Osweiler ridding high in the saddle
Denver may stay with backup once Manning gets healthy
DENVER— The old quarterback, the one wearing a blue walking cast on his left foot, slipped a grey overcoat over his shoulders, and slowly walked through the most raucous postgame locker room his team had experienced all season.
As teammates headed to the shower, Peyton Manning stopped them one by one.
“Danny, good job,” Manning said, grabbing the hand of inside linebacker Danny Trevathan.
He pulled cornerback Chris Harris into a big hug before peppering him with questions about the routes the Patriots were running, and what Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was saying on the field late in the game. Manning patted receiver Emmanuel Sanders on the shoulder, and headed for a back exit — away from all of the television cameras and reporters who had gathered to talk to his teammates about their biggest win of the season, a 30-24 overtime victory against the previously undefeated New England Patriots.
Manning smiled as he shook hands with general manager John Elway, and then he was gone — off into a snowy Denver night, and into another week in which his team isn’t really his anymore.
With the way the young quarterback, Brock Osweiler is playing, it may never be Manning’s team again.
“He’s the biggest competitor, this has to be killing him,” Harris told USA Today Sports.
Of course, the Broncos — both players and coaches — won’t say that the Broncos now belong to Osweiler, not while Manning continues to rehab from the torn plantar fascia in his left foot. What is indisputable now, however, is that the Broncos are a better team with the 25-year-old Osweiler than they were with 39-year-old ailing Manning.
It wasn’t just that Osweiler has won both of his starts since he was tabbed to replace Manning two weeks ago. It is how Osweiler and the Broncos have won them — with poise, confidence and energy that belie his limited experience.
Playing on a frigid night on Sunday, and in a stadium transformed into a snow globe, Osweiler led the Broncos back from a 21-7 fourth-quarter deficit to hand the Patriots their first loss of the season.
Osweiler threw one touchdown pass, a four-yarder to Andre Caldwell with 1:09 remaining in regulation, and led three other drives that ended in rushing touchdowns, including C.J. Anderson’s 48-yard walk-off score in overtime.
That play came on a third-and-two and was originally called as a run to the right. Osweiler, with urging from his offensive line, checked into a zone run to the left, and moments later, Anderson was gone.
It was a call that Osweiler later said he hoped he could have made years ago, when he was a rookie backup to Manning. The fact that he changed the play in overtime, with Brady watching from the opposite sideline, showed why the Broncos are right to have such confidence in him. And it showed why head coach Gary Kubiak and Elway will probably soon be forced to make a very difficult decision.
Even if Manning gets healthy, can the Broncos go back?
“(Osweiler is) supposed to make it hard, make it a hard decision for everybody. I mean, Brock is a guy that’s in a contract situation after this season,” Harris said. “He’s hungry, he wants to go out and prove what he can do, and he’s having a great opportunity to do that.”
The Broncos won seven games with Manning this year — several of them in spite of him, as he threw 17 interceptions before he was pulled midway through a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs two weeks ago. It took weeks for him to get comfortable in a new offence, even one that was tweaked throughout the season to better suit him. By mid-November, foot and shoulder and rib injuries were just too much for the 39-yearold body to overcome.
The best-case scenario for the Broncos (though not the best scenario for Manning) has happened. Osweiler, a second-round pick who spent three and a half years on the bench, has played well, with just one interception in his two starts, and the Broncos have been able to maintain their three-game lead in the AFC West.
With Osweiler under centre, the Broncos have strung together two strong performances with the running game, including a season-high 179 total rushing yards against the Patriots, and have found ways to get plenty of different players involved. On Sunday night, Osweiler completed passes to nine different teammates.
Manning is expected to be sidelined for at least another week, when the Broncos play at the San Diego Chargers, and then the team will re-evaluate if and when he can return to practice.
“This is a good problem to have,” tight end Owen Daniels told USA Today Sports. “As players, we trust both guys.”