This Defense is Scaring Me!

Broncos at Browns | October 5, 1980 | Action! PC Football

Frightening Defense

They called it the “rubber band defense” in real life. The Browns prided themselves on bending but not breaking, on giving up yards but not giving up points.

Oh, how I wish they would do that for me.

Another Loss

We lost by one point, but it wasn’t actually that close.

Denver ran our defense ragged. Running backs Otis Armstrong and Jim Jensen took turns making our defense looking silly. They ran for a combined 176 yards, keeping the ball away from our offense and spoiling whatever defensive plans we came up with.

Sipe did his best, though. I abandoned the running game when we were down 27-16 with about 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter. We were able to drive the field twice: once for a Cockroft field goal, and once again for a touchdown with under a minute remaining.

We had the ball at the very end, and tried in desperation to get the ball downfield. With no timeouts left, however, it simply wasn’t in the cards.

This is not what I had in mind.

Game Stats

I know that we had almost 150 more offensive yards than the Broncos. It didn’t matter in the end, however. Those 2 turnovers really killed us.

Denver made heavy use of the blitz, largely because we were forced into must-pass situations. And, unfortunately, this was the result of a running game that went nowhere:

Pruitt’s 5.6 yards per carry looks impressive, until you realize that his 73 yards gained included a big 32-yard carry. Take that one out, and he only had 41 yards on 12 attempts — still okay, but not as good as I would like.

We probably should look into creating more running opportunities for White. Part of our problem here, though, is that we simply couldn’t get the ball. Armstrong and Jensen pounded it at our defense all day long.

The Upchurch run came on a reverse which caught our defense completely off-guard. As you can see, I still have a lot to learn as an Action! PC Football play caller.

Other Action

Bears 34, Buccaneers 17: At Chicago. Remember that Tampa Bay offense that we had a hard time stopping last week? Yeah, the Bears made them look silly.

Oilers 34, Seahawks 24: At Houston, Campbell ran for 130 yards and the Oilers overcame a 309 yard passing day by Zorn to win big.

Steelers 31, Vikings 27: At Minnesota, Terry Bradshaw threw for 336 yards and a late game-winning touchdown. Pittsburgh doesn’t look all that old at the moment.

Colts 20, Dolphins 13: At Miami, Baltimore ran for 168 yards en route to a big win.

Jets 21, Patriots 10: At New York, the surprising last-place Jets made that Patriot offense look tame.

Giants 27, Cowboys 10: At Dallas, the winless Giants finally won one.

Rams 21, 49ers 14: At Los Angeles, the Rams ran for 159 yards in a dominating victory that was not as close as the score makes it seem.

Redskins 30, Eagles 28: At Philadelphia, a late Eagles comeback was not enough to offset 20 points scored by Washington in the 1st quarter.

Bengals 20, Packers 6: At Green Bay, Cincinnati’s defense stifled the Packers.

Raiders 40, Chiefs 13: At Oakland, the Raiders scored early and often, attacking the hapless Chiefs defense from the air and on the ground.

Chargers 20, Bills 14: At San Diego, the Chargers exploded for 13 4th quarter points to come from behind to beat Buffalo.

Saints 24, Cardinals 17: At New Orleans, the Saints won on a late Manning touchdown pass with less than 2 minutes to go.

Lions 30, Hawks 15: At Atlanta, the Lions defense stifled Atlanta, including forcing a safety in the 2nd quarter.

Standings

We play at the winless Seahawks next, which should hopefully improve my mood.