Quote Originally Posted by mraynrand View Post
Ya, the ket to beating Denver is to blitz Manning and beat the crap out of him, even if you take a penalty or two. his willingness to take hits goes away very fast. Denver has a defense that will keep them in some games, but even if they should sneak back into the SB, they will get pulverized again. Seattle is perfectly happy taking a handful of penalties on defense to get the QB's head on a swivel.
Paul Guenther, Cincy DC did a fantastic job of crafting a great game plan. The Bengals ran assorted fire zones (zone blitzes) that took away Manning's hot reads. Manning would read the blitz and go to the blitz control route. A big 'ol DE would be standing right there and Peyton would have to move off his spot. With that huge knee brace, he can't maneuver to his left at all. I couldn't help wondering if they couldn't get him a knee protector that would allow him to move better.

That said, the Denver OLine played like shit. Both OT's were spotty at best.