drive with two three-and-outs. Not good. The Vikings offense did nothing in the third quarter. Six offensive plays. Eight yards. Eight yards! It's tough to win a game that way.
The fourth quarter was better. The Vikings second touchdown of the game ended a drive that started on their own 3-yard line. Somehow Bridgewater moved his team to the Broncos 48-yard line. On 4th-and-1 from there Peterson finally got loose. The Broncos defense had nine players bunched up at the line of scrimmage. Left guard Brandon Fusco and center Joe Berger opened a big hole and once Peterson got through it there was no one between him and the goal line. Just like that it was 20-17 and the Vikings had some momentum. The defense provided some more.
Safety Harrison Smith intercepted Manning on the next possession and the Vikings, surprisingly, had the opportunity to take the lead. They managed only a field goal and the game was tied 20-20 with 3:56 to play.
That was more than enough time for Manning. He took his team down the field for what turned out to be the game-winning 39-yard field goal.
The Vikings defense played well. They intercepted Manning twice and sacked him twice. That 72-yard touchdown run by Hillman was the one significant breakdown. They surrendered 344 yards. 200 yards passing. 144 yards rushing. Since the Broncos haven't run well in any of their previous three games those 144 yards are tough to take and were probably the difference.
Anthony Barr was fantastic again.
So was Harrison Smith. If he doesn't finally make it to the Pro Bowl the game should be ended.
The Vikings may have found a new pass catching weapon. Rookie receiver Stefon Diggs was active for the first time this season due to Charles Johnson's rib injury and Jarius Wright's hand injury. Diggs took advantage of his opportunity. Six catches for 87 yards. A few of which were big, chain-moving catches. He did put the ball on the ground twice. He recovered both but that's something that he has to stop immediately. The Vikings will have some tough game time decisions at receiver moving forward but I have to think that Diggs won't be on the inactive list too often after this performance. This was a great debut.
The Vikings need to get more production from Kyle Rudolph and the rest of the tight ends. Rudolph had two catches for seven yards. That barely moves the needle. He has to be a threat in the middle of the field rather than 1-yard dump-offs.
The Vikings offensive line had a tough day. Bridgewater was under siege and Peterson was finding very little room to get loose. Left tackle Matt Kalil is the only player on the line in the same position that he played last year. He and left guard Brandon Fusco have the talent to form a strong left side. Center Joe Berger and rookie right T.J. Clemmings are injury replacements for John Sullivan and Phil Loadholt respectively. Berger is a solid player and Clemmings has great potential. Mike Harris secured the right guard spot in training camp. These five players should improve as they become more comfortable at their positions and with each other. Most weeks they should be okay. This wasn't one of those weeks. The Broncos are probably the toughest defensive front that they'll face all season. Hopefully, they all learned from it.
The Broncos defense is for real. DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller can most of the attention for their ability to harass quarterbacks. They deserve that attention but they are rarely alone in opposing backfields. The Broncos bring pass rushers in waves and they bring them from everywhere. From the edges and up the middle. With the pressure that they regularly bring you'd think that they wouldn't have a need to bring extra rushers but they do. Safety T.J. Ward was a menace when he blitzed. He had two sacks on the day. It was his sack and forced fumble that secured the win. Brandon Marshall and Danny Trevathan play inside linebacker in the shadow of Ware and Miller on the outside but they are excellent football players. Chris Harris, Aqib Talib, and Bradley Roby are terrific corners. This defense is loaded.
While the Broncos defense got to Bridgewater often the Vikings young quarterback hung in there and made plays. Outside of that dreadful third quarter he managed to maintain drives. He didn't throw an interception. His only turnover was the fumble that ended the game. Despite the good things that he did against a very difficult defense he's the sort of football player that will focus on the passes that he didn't put in the right place, the drives that he didn't finish and the ball that he put on the ground at the end. He'll learn from the things that he didn't do.
This was a team loss. The Vikings came to this game as a promising team looking for a statement win on the road against one of the league's best teams. They didn't get it done. There was no one unit that broke down but each unit had some issues. The offense, defense, and special teams. Now they have their bye week to fix all of that. The remaining 12 games of the season are brutal.
Week 4 of the 2015 NFL season started bright and early yesterday. 6:30 AM on the west coast of the United States. The Miami Dolphins hosted the New York Jets in name only. They played the game in London and it kicked off a super-sized day of NFL football.
The Jets took care of the Dolphins 27-14. The Dolphins made a late rally to make it somewhat respectable but the Jets dominated this game. The Jets controlled the ball and the game. They possessed the ball for more than 37 minutes. They gained 425 yards to the Dolphins 226. The Dolphins only third/fourth down conversion was on a penalty. It might have been a more clear domination if the Jets hadn't committed 14 penalties for 163 yards.
Many talking heads have speculated that Dolphins head coach Joe Philbin could lose his job if they played poorly yesterday. The Dolphins did play poorly but week 4 seems a little early. But who knows? The Dolphins have remained remarkably mediocre in Philbin's three years. They've been worse than that this year. If this is the game that buries Philbin it's interesting that he lost to a team coached by Todd Bowles. One of the coaches that Philbin beat out for the Dolphins job in 2012. Bowles was the Dolphins interim coach in 2011.
Jets running back Chris Ivory was a huge factor in the win. 29 carries for 166 yards and a touchdown. When he's on he's a real tough runner to get to the ground. Ask Ndamukong Suh.
Speaking of Suh. He hasn't even earned an itty-bitty fraction of the contract that he signed in the offseason. He often seemed more observer than participation when he was on the field. He struck me as a player that viewed this trip to London as more vacation than work. He threw a half-hearted shoulder into Ivory on a run in the third quarter. Ivory bounced off of him and ran for another ten yards. Suh just stood and watched. He did a lot of that yesterday. The only time that he seemed engaged was on a tackle with about three minutes to play and the game was pretty much done.
Buffalo Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor has had his defensive-minded team playing with some offensive punch through three games. They were averaging more than 30 points per game. The New York Giants defense did something about that explosive offense yesterday. Taylor led the Bills into the red zone on consecutive possessions in the second half. The Giants kept them from scoring a single point on either scoring opportunity.
The Bills had 17 penalties in the game. That didn't help much.
The Chicago Bears finally won a game. They beat the Oakland Raiders 22-20 on a Robbie Gould field goal with two seconds to play. It was the sixth lead change of the game.
The Atlanta Falcons and Cincinnati Bengals didn't do anything to damage their standing as undefeated teams. Thee Falcons took apart the Houston Texans 48-21. The Bengals sailed by the Kansas City Chiefs 36-21.
The Carolina Panthers remained undefeated as well by taking care of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Panthers schedule gets much more difficult after a soft start. Their first four opponents have combined for three wins. Their next four have combined for eight. Seattle, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, and Green Bay in the coming weeks.
St. Louis Rams rookie running back Todd Gurley finally introduced himself to the NFL. 19 carries for 146 yards against the previously undefeated Arizona Cardinals. He gained nearly all of it in the second half. Rams win 24-22. Gurley's debut had been on hold due to the torn ACL that he suffered during his final college season at Georgia. The Cardinals gave him a shot at a touchdown on his final carry but he wisely decided to decided to take a seat and run out the clock. A wise play by a young back with tremendous talent.
The Rams have an excellent defense. If Gurley can get rolling and they can get something out of the passing game they might have something moving forward. They always play their division foes tough.
The Cardinals were scoring at will in their first three games. They could manage only five field goals and a touchdown against the Rams.
The Green Bay Packers can put up a bunch of points as well. On paper it looked like they could put up about 100 against the San Francisco 49ers. They didn't. They only scored 17. They didn't have to score much due to the 49ers only scoring 3. The Packers are still undefeated.
The long fun day of football ended with an overtime game between the New Orleans Saints and Dallas Cowboys. Saints quarterback Drew Brees capped his return to the lineup with a game-winning 80-yard scoring toss to running back C.J. Spiller on the opening possession of overtime.
There are six undefeated teams remaining:
New England-on bye this week
Green Bay
Denver
Cincinnati
Atlanta
Carolina
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