Thanks so much for joining us here
on 9 News Plus, I'm Chris Bianki,
joined by 9 News sports director Rod
Mackey for a look back at the Frankly
Horror Show that was the problem. Just
talk about the attire instead of that.
Should I button or unbutton?
What do you what is? What is protocol?
Well, protocol. Top button, top button.
But see, this is a weird code.
It's a it's a weird.
This might be like one of my 1980 coats,
so I'm not sure that this is.
I'm just going to leave it open.
It's because I I have.
I don't know, it's kind of positioned.
It looks good on TV, just not here so
well, you know what didn't look good on TV?
Me. Well, you always look good on TV,
rod. I'll say that.
But what didn't look good on TV?
The Denver Broncos losing 4215 Buffalo Bills.
The tough question,
the obvious one here is we actually
delve into Broncos talk here.
Are you actually concerned
about this or not?
No, no, it it
doesn't. It doesn't count.
These are guys that you know.
I mean, we'll see some of these guys because
your starters aren't gonna play all the time.
So there's depth issues,
but there's a couple things.
The bill started with their starters.
This is the team that's
supposed to win the Super Bowl.
So even it was Broncos
starters versus bill starters,
it may not have been so pretty either.
Denver hoping to get to that level.
It's not going to be like
that against Seattle.
It's going to take some time to get
to where the Buffalo Bills are.
Hopefully they can get there at some point.
More close to it, but it was all backups.
I mean, it's it's legitimately.
Besides the tight ends,
because they're trying to figure out
who their starter is, and besides,
Dishon was out there and they had one
more starter out there, but that was it.
It's it's truly backups.
Nathaniel Hackett in Green Bay,
they've been doing this for a while.
They went on three in the preseason last
year and they get into the playoffs and
they're one of the best teams in the NFL.
The Los Angeles Rams never play starters.
They won the Super Bowl.
You've seen last week,
you've seen the week before.
Guys get injured in preseason games
out for the season and coach Hackett
is just not going to take that risk.
He's just not going to.
I know he's talking about you can
get as much out of practice as
you can in preseason games.
I'm still not sure about that.
Chad Brown was saying earlier
this week that you do have to
practice tackling to tackle,
so they're not going to be full bore,
I don't think on September
12th when they play Seattle,
but he wants them to be healthy.
He would rather have them,
I think, not be at their absolute.
Speak then, not being out there at all,
so I have no problem with it.
I would love the fact that it's on our air,
the fact that I'm on the sidelines,
the fact that this is one of
the greatest things to do.
I would love to see Russell Wilson out there,
but I can't think of anything worse than
seeing Russell Wilson being out there
and twisting an ankle or doing something.
I mean, Josh Allen played only one series,
but what happens if on one of
those 3 touchdowns or one of
those three passes you completed,
he hurt himself,
so it's just not worth the risk.
It stinks for the fans.
You don't get to see the best players,
but it'll be better for the fans when you
get to see those top players win games.
Actually counts,
so I'm not really too concerned.
There may be some depth issues,
but again,
this was against the juggernaut
Bills and you are playing backups.
I think it's a wake up call for
some of those guys that need
to play a little bit harder,
but big picture wise didn't get
too high after the Cowboys win.
Don't get too low after the Buffalo
win because it doesn't count.
OK, it doesn't count.
I'll say this though,
maybe the devil's advocate on this,
I don't have particularly
strong pain one way or the other
levels advocate to me would be.
They lost, they looked uncompetitive.
It looked like a, I don't know,
remind me of high school games
where you got one in 12 teams or
something playing against A-Team,
going into the playoffs and yes,
again backups against the Buffalo Bills.
But it was such a big discrepancy and even
the Thaniel Hacken mentioned on Monday,
the lack of effort or not the lack
of physicality was an issue as well.
The, the the concern is.
The defense to me much more
because they couldn't stop the run.
Yeah and cause granted yes.
Starters versus the fair fight.
It wasn't a fair fight at the
beginning was starters, backups,
but then eventually it does
go backups versus backups.
Case Keenum, their backup quarterback looked
better than our quarterback quarterback.
But the biggest difference I think was
as you point out, the Denver defense,
especially against the run.
I mean they just,
I mean they scored six straight series,
six straight touchdowns.
It is embarrassing.
But again,
the reason I'm saying it's not
because these are guys you're not
going to see for the most part.
And again it's.
Every season and they hear the coach
talking about it's preseason and
yet you guys are playing for jobs,
guys are playing for position.
But there's no question mentally
it's a different thing.
I mean it just once it starts to count.
This happens in the regular season.
Anything near that,
then I'll be concerned,
but I just,
I'm just not putting too much
faith in the preseason.
Michael pointed out a great fun fact
last week that the Rams and Packers
were O and six in the preseason last year,
the Rams won the Super Bowl
and the Packers were one of the
best teams in the NFL.
I get wins and loss.
Doesn't matter.
Your point being they didn't
they weren't even competitive.
They're letting guys get by.
That's a concern.
But it's also a good thing, I think,
to happen now because I bet you it's
not going to happen against Minnesota.
So that is the one thing what's happened now.
Let's have the bad stuff now.
If they cruise past everything
and they start getting big, OK,
we're we're we're pretty good team here.
Then, then you're a little bit concerned.
But again,
just the fact that Justin Simmons and
Kajak and Sir Tan and all those guys
are on the sidelines, that's yeah,
there was a competitive imbalance,
but again,
it was a competitive imbalance with guys.
We're not going to see as much
once these games actually count.
This is not the Denver Broncos.
These are the backup
Broncos. Denver Broncos,
the real Denver Broncos.
Frankly, word sweatpants on Saturday
and they will be again on Saturdays.
Broncos host the Minnesota
Vikings in the preseason finale,
6:00 o'clock coverage here on 9 news.
Rod, what if anything do
we have to watch for?
Because again we are playing
with this asterisk of, yeah,
most of the main players not playing and
the biggest battle is I'm really
interested to see what happens with
the backup quarterback position.
Now preface it by saying let's hope
that we never see Brett Rippon or Josh
Johnson this season because this team is
going to go as far as Russell takes them.
But if he goes down for a game
or a quarter or something else,
which one of these guys is going
to step up and I will tell you.
I've been impressed with both of these guys.
If you look at their numbers,
they're almost identical.
They're very good.
Josh was better in the first game,
Brett was better in the second game.
Johnson started game one and game two.
If he starts in game three,
then it really wasn't a quarterback battle.
Then you get the feeling that it was kind
of determined through practices that
Josh Johnson was the better quarterback.
Because if you really want to
get a look at Brett Rippon,
you want to play him first this time.
Let Josh come off the bench
and see how that compares.
The other way I look at that is let's
say that you do think Josh is the better.
He's not going to be coming in as a starter.
If he comes in,
it's going to be because Russell goes down.
So let's see how he does coming
off the bench.
So that's I'd like that's one thing
I'd like to see is them flop the
quarterbacks and see how the other one does.
But that's one thing to keep an
eye on and you are still going to
see a handful of starters out there
just like we saw this week.
Plus you got a guy like rookie mantra
Washington who's been great in training camp,
great in practice and in the preseason games.
This guy's electric.
There's been so many issues
with Broncos special teams.
This guy is going to fix a lot of those.
I'm excited to see.
Plus,
let's say Greg Dulcich the rookie
tight end who we haven't seen
because he's been injured.
Now there's hope that perhaps he gets
healthy and even if they do think he
might be a starter come regular season,
this is a rookie he needs to
get on a football field,
so he's a guy we might see.
So there are some intriguing
elements to this thing.
It's not going to be like seeing,
like I said,
Justin and Russell and K Jack and you know,
all all the starters out there,
even even Melvin,
who's going to be, you know,
1A and 1B at running back with Devante,
you won't see him either.
They got to be.
He's risk versus reward.
But there are some interesting storylines
to keep an eye on in this game,
and those are interesting storylines.
Now you're a real roster adamus
if you can get a preseason game
prediction. Under the belt.
Maybe we'll get you on Skype. I got
last week as soon as I
saw his Buffalo starters.
My God, this is this is
this is not going to happen.
This is not going to be good.
I'll I'll say, I'll say Broncos win
this game just because I think they're
going to get a talking too, so to speak.
It was embarrassing.
Preseason or not, it's embarrassing.
The guys were embarrassed, you know,
they were special on defense.
I expect a different effort,
a different performance.
Plus it's a different opponent.
The Vikings are not the bills,
so and it's home and they're
not going to really want.
You really don't have that showing
in front of the hometown fans.
So even though it doesn't count,
I think the Broncos will bounce back
mentally just to kind of because
it's the same group guys that we saw.
This week I don't.
I don't.
I think they're embarrassed
by what they did and I think
they're gonna make up for that.
On Saturday.
You might be real brave and give me a score.
I'm not. I'm not doing it. I'm not
doing a pre season score prediction.
You think you notice it's a
little bit tighter right here?
Yeah, but it's up high.
That's what's so weird about it.
It's up high, so I think it's the
top two on A3 button. I know.
Someone e-mail and let me know.
I don't know.
Fashion faux pas.
Right here.
Rod Mackey, 9 News sports
director Ross Rodamis.
Thanks for joining us on September 12th.
It gets interesting.
That's where it's actually fun.
Of course, that's the season opener.
Rod Mackey. Thanks again. You bet.