Defense plays like old times
The Big D is back. Denver rode Dallas out of town on a rail. The Broncos beat the Cowboys every which way but loose. For those of you keeping score at home, the final was: The Real Big D 42, those Crying Eyes from Texas 17. And it wasn’t even that close.
“We put the league on notice that we’re for real,” Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall said Sunday.
Happy trails to you, Cowboys. You’ll be more comfortable licking those wounds back home in little D, because it’s really hard to breathe at 5,280, ain’t it? Altitude isn’t even the biggest problem when a nasty Broncos defense is sitting on your chest.
Denver linebacker Von Miller danced, cornerback Aqib Talib preened and defensive end Derek Wolfe howled against overmatched Cowboys who couldn’t run, pass or hide.
This was a grand reopening of a defense that conducted all the serious business on the way to victory in Super Bowl 50. What we witnessed as Denver manhandled the Cowboys was the not-so-subtle difference between a defense that’s one of the league’s best versus one of the all-time best.
Oh, the Denver D was stout most of
last season, keeping the Broncos in a chase for a playoff berth to the point Von and the gang wore out and surrendered a back-breaking drive to Kansas City in late November.
But that big, bad championship D that Tom Brady and every NFL quarterback learned to loathe in 2015?
It’s baaack. “There’s no defense in the NFL like us. We’re the best,” said Marshall, disappointed a year ago how the D performed against the run. “I’m not saying it ever left. We just let it slip a little. … But we’re back. We’re back.”
The Broncos played loud against America’s (most overrated) Team. They brought the thunder and lightning. It was frightening. And we’re not talking about the 62-minute weather delay that chased players to the locker room and sent most of the 76,919 spectators in the stadium scurrying for shelter from a storm that blew through late in the first quarter, after Denver had claimed a 7-0 lead.
Here’s my question for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell: After being limited to an almost nonexistent 9 yards rushing on eight utterly forgettable carries, should Dallas running back Ezekiel Elliott petition the league office for this game to count against his suspension? The Broncos dared Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott to beat them, in much the same manner they exposed Carolina’s Cam Newton during the Super Bowl victory nearly 20 months ago.
“We slammed that box, man,” said Broncos cornerback Chris Harris, revealing a little secret from the defensive game plan. “I was saying it all week. Now, I didn’t tell y’all, but we knew Dak was going to have to throw for 300 yards to beat us. And we knew that wasn’t going to happen.”
Does anybody have a hankie? I fear Cowboys owner Jerry Jones might need to dab some teardrop stains from his gold Hall of Fame jacket. As a Super Bowl contender, the Broncos exposed Dallas as a pretender. All hat. No cattle.
Yes, Prescott was a steal in the 2016 NFL draft. But he’s no Aaron Rodgers. Ground his running game to a halt, and Prescott doesn’t have the arm strength to wrestle with the No-Fly Zone. Prescott threw 50 times. His quarterback rating was 68.6, a failing mark. Heck, even Paxton Lynch could have done that.
Denver put an exclamation point on the rout in the waning moments of the fourth quarter, long after many fans had headed for the exits and the Cowboys should have been smart enough to walk away from a one-sided fight with hat in hand.
Instead, Prescott took one last shot at the end zone, flinging a pass in the direction of Dez Bryant. Big mistake. Don’t y’all know when to quit?
Talib jumped the route, grabbed the football and refused to stop running until he had traveled 103 yards with the interception for a touchdown. Then, for good measure, Talib proved he had gas left in the tank by taking a flying leap and hopping into the South Stands to celebrate with the orangeclad peeps. I loved the sight of a spectator in a straw cowboy hat pound Talib’s helmet with a drumbeat that shouted: Look out, NFL.
“I wanted to run all the way up in the stands and go get me a hot dog,” Talib said. “That was my initial plan.”
Pass the mustard. This defense had meat to it a year ago. The little extra sauce, however, has been rediscovered.
Yes, it’s early. Kansas City and Oakland are also 2-0. The AFC West is going to be tough. But the championship swag has returned.
As Harris succinctly put it: “We ain’t scared of nobody.”
Do you believe in statement games?
The real Big D is back.