The Colts ruled out Jonathan Taylor and Shaq Leonard for tomorrow's game. The Broncos must take advantage of that and come away with a victory Thursday night and avoid dropping under .500. Let's take a closer look at the opponent in blue:
The Colts right now sit at 1-2-1. They have looked very inconsistent in these first 4 games. They tied the Texans in week 1, got shutout by the Jags 24-0, then beat the Chiefs 20-17 in week 3, and lost 24-17 to the Titans. This is the epitome of inconsistency. From being shut out by the Jags to beating the Chiefs says it all. Despite the inconsistencies with the team, there is one common denominator in most of the games they play. Poor first-half play. They don't seem to play any good on offense, especially in the first half leading to them digging themselves in big holes every game. They were down 20-3 vs Houston, down 24-3 vs the Titans, and down 24-0 vs the Jags. In 2 of the 3 games, they displayed admirable efforts of fight in the second half and got shut out entirely in the other one. The one game they did not go down by so much was vs KC and they ended up winning that game. It is imperative the Broncos jump on this team early and take advantage of the early game struggles of the Colts and try to correct the early game struggles of their own as well.
Can Denver put together a full game? The Broncos have had good drives, quarters, and even halves of football but have not been able to put together a good 4 quarter performance. They do not have to be perfect in each quarter but they need to eliminate the periods where they do absolutely nothing. For example, this last week Denver displayed good offensive football in the first half scoring 16 points, and then did absolutely nothing until the middle of the 4th quarter. They cannot afford to waste quarters in the future like they did wasting the 3rd quarter vs Las Vegas. Having a couple of bad drives here and there is one thing but going through long stretches of doing next to nothing kills the team. So I look for more consistency tomorrow as the grace period of having a new coach and QB is coming to an end and they need to start showing signs of promise. It starts with the run game.
There is nothing more I would love to see than Melvin Gordon put on a monster game tomorrow and silence all the critics for at least a week. Melvin has received a lot of criticism this year and rightfully so as he has fumbled 5 times already this season and has not been effective when he hasn't fumbled just putting up 138 yards on the ground on 3.7 yards a carry. I would love to see Melvin have a vintage game not only for my fantasy team but for the sake of the team that just lost their starting running back for the rest of the season. Run defense also needs to tighten up. The Broncos are giving up 4.8 yards a carry. This is a good game to get those issues between the trenches cleaned since JT is out.
Also, it would be nice to beat Matt Ryan. He has weirdly been kryptonite for us ever since he entered the league going 3-1 so far winning the last 3 matchups.
Injury Update: Randy Gregory is expected to have arthroscopic surgery on the injured knee.
Expected to miss a couple of weeks.
Predictions:
Broncos win 27-17
Russ: 300+ yards and 2 TDs
Melvin and Boone(combined): 110 yards and 1 TD
Defense: 3+ Sacks and 1 Turnover
Sources:
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