Sadly, I think Denver is going to trounce us with their passing attack. We will have to run the ball VERY effectively to keep Cutler off the field or we won't stand a chance imo.
Yeah, I don't think this game is in the cards for us to be honest. I have thought that before, with the San Diego game, and Miami did go ahead and win...but this one is on the road so it's tough to say if we can put the same kind of game together.
Bottom line is Shanahan is 10-3 in Denver following bye weeks, has won the last 5 straight bye week games, and they have the best home record in the league during the time he's been there. The atmosphere and crowd are big factors. We've struggled against big receivers and they have one of the premier big receivers in the NFL, right up there with Larry Fitzgerald and Andre Johnson. We still have not put our issues with missing tackles to bed, even in the win last week, and they run a WCO that focuses on breaking tackles. Their quarterback movement, bootlegs, and ground game seem like the perfect recipe to soften Joey Porter's impact, and we have not seen another pass rusher step up to the plate and be a threat outside of Joey. They are getting healthy, with guys like Scheffler, Royal, Stokley and Ryan Torain returning to the lineup. Torain and Scheffler especially, I could imagine them giving our tacklers trouble with missed tackles. Eddie Royal will be hard to cover around the goal line when they start putting him in motion and having him run out to the fringes, like Anquan Boldin did to us in Arizona.
Now, that isn't to say that we have nothing going for us. Champ Bailey is out and that's a huge benefit for our offense. They will be forced to play shell coverage against us, for fear of Ted Ginn doing to Karl Paymah and Dre Bly what he did to Terrance McGee. The Broncos can't rely on either Calvin Lowry or Marquand Manuel to play centerfielder and cover a lot of ground in cover three or or cover one. If they're smart about it, that should open up a lot of room for seven-on-seven blocking in the ground game, and with Casey Cramer coming back healthy, that should give Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams the potential to have a very big day that could keep the Denver offense off the field.
Everyone loves aggressiveness on offense, but keep in mind that the Dolphins will probably not want to be aggressive like they were against the Bills. The Bills do not operate a high powered offense. You could be aggressive with them without fearing as much what they can do with 11 possessions instead of 9. At the same time, Mike Shanahan will want to keep his defense off the field as much as possible because they're the biggest liability on his football team...so don't look for him to be trying to make big play after big play, either. They're going to want to wear Miami out in that thin atmosphere and I think Shanahan knows how to call an offense that does that. I think he'll make Miami run a lot horizontally. Lots of stretch runs, cutbacks, pre-snap motion, etc.
I could see this being a low scoring affair, with Denver winning by a touchdown. Miami has no interest in allowing the Denver offense onto the field and Denver doesn't want its defense on the field.
