C.J. Anderson couldn’t stop screaming at head coach Gary Kubiak in the Denver Broncos 21-20 victory over the Carolina Panthers Thursday night.
“I want it,” Anderson said repeatedly to Kubiak on the sidelines.
The “it” Anderson was referring to was the football. Anderson would take the ball every play, if he could, and on Thursday night Anderson proved that he could handle the ball on nearly every play.
As an undrafted running back out of the University of California-Berkley, Anderson was entirely a middle-of-the-tackles pounding running back seen as very one-dimensional in that respect. Last season Anderson showed flashes of his ability to bounce outside and turn on the speed (i.e. the game winning run against the New England Patriots in the regular season), but many thought he still needed other running backs to compliment him.
Thursday night, in the NFL season opener, Anderson proved that he has evolved his play to an all-around game, and there is nothing that he can’t do.
“C.J. [Anderson] is a great back. He can run the ball. He can protect the passer. He can do everything,” Broncos center Matt Paradis said after Thursday’s victory.
Not only does he have the confidence of his teammates to do everything on the football field, but also he has what may be the greatest compliment of them all — the trust of his teammates in crunch time.
“He’s a playmaker, he’s a guy that we go to when its crunch time. He makes plays, one of the hardest backs that I’ve seen run and glad to be blocking for him,” left guard Max Garcia said.
There was one Bronco, however, that has noticed Anderson’s all-around game taking away from his production – wide receiver Demaryius Thomas. After the game Thomas jokingly said, “I see that, it happens it happens” when asked about Anderson taking away from his receiving opportunities.
“Congratulations to C.J., he had a great game and he was one of the reasons we won the game,” Thomas said.
After accounting for 14 of the Broncos’ 21 total points, and nearly 150 total yards of offense, Anderson didn’t want to take any of the credit.
“Our [offensive line] played great up front, really a token to them. I trust them to get the push to get me over the end zone and they did that,” Anderson said postgame.
While the line no doubt opened up holes for Anderson to scamper for big gains, the offense needed someone to hit the proper holes and execute, and Anderson did just that.
There weren’t very many questions about Anderson entering the game in terms of how good a player he is, but he created many questions after his impressive performance. The most important being, “What won’t he do for this offense?”
