Broncos seek balance

What happened?

In just two weeks the Denver Broncos went from 6-0 contenders to 6-2 pretenders, and some are now calling them the worst first place team in football.

But they don’t care about what people think. All they care about is getting back on track after two straight beat-downs at the hands of AFC opponents.

But first they were forced to acknowledge the root of the team’s problem, the offense’s lack of production.

“We certainly haven’t run the ball very well the last two weeks, and we’ve had trouble protecting the passer. There is a lot of things that go into that, and that is not just an offensive line thing or a tight end thing, or a running back,” said head coach Josh McDaniels. “All 11 guys on the field have to work together to do that, and we certainly have not done enough the last two weeks offensively to help our team win a lot of games. We are going to need to improve significantly in that area and continue to work hard and get better.”

Denver only rushed the ball 14 times for 27 yards Ń a petty 1.9 yards per carry average Ń in Monday night’s loss. That puts way too much pressure on quarterback Kyle Orton, who threw the ball 38 times. 

Orton had his worst game as a Bronco, throwing three interceptions, but with no threat of a run game the Steelers defense forced the Broncos to throw the ball Ń often times into the hands of the Pittsburgh secondary.

“Baltimore and Pittsburgh were two good defenses, and certainly, when you play those guys, the margin for error is very small. You have got to get all 11 guys on the same page and execute for 10, 11 full plays in a row,” said Orton. “We haven’t been able to do that for one reason or the other, and we have got to get it back on track. As a quarterback, I put it on myself. It is my offense, and I will get it back on track.”

Nice of Orton to take the blame, but he is only partially at fault for the offense’s shortcomings. The lack of a running game also is a part of Denver’s offense’s problems.

“There’s no shortcut to it. We have to work hard at getting ourselves to run the ball better and be more effective running the football and staying out of third and long. That alone will allow us to stay balanced,” McDaniels said.  “And if we can maintain our balance with some of the play action passes that worked early in the game the first half, I think had more merit to run later in the game. But once you fall behind and you really become a one-dimensional offense, that is a difficult task to try and overcome and do some of those things because the defense is not going to honor them.”

Broncos’ receiver Jabar Gaffney has some other ideas of why Denver’s offense has stalled out, and he is hardly concerned. He said the offensive is still progressing, and all of the luck and good fortune that happened for them in the first six weeks of the season haven’t gone their way the past two weeks.

“It is different things every time, between poor execution and drops, just bad luck. Whatever the case is, we have to stop it. The defense has been playing good, but we’ve been having them on the field too much,” Gaffney said.

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