HALFTIME: The Rams will receive the opening kickoff of the second half.
Q3 15:00: After Danny Amendola returns Matt Prater’s kickoff to the 27-yard line, the Rams take over on offense. On first down, Sam Bradford fakes a handoff to Steven Jackson on a misdirection play that ends up a pass to Daniel Fells for a 13-yard gain. On the ensuing first down, Jackson takes a handoff for a loss of a yard — he’s brought down by Kevin Vickerson. A false start penalty makes it second-and-16 for the Rams. Joe Mays sniffs out the following play — a screen pass to Jackson — and tackles the back for a loss of 6 yards. On third-and-22, Bradford fires short to Kenneth Darby, who drops the pass to bring up fourth down. Donnie Jones is set to punt to Eddie Royal, who is waiting at about his own 20-yard line. It’s a 50-yard punt, and the Broncos are called for a block in the back, so Denver will start its drive at the 12-yard line.
Q3 12:25: After Moreno is stopped for a loss of 2 on first down, Kyle Orton connects with Jabar Gaffney for a first down. On the ensuing play, Moreno runs down the sideline for a 9-yard gain before fumbling the ball into the arms of a Rams defender. On St. Louis’ first offensive play, Steven Jackson sprints 20 yards down the sideline to the 11-yard line for a first down.
Q3 9:50: After a 4-yard run on first down, Jackson takes another carry to the 1-yard line. On first-and-goal, David Bruton makes sure a pass to Jackson falls incomplete. Second-and-goal is a run by Darby up the middle of the line. He runs into the end zone untouched to increase the St. Louis lead. The extra point is good.
RAMS 33, BRONCOS 13
Q3 8:55: Royal returns the kickoff to the 21-yard line, where the offense will take over.
*INJURY UPDATE* Brian Dawkins has a knee injury and his return is questionable.
Q3 7:55: On first down, Orton found Moreno on a screen pass, and the running back followed his blockers for a 31-yard gain to the Denver 47-yard line. On the ensuing first down, Lance Ball picks up 9 yards on a run to the left. Ball takes another carry on the following play, picking up 8 more yards. He takes yet another carry on the next first down, but he’s stopped behind the line of scrimmage. On second-and-13, Orton throws quickly to Royal behind the line of scrimmage, but he’s tackled immediately. Third-and-15 brings a quick pass to Moreno, but he’s stopped behind the line of scrimmage as well. On fourth down, Britton Colquitt’s punt goes into the end zone for a touchback.
Q3 4:48: After a short run by Jackson, Bradford finds Amendola for a 17-yard reception to the 39-yard line. After an incomplete pass — as Bradford was hit by Bannan — and a 2-yard run, the Rams are faced with a third-and-8. With Bradford in the shotgun, Laurent Robinson finds space between defenders and Bradford finds him for a 23-yard gain and a first down at the Denver 36.
Q3 2:00: After a short run and a tipped pass by D.J. Williams for an incompletion, the Rams have a third-and-8 yet again. This time the defense stops the Rams short of the first down — Bradford found Brandon Gibson for a 7-yard gain. Josh Brown is in to attempt a 45-yard field goal attempt, and it’s no good.
Q3 0:55: The Broncos take over on their own 35-yard line. A 19-yard pass from Orton to Gaffney and a 5-yard run by Moreno sets up the Broncos with a second-and-5 at the St. Louis 41-yard line as the third quarter comes to a close.
Q4 15:00: On the first play of the fourth quarter, Orton fires deep down the sideline for Brandon Lloyd, who hauls it in over his shoulder for a 41-yard touchdown. Prater’s extra point is up and in, and the Broncos are within two scores.
RAMS 33, BRONCOS 20
Q4 14:54: That was Lloyd’s fourth touchdown of 40-or-more yards this season. Amendola takes the ensuing kickoff to the 25-yard line, where the Rams take over. On first down, Amendola gets the ball on an end-around, but Renaldo Hill is there to make a nice tackle in open space that draws “oohs” from the crowd. On second-and-5, Bradford finds Gibson for a 14-yard gain, and a roughing-the-passer penalty on Ronald Fields tacks 15 yards onto the play. The Rams have a first down at the Denver 41-yard line.
Q4 13:13: Jackson picks up 7 yards on a run, and Bradford follows it up with a 24-yard pass to Alexander, who is tackled at the 10-yard line. On first-and-goal, Jackson is tackled by Jamal Williams at the line of scrimmage — the running back fell forward for 2 yards. On second-and-goal, Bradford is forced to scramble up the middle before sliding at the line of scrimmage — Kevin Vickerson is credited with the sack as the snow begins to fall. On third-and-goal, Bradford is chased out of bounds, but throws the ball for an incompletion at the last moment. On fourth down, Brown is back in for a field goal attempt — a 26-yarder — and it’s good.
RAMS 36, BRONCOS 20
Q4 10:43: Perrish Cox returns the kickoff to the 24-yard line, where the offense takes over. On first down, the Broncos are called for holding. On first-and-20 at the 14, Orton drops back in the shotgun. He fires to Lloyd, but he leaps and can’t quite haul in the pass. On second down, Orton finds Decker, who spins out of a tackle for a 10-yard gain. Now third-and-10, Orton is in the shotgun again. He fires downfield for Royal, but the pass flies over his head for an incompletion. Colquitt is in to punt, and his kick is fielded at the 20 by Amendola. Syd’Quan Thompson is there to bring him down immediately.
Q4 8:43: After two plays net 4 yards, the Rams have a third-and-6 at the 25-yard line. Bradford throws a deep pass that falls incomplete out of bounds. Syd’Quan Thompson is deep to field Donnie Jones’ punt. It takes a Broncos bounce and is downed at midfield.
Q4 7:59: On first down, Orton is sacked for a 7-yard loss. Second-and-17 brings a fake handoff to Moreno before the ball is dumped off to him on a screen pass, but cornerback Bradley Fletcher makes a nice open-field tackle to stop the play after just 5 yards. On third-and-12, Orton is in the shotgun, but a false start penalty moves the ball back 5 yards. On the following play, Orton avoids pressure in the pocket, rolls to his left and fires a pass downfield to Royal, who out-jumps the defender to haul in the pass beyond the first-down marker. He wasn’t touched, so he got back up and kept running for what in total ended up being a 24-yard gain. On the following play, Orton avoided pressure and found Royal yet again, this time for a 17-yard gain. Orton finds Royal for the third consecutive time, this time it’s a 16-yard touchdown strike. The offense is still on the field to go for two and make it an eight-point game. Orton drops back into the shotgun and nearly finds Gaffney for the conversion, but it falls incomplete. The Broncos trail by 10.
RAMS 36, BRONCOS 26
Q4 4:50: Prater kicks off deep, and it goes for a touchback. Meanwhile there’s a squirrel running around in the opposite end zone. Nevertheless the Rams have a first-and-10 at their own 20-yard line. Steven Jackson is brought down at the line of scrimmage on first down, and Denver calls its first timeout of the second half.
Q4 4:44: Jackson picks up 3 yards on second down, and Denver calls another timeout. Now third-and-7, the crowd that remains is getting loud. Bradford is in the shotgun, and he throws a pass intended for Gibson that falls incomplete. Chants of “IN-COM-PLETE” echo from the crowd as Jones is in to punt. Royal is deep to field the kick. He calls for a fair catch at the 31-yard line, but St. Louis was called for a hold — David Bruton nearly blocked the punt but was held — so 10 yards are tacked on to the end of the run, so the Broncos have the ball at their own 41-yard line.
Q4 4:26: On first down, Orton throws quickly to Royal, who picks up 2 yards. On second down, Orton throws incomplete intended for Gaffney. On third-and-8, Orton is in the shotgun. He fires deep down the sideline for Lloyd, who lays out for the catch — but the ball slips out when he hits the ground for an incompletion. Now fourth down, the offense remains on the field. Orton is in the shotgun again. He drops back and fires deep for Royal for the first down, much to the delight of the crowd. The ball is now at the St. Louis 40-yard line.
Q4 3:47: After an incompletion, Orton is in the shotgun again and fires deep for Eric Decker, who hauls in his second career catch at the 2-yard line. On first-and-goal, Orton hands off to Moreno, who is brought down for a loss of 3. On second-and-goal at the 5, Orton hits Lloyd for his second touchdown of the day. Prater’s extra point is up and in, and the Broncos trail by a field goal.
RAMS 36, BRONCOS 33
Q4 2:35: The Broncos are prepared for an onside kick. Prater’s kick goes out of bounds, however. It turns out it was an illegal batting by the Rams — linebacker Chris Chamberlain batted it out of bounds — so it’s a 10-yard penalty and the Broncos get another shot at it with a re-kick.
Q4 2:34: The Rams recover Prater’s second onside kick attempt. On first down, Steven Jackson picks up 4 yards and the Broncos call their final timeout of the game. On second down, the back picks up 2 more yards and the clock ticks down to the two-minute warning.
Q4 2:00: On third-and-4, it’s starting to snow heavily and the crowd and sideline are as energized as they’ve been all game.
Q4 1:59: Bradford takes the snap and hands off to Jackson, who is brought down behind the line of scrimmage by Jason Hunter, and the Broncos are hyped up. The clock continues to run as Royal is deep as the crowd chants “Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!” David Bruton sprints into the backfield and tips the punt — it went forward so it is not a block — but it comes to a halt at the Denver 34-yard line, where the Broncos take over.
Q4 1:00: There are two flags on the first-down play, which was an incompletion. Pass interference on the Rams and illegal motion on the Broncos, so both penalties offset. It remains first-and-10. Orton is in the shotgun. He takes the snap and pump fakes before being sacked by Chris Long. The clock continues to run as the Broncos hurry back to the line. Orton takes the snap and fires deep for Daniel Graham, but the tight end can’t haul it in at midfield. The clock stops due to the incompletion, and it’s third-and-16 at the 28-yard line.
Q4 0:34: Orton fires over the head of Royal for an incompletion, and an illegal hands to the face penalty on the Broncos is declined, making it fourth-and-16 with 27 seconds remaining. Orton is in the shotgun. He drops back and fires incomplete as he’s hit by a Rams defender. The Rams will take over on downs.
Q4 0:22: Bradford takes a knee and the Broncos fall at home to the Rams, 36-33. Denver is now 3-8, with a trip to Kansas City up next.
-Gray Caldwell, DenverBroncos.com
Tags: Second Half Blog, St. Louis Rams, Week 12
Eddie is my hero. He needs to touch the ball 12-14 times on offense every game, whether by catching passes, doing endarounds, whatever the case may be. He is very underutilized by this coaching staff. He would be one of the best offensive players in the league if he played for a coach like Andy Reid or Sean Payton who know how to use their weapons properly.
There’s no point talking about “adjustments” anymore. It’s about cleaning house. GM, coaching staff and aging veterans all need to be shown the door.
bay i have always been on our side. just had too much hope waiting for things to change. but the only change i want now is mcd gone. i do hope we play tebow and find a future hc to use him. especialy since im gettting his jersey for christmas. and i am in favor of letting wink be our coach for the rest of the season. just wondering who will be th future hc. we have a good offense need minor changes but need to work on the d with the next draft. by the way hope the chargers lose big. I hate rivers.
Just about every day I think about possible next head coaches. Up until now I was only thinking about guys like Gruden, Cowher and Dungy who have all won super bowls. The problem is those guys will all probably be expensive. But it just hit me, there’s coaches out there who haven’t won Super Bowls but have had some success that I’d be totally fine with as the next coach, and they would probably come at a cheaper price than the SB winning coaches.
What about guys like Herm Edwards, Steve Mariucci, Jim Mora Jr., etc… I know none of those guys are really overly super, but they’ve all had some success, know how to build a solid roster and would definitely be an upgrade.
I especially like the Herm Edwards idea for some reason. I think he could do some good things.
Former Raiders HC and current Jets offensive line coach Bill Callahan (his son is actually already on our coaching staff)… Former Lions HC and current Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg…
There are a lot of decent options who would probably be an upgrade.
“JOSH MCDANIELS HAS RUINED THIS TEAM AND THIS ORGANIZATION!!!” Mr. Bowlen when are you going to take your job back and run the team the way it should be run! MCD let alot of good talent go and brought in a bunch of old farts. The first mistake he made was trading Cutler to the Bears and bringing Orton to Denver. Orton can not win a game under pressure even if they pay him extra and the opposing team didnt show up. We need to start playing our younger players so we can see what we have in the future that includes TIM TEBOW!!! MCD HAS TO GO!!! Mr. Bowlen the good people of Denver voted in a beautiful stadium, is this how you pay them back.. ” MCD HAS TO GO!!!”
GRUDEN GRUDEN GRUDEN…. TEBOW TEBOW TEBOW
BRONCOS 33
RAMS 36
Official results of the score prediction contest:
As usual not a lot of fun posting the winning predictions on a losing week, but some folks are a lot smarter than most of us, and this week we have to give kudos to two guys who picked the closest score by far:
In a two way tie for 1st place:
milehighmagig88, 24-34, 11 points off
caramelloo, 27-31, also 11 points off, congrats to both of you guys, you are a lot less gullible about our team than we are!
3rd place:
killerkod, 21-27, 21 points off
4th place:
casinoroyal19, 17-28, 24 points off
5th place:
tnalen66, 16-27, 26 points off
And of course we have a real good candidate for the Wall of Shame as in any other week, and this week the dubious honor goes to a guy who thought we would win by 3TD’s!!!:
broncos 504, 35-14
Thanks to you guys for keeping up with your score predictions even so we are stinking up the joint big time. Whoever is brave enough to guess the score for next week at KC is welcome to do so from now on through Saturday.
Herm Edwards, hahahaha… are you serious????? What are you smokin’ man?? Anyone but him. McD should go after this season is over, even if we were to win all of our next games (very unlikely) the best we’d do is another 8-8. But Herm is not the answer. There are much better coaches out there that we’d be better off with.
Thing is I don’t see Bowlen getting rid of McD, which is why I’m not getting my dander up about all this. I think it will all depend on how we end this season. Something does need to change, that’s clear as day but we’ve done nothing but clean house and switch systems that I can assure you all, that’s the reason why we never get any consistency. How do you expect to have a consistent team when all we do is get rid of players that could be useful, coaches (which come with different systems). We’ve had 5 different D coaches in the last 5 years… of course our defense is whack… they’ve had to put up with 5 different coaches, 5 different systems, bringing in and letting go players according to system & coach. And by the time we think we’ve found a rhythm, all the good players are gone.
If there’s no consistency with the coaches, you’re sure as hell ain’t gonna get that from the players. DUH!!!
Nice comeback try by the team today, I was on the edge of my seat (beanbag, lol) the whole time but its deserved when you wait till the last few minutes to try and do something productive.
Don’t start with the bring back Cutler crap… I’d take Orton over Cutler any day. He was terrible today but Cutler is nothing but a diva. What we need is Tebow and a coach that will actually let him play.
amen sister!! TEBOW TEBOW TEBOW!! GRUDEN GRUDEN GRUDEN!!! He actually likes tebow!
Honestly, Gruden would be great but chances of getting him are probably slim. and if we want a bargain Coach I dont care if he comes from college football, as long as he is defensive minded and has good potential. Anyone would be better than this current circus.
Next time we hire a HC, like someone once said, lets hire a GM before a HC cuz last time we got a HC before a GM and even our current GM aint cutting it. We need a new one that knows what he is doing. We need a new HC, OC, DC, Oline Coach, and strength and conditioning coach. Even if u adjust a train wreck its still a train wreck, sometimes u just gotta clean house. This team has taken so many steps backwards in the past two years, luckily there is still talent in the house, its just mismanaged talent in my opinion…I can’t live through another McXander draft.
ps: by the way baylin, i tried to use your McD nickname, u know the one ending in done, and they told me it was blacklisted during the live blogs, guess it got more recognition and caught more fire than we u anticipated lol
I’m with ya rayjr… I’m surprised McD even drafted him if all he’s going to let him do is warm up the good ‘ol bench. I feel sorry for the kid. He deserves more play time. We could actually be winning games. Its quite the concept. ;p
TRB, I know, last time I tried to post it, it just refused to do so, but it’s such a cute moniker for McD and right to the point, and I was the one who brought it up… Oh well, even clean language won’t always make its way over here, it is what it is.
Yeah, I know Herm Edwards isn’t great. But you can’t tell me he’d be any worse than what we have.
WOOHOO! Finally won a predictions contest. Except I’m not that excited because it came on a loss, so nothing really to be proud of…
As for the possible coaching changes, I don’t know what to think. I’m pretty sure McD won’t be fired after this year like most of you. But seeing as how there’s been a lot of controversy lately, and they showed Bowlen walking on the sidelines before today’s game on TV… I don’t know, maybe he’s starting to lean toward retaking control and doing some firing.
I know that’s probably wishful thinking, but as bad as 2008 ended, it still never crossed my mind that Shanny would be fired, and he had a lot more clout with Mr. B than Josh does now.
I’m just saying, who knows? Stranger things have happened.
Actually, I think Edwards is a lot like McD. Edwards did nothing productive to help out the Chiefs just like McD hasn’t done much in Denver. I don’t think I could tell Edwards is worse but he’s no better than McD either. We don’t need more of the same, we need an upgrade & stat!!!
I hear your point. I’m just trying to say at least he’s been to some playoff games as a head coach. Right now it looks like McD will never ever be able to say that.
So in those terms, I think it’s an automatic upgrade.
No, he didn’t really do anything with the Chiefs, but he did go to the playoffs with them and with the Jets. Plus he’s a Dungy guy, so you know there’s little chance of… ahem… cheating…
Don’t know why I’m defending this point so much, but there ya go. lol
lol, point taken but he wouldn’t be an upgrade from what we already have, is my point. Edwards does have a few playoff games under his belt, I’ll give him that but there’s nothing that I think he’d bring to this organization that would make us improve or stand out on a good note. We need someone willing to groom Tebow into a consistency behind center. McD just isn’t giving him that golden opportunity and its beyond frustrating.
Something has got to give. My sanity can’t take this anymore!! lol ahhh!
I know, trust me. My sanity can’t take it either, which I think is why I’d be willing to take ANYONE as the head coach next year. Hey, even Wade Philips sounds nice right about now.
That’s how insane I’ve become this season lol
BTW! if Josh McD gets fired, Tim Tebow will never play for the Broncos. That means we gave up a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round pick for a non athletic Josh Cribbs and Brad Smith. WOW
Why would we start tebow now? Your telling me we are gonna be better with a guy whos a rookie than Orton? The guy who throws touch downs and has yards and makes few mistakes we are gonna bench him over a guy whos throwing motion can be counted with minutes right now? Besides if you play Tebow its kinda telling the players like hey guys were shutting it down. Ortons a dam captain mcdaniels is doing the right thing. Tim is the future even tho right now we dont really have anything to play for but if Orton finishes off the year we can trade him for a high pick who knows maybe by the the gm will get his head outta mcdaniels ass. The problem with denver is as soon as we draft a Quarterback everyone falls in love with him and forgets the guy whos playing is playing for a reason.I say next year denvers gonna take this division by storm but for now we can only hope maybe something clicks some momentum for next year.