Sometimes knowledge is not power at all. No, sometimes knowing what’s coming doesn’t help prevent the arrival.
And the Broncos certainly knew what was coming from the Steelers’ defense. It’s all there, every week, hours and hours of digital video collated, organized and clipped into every down-and-distance situation.
Yet there were the Steelers continually harassing Broncos quarterback Kyle Orton into a three-interception outing in a dismal 18-point loss.
“We had trouble protecting the passer,” Broncos coach Josh McDaniels said.
In the end, the totals will provide some camouflage for those who didn’t see what actually happened Monday night at Invesco Field at Mile High. Orton finished with 23-of-38 passing for 221 yards. Wide receiver Brandon Marshall finished with 11 catches for 112 yards — his first 100-yard outing of the season.
Hidden in that collection of numbers were those three interceptions, two Steelers sacks and a rather steady drumbeat of hits on Orton as the evening wore on.
In the hands of its 70-something defensive coordinator — Dick LeBeau — the Steelers’ defense did what it always seems to do.
Pittsburgh either deters a team from running the ball by what it did in the weeks before or it makes the offense quit running the ball by what it does early in the game. Then they surround the quarterback.
“(The Steelers do) a great job attacking protections, pressuring the middle of the pocket, seemingly on a consistent basis, and when they do that you’re going to have trouble,” McDaniels said. “We’ve got to do a better job of making sure we don’t put that kind of pressure on our pass protection, on our quarterback, by maintaining our balance.”
The Broncos ran the ball a season- low 14 times for a season-low 27 yards Monday night, a week after running it a previous season-low 19 times in the loss to the Ravens. Just three of those runs came after halftime.
A week of preaching the benefits of balance, McDaniels found himself stuck on the carousel, calling one pass after another, serving Orton up to Le- Beau’s concoctions.
At times the Steelers put just one defensive lineman down in a three-point stance, with most everybody else moving toward the line of scrimmage at the snap of the ball. LeBeau rushed James Harrison from all over the formation. LeBeau dropped players in and out of coverage, and when there was no sack to be had, the defense created discomfort and bruises.
Most disheartening for the Broncos was that defenses have now knocked their offense off the tracks in back- to-back weeks.
Two defenses have made the Broncos into what they do not want to be, a pass-first offense that can’t protect the guy with the ball.
“(That’s) an extremely well- coached football team,” McDaniels said. He added: “Most of which we have blocked before, we’ve seen before and they did a better job executing it than we did on offense. They played much better for 60 minutes than we did on offense.”
Went right: The quick hit
After some whatever-happened- to-Eddie-Royal questions over the last couple of weeks, the Broncos opened the game funneling the ball to Royal, working over Steelers cornerback Randall Gay.
Royal had three of his five catches on the Broncos’ first drive, and Orton was 9-of-10 passing on the Broncos’ first two possessions for 89 yards — or 40.9 percent of his evening’s output. Orton hit his first eight pass attempts.
It was the kind of start the Broncos had not had this year, and it even resulted in their first opening-drive points of the season, a field goal.
That was their only points of the first half, however.
What went wrong: Didn’t plug the gaps
The Broncos, starting backup Tyler Polumbus at right tackle against an aggressive defense, tried to beef up their offensive front at times. They used offensive lineman Russ Hochstein as an extra tight end. Hochstein lined up 11 times at tight end in the first half alone to go with one snap at fullback — but the line was unable to consistently make room in the running game or keep the Steelers from pressing the pocket in on Orton.
On a third-and-1 from the Broncos’ 25-yard line late in the first half, the Broncos went as far as to line up reserve tackle Brandon Gorin as a tight end — off Polumbus’ right shoulder — to go with Hochstein in at fullback to give them seven offensive linemen in the game.
The Steelers also responded by cranking up the pressure in the middle of the Broncos’ line with Brett Keisel, a defensive end who entered the game with only one sack, finishing with both of the team’s sacks. The Steelers linebackers did not finish with a sack, but James Harrison, Keyaron Fox and LaMarr Woodley all finished with a tackle for a loss.
Up next: $100 million man
The Broncos struggled with the middle of the Steelers’ defense Monday night and now have to prepare for the league’s highest-paid defensive player in Redskins defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth.
Haynesworth, having faced his share of double-teams this season, has three sacks working from the inside. At his best and motivated, he’s an explosive player off the ball and gets out of his stance quick enough to often beat the blocker across from him into the neutral zone.
Sometimes offensive coordinators will say he doesn’t play as hard if things look bleak for the team, but the Redskins’ defense has certainly not been the reason for the team’s struggles.
Jeff Legwold: 303-954-2359 or jlegwold@denverpost.com
