NFL: BRONCOS & SEAHAWKS ON SUNDAY; SIGNIFICANCE OF WEEK THREE // MLB: COLORADO ROCKIES, NOT WITHOUT QUALITY; AL & NL RANKINGS.

sports-notebook.blogspot.com . . . FOR MORE ANALYSIS, GO TO "MILE HIGH SPORTS RADIO," AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team---milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed., Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner . . . NFL: BRONCOS & SEAHAWKS ON SUNDAY; SIGNIFICANCE OF WEEK THREE // MLB: COLORADO ROCKIES, NOT WITHOUT QUALITY; TODAY’S AL & NL RANKINGS. . . // NFL---THE Week Three Broncos vs. Seahawks game has been hyped as a best NFL offense vs. best NFL defense match, and that could be the case but without proving whether all of a nearly impenetrable defense can always prevail against a fully developed and mostly unstoppable offense, or whether the opposite is so, an offense close to perfection always neutralizing the best possible defense. For instance, the overall Broncos Peyton-Manning-led offense has flaws but it does have subsets that could place limits on the Seahawks defense, allowing QB Manning and his WR’s, a Broncos tight end and an RB to secure numerous first downs and multiple TD’s. Signaled here is the Broncos pass protection unit and the deep and close-in defense-within-offense capacity for tackles and blocks deliberately freeing WR’s Emmanuelle Sanders, Demaryius Thomas, Julius Thomas, J. Tamme and RB Monte Ball for the Manning throw or hand-off. This is “capitalization of talent inside squads within the larger platoon,” it’s not trying to stop a powerful defense by just speed and physical strength vs. physical strength of a full line, instead it’s winning from smarts, a QB and his favored few, i.e., two receivers, a TE and a rusher being canny in exceptional ways. As for the much improved but still proven to be vulnerable Broncos D, capitalizing on speed and strength re. the few also makes sense, and that means extra effort over what has been seen this year of the D’s pass rush, that is, Von Miller can do better. And, Seahawks QB Wilson keeps hoping to match or exceed successful passing yards gained by Manning whenever the two will compete, which an effective pass rush can destabilize and force Russell to initiate a ground maneuver, which happens to be the easier tactic for the Broncos D to prevent the Seahawks from gaining first downs. But if QB Wilson can execute that long pass, the Broncos D will need the more intuitive, “eyes literally on the ball and faster cornerback execution.” Watching the Broncos D in third and fourth periods of their Week One and Week Two games, one may have wondered if the Broncos D coordinator, Jack Del Rio, and also Broncos head coach, John Fox, have placed limits on the D being improvisational during critical second half situations, therefore preventing the D from adjusting to an opposing offense’s second half readings of how the Broncos D has been functioning, or if the opposite has been in play, thus the Broncos D improvising too freely in the wrong way at the wrong time. Somewhere in the middle of this could be the arrow pointing to where the Broncos need to go to improve even more over last year’s D. Maybe it will show up against the Seahawks on Sunday. Conservative thinking says it won’t appear with any consistency, underscoring that the Broncos/Seahawks face-off will be quite close, neither franchise ever having more than a seven point lead, either ahead at game’s end by three, maybe seven . . . NFL WEEK THREE isn’t pivotal in the truest sense, but it has its implications. If an NFL franchise ends Week Three at 0-3, or has upgraded from 0-2 to 1-2 or from 1-1 to 1-2 by the end of Week Two, surely when one-fourth of the season is over none will be ahead of the curve toward a winning record. In this regard, Week Three is crucial, and so seven winless teams and the 18 that are 1-1 are most eager for victory on Sunday, not to fall as the now 0-3 Tampa Bay Buccaneers did last night to the currently 2-1 Atlanta Falcons, score: 56-14. Ahead of the curve thus far, that is, at 2-0, are the Denver Broncos, the Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, Arizona Cardinals, Philadelphia Eagles, Houston Texans, the Carolina Panthers. No two of these seven 2-0 franchises are from the same division, and the challenges that the seven will face during Week Three can cause negative changes to their status. The Broncos will be facing the 1-1 Seahawks on Sunday, a team that whipped them mercilessly during the last Super Bowl. The Seahawk’s defense has ranked higher than that of the Broncos, and the Seahawks Russell Wilson-led offense is enough of a match for the Broncos Peyton Manning-led offense. The Bills will be challenged by the 1-1 San Diego Chargers, a team that defeated the Seahawks last week, and the Bengals could find it hard to defeat the 1-1 Tennessee Titans, a team that in Weeks One and Two weren’t asleep against the now 0-2 K.C. Chiefs and the 1-1 Dallas Cowboys, and the Cardinals could lose to the 1-1 S.F. 49ers, a team far from having been highly vulnerable in Weeks One and Two vs. the Cowboys and the 1-1 Chicago Bears, and the Eagles could be pressed to ground by the 1-1 Washington Redskins, a franchise that humiliated the Jaguars during Week Two, and the Texans probably won’t fall to the 0-2 Giants but it won’t be easy for them to maintain, meanwhile the Panthers won’t be gathering high double-digits vs. the 1-1 Pittsburgh Steelers. In other words, these seven 2-0 teams won’t be victorious with ease during Week Three. . . // . . MLB/COLORADO ROCKIES---IT’s Tuesday night, September 16, 2014, fifth inning at Coors Field, the then 59-90 Colorado Rockies are ahead of the 85-64 Los Angeles Dodgers, score 5-0, so you ask how come the Rockies own next to last place in both leagues, why are they last in the NL, why are they occupying the NL West basement from 26 games behind first place team, the Dodgers, a team that’s leading the NL and that’s third re. both leagues? As the ninth inning closes, the score will be 10-2, and the next day the Rockies will deliver another blow to the Dodgers, 16-2. But with nine competitions to go now before the Rockies 2014 season ends, the best that one can say about them with regard to final standings is that the Colorado ball club may not lose 100 games; furthermore, the team could finish the month of September close to .500. Yet there are high points, there is another part to the Rockies MLB-2014 story---there are reasons for praise. For example, of the Rockies 62 wins since April 5, 2014, more than 20 have been against teams now in first or second place within their respective divisions, seven vs. the Dodgers. Of the team’s 19 scheduled 2014 games vs. NL West second place club, the S.F. Giants, the Rockies have won 10. On Tuesday, the Rockies became first in the NL and second behind the AL Central’s Detroit Tigers as a team finishing the most games with 10 or more hits, 69, the Tigers ahead with 70. Too, the Rockies hold today’s record of having the most home runs in the NL, 170 as of two days ago, leading the NL’s three division leading clubs, the Dodgers, the 84-68 St. Louis Cardinals and the 88-64 Washington Nationals, each of fewer than 150 HR’s. And, Rockies 1B Justin Morneau is a contender for finishing the current season as the NL’s best batting average holder, on Tuesday .317. Team BA? It’s above-the-margin, 286. Also, the Rockies are among the 18 of 30 MLB teams that have a better than .500 average when it comes to home games, 39-35. So, what has anchored the Rockies to the bottom? In addition to being held back by injuries to top players IF Troy Tulowitzki, and OF’s Carlos Gonzalez and Michael Cuddyer, one cannot look away from the dampening and holdback ERA’s of the Rockies rotation and bull pen, surely an invite to baseball’s lowest levels, though this week’s performances by Rockies LHP Tyler Matzek and by LHP Yolan Flande vs. the Dodgers are an encouraging contradiction to the Rockies overall uninspiring moundwork . . . MLB RANKINGS---THE NL East’s 88-64 Washington Nationals, AL West’s 95-57 L.A. Angels and the AL East’s 92-60 Baltimore Orioles own their divisions and will be kings of the hill when playoffs commence, each is now atop second place clubs by more than 10 wins. Least secure among division leading clubs are the AL Central’s 84-68 Detroit Tigers, just one win over the K.C. Royals, and the NL West’s 87-66 L.A. Dodgers are only two wins above the S.F. Giants, while the NL Central’s 84-68 St. Louis Cardinals are two atop the Pittsburgh Pirates. Races for second place season finishes are tighter. Possible are several exchanges between second and third, in that the NL Central’s 79-73 Milwaukee Brewers are only three wins behind the Pirates, the NL East’s 74-78 Miami Marlins just two back of the Atlanta Braves, the AL East’s 77-75 Toronto Blue Jays one back of the N.Y. Yankees. The clubs that could finish the 2014 regular season with 100 or more wins are the Angels and the Orioles, today the only MLB franchises with more than 90 wins, the Angels 95-57 record being best re. both leagues. END/ml