Nothing much is going on super news worthy around the Broncos so I'm just going to go ahead and explain why the Broncos have a very good shot at winning Super Bowl 57. We saw this exact story last year:
The Sequel:
Every Rams fan would agree with this take. We just saw a well built team such as the Rams acquire a top flight QB and win the Super Bowl on their first season. The Rams in 2020 were a very good team with a great defense and good run game that was able to make some decent noise as they won a playoff game in the 2021 playoffs before getting bounced. The Broncos in 2021 were a top 5 defense with a very good run game as well but fell short of the postseason as they went 7-10. Goff obviously has shown to be much more consistent and has produced more in his career than Lock and Bridgewater combined so its no secret why the Rams were better in 2020 than the Broncos were in 2021. Nevertheless, both teams displayed that they were very well built from top to bottom but were hindered by poor to average Quarterback play. When Matthew Stafford came on board, everything changed. The Rams no longer had to worry about covering up for bad QB play and as a matter of fact guys like Matthew Stafford can overcome on days when the rest of the team is not performing particularly well. An example I always point to last year is the Bucs Rams game in week 3. The Rams came out very sluggish as they punted on their first 2 possessions as Stafford started out the game something like 1/6 for 7 yards. The run game also was very ineffective as Tampa Bay has a stout run defense so the Rams finished on the day with 76 yards on the ground. I bring this up because the Rams ended up winning the game 34-24 and Stafford finished the game with 343 yards and 4 TDs. That displays the difference between Franchise QBs and decent "bridge" QBs. Franchise guys can start out a game shaky and still put the team on their back without a great run game and a great defensive performance and still put up unbelievable numbers and win the game. Even the Bucs Rams divisional round game illustrates my point. The Rams just blew a 27-3 lead as Tom Brady and the Bucs just tied it up at 27-27. The Rams had around 42 seconds to score and win the game. The first play of that drive was a sack. At that point the Bucs had all the momentum, they just got a big time sack, and Raymond James Stadium was bedlam. The very next play on 2nd and 11 Stafford completes a 23-24 yard pass to Cooper Kupp that put them around midfield with approximately 26 seconds left. On the very next play against an all out blitz he delivers a floater that goes 40 yards to Kupp once again down to the Bucs 15 yard line and they take the game winning field goal with clock winding down and win the game. It is proof that QBs such as Stafford can overcome mistakes of teammates because the comeback done by the Bucs was certainly not due to Stafford stinking it up as he had 366 yards and tossed for 2TDs. I'm not sure Goff would be able to do something like that and as a matter of fact we saw that in Super Bowl 53. The Rams and Pats struggled to muster any kind of offense as it was 3-3 for the longest time until Brady put the team on his back and engineered which what turned out to be game winning touchdown drive and Jared Goff was unable to answer as he threw an interception in his efforts to answer. I say all this to point out that Russell Wilson can provide that same sense of security for the Broncos because there are going be days when Javonte and Melvin are going to be stuffed at line of scrimmage or days when the defense is going to struggle stopping another team's offense from scoring points at a high clip and those are the very days when you need a guy like Russel Wilson who can put the team on his back and drag his team to victory. A bonus for getting Russell Wilson is that now a Broncos receiver or receivers could make that big jump and put up career numbers. Cooper Kupp displayed that perfectly. With Goff he was a decent receiver who barely eclipsed 1,000 yards once prior to the 2021 season and was north of 900 another season but when Stafford arrived he put up monster numbers as he put up 145 receptions with 1947 yards and 16 TDs. It might be highly unlikely that a Broncos receiver puts up this kind of number especially since they have so many weapons in Sutton, Jeudy, Patrick, and Hamler but expecting 1400+ yards and 10+ TDs from Sutton and Jeudy and 800+ from Patrick and Hamler with 5+ TDs is not ridiculous. And the argument that Russ is on the decline is just lazy. Sometimes all a QB needs is a change of scenery. Stafford in his final season with the Lions had 4,084 yards and 26 TDs to 10 int while Russ in his final season with Seattle had 3,113 yards with 25 TDs and 6 ints. I'm just saying this Broncos team and the acquisition of top tier QB like Russell Wilson sounds all too familiar.
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