Winning can be in the balance
Manning, other mainstays of passing game are happy for all the help
kansas city, mo. » It was such a strange scene.
Along one wall in the cramped visiting locker room here at Arrowhead Stadium, Broncos receivers Wes Welker, Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanderswere dressing from left to right.
In peace. No one bothered them.
All the mediawas congregating in front of another row of lockers, where new heroC.J. Anderson and new kicker Connor Barth were mobbed with cameras and microphones, not far from where blocking tight end Virgil Green was hosting his own media session.
“We’ll take it,” Welker said.
This is no longer about Peyton Manning.
This is about Anderson, Juwan Thompson and the Broncos’ running game completing Manning as a quarterback.
In a hostile Chief-red environment, in 20-something degree temperatures that felt much colder with a stiff wind, the Broncos handed the ball off to Anderson not only on their first play in a 29-16 win here Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs, but on their second play, too. And their third play and their fourth play.
“I like it. I like it,” Manning said. “I like winning games. We kept their defense on their heels. We came out and established the run early.”
The more Anderson ran, the more the Chiefs got tired of tackling him. A week after rushing for 167 of the Broncos’ 201 yards against Miami, Anderson pounded the Chiefs for 168 of their 215 rushing yards.
Any team can run for 200 yards once. Do it twice and it’s a trend.
Air Gase is not dead. It is merely getting set up.
“You’ve got to give it to the big fellas up front,” Anderson said. “They know the run is going to be called first and they’re going to make a statement.”
On Saturday night, Anderson and the Broncos’ offensive line left their team hotel and went out for barbecue at Oklahoma Joe’s. It can be argued Anderson has done more for the offensive line than they have done for themselves. Besieged with heavy criticism and a message-sending workout of notorious bad boy Richie Incognito just two weeks ago, the offensive line has suddenly becometheMen ofMontgomery
The insertion of center WillMontgomery at center flanked by Ryan Clady and Orlando Franklin on his left and Manny Ramirez and Louis Vasquez on his right has formed a line that can suddenly run block.
“Every O-lineman likes to run the ball,” Montgomery said. “Going forward we’re going to have to do both. Depending on the opponent we’re going to have lean on one more heavily than the other. We just happened to run the ball the last couple weeks.”
Broncos coach John Fox canplay all theway until Feb. 1 of next year and not have his team play a better first quarter than the Broncos did in building a 14-0 lead.
Fox’s defensive coordinator, Jack Del Rio, called two, third-down blitzes that resulted in sacks by safeties T.J. Ward and QuintonCarter to kill back-to-back Chief possessions.
And Broncos’ offensive coordinator Adam Gase showed for the second straightweek that he enjoys selecting from the run side of his play-call sheet.
Anderson had 58 yards rushing on 11 carries in the first quarter. Manning was 6-of-8 for 72 yards with two touchdown passes, one of them a 15-yard catch-andrun to Anderson.
At halftime, the Broncos had 21 rushes for 102 yards. Manning had 20 pass attempts for 136 yards.
All this balanced production after the Broncos scored 39 points to beat the Miami Dolphins the previousweek by using 35 running plays and 35 passing attempts.
It’s almost impossible for the Broncos’ offense to impress anyone with their production. They set their bar too high last year, when they scored an NFL record with 606 points.
But it’s how they’ve been moving the ball the past two weeks that lends hope the Broncos can win in January’s cold weather, can maybe win inNewEngland should the AFC championship game go through Foxborough and can maybe beat a rugged-style NFC team in the Super Bowl.
Those 606 points last year were derived mostly through the air, asManning threw for a record 5,477 yards and 55 touchdowns. And in the end, the Broncos’ one-dimensional offense met its match against the Seattle Seahawks in the season’s final game.
This year, Manning may wind up in the neighborhood of his touchdown record as he has 36 this year with four games to play.
But it was stunning how he threwfor just 179 passing yards while completing a pedestrian 17-of-34 passes.
It used to be Manning or bust. Nowit’sManning or a second option.