According to head coach Gary Kubiak on Monday, the Denver Broncos are no longer taking things week by week. When it comes to the quarterback position, Kubiak said they are taking things “a day at a time,” and promised to have a plan in place by Wednesday.
Well, news came out Tuesday night that Brock Osweiler would again get the call this week while Peyton Manning continues to recover from plantar fasciitis. With the decision made, Broncos Country can now shift its focus to the Pittsburgh Steelers and what it will take to go into Steel City and emerge with a win.
Benny Bash, host of The Big Show on Mile High Sports AM 1340, is taking things week by week himself when it comes to evaluating the Broncos, and based on last week’s performance against Oakland he’s not predicting good things for Denver on Sunday.
Kent Erickson, Bash’s co-host, is trying to take a wider view than the “what have you done for me lately” vantage point that so many fans and analysts have adopted in the wake of Denver’s 15-12 loss to the Raiders.
Erickson sees enough issues in the Pittsburgh secondary, which ranks 31st in passing yards allowed (though the defense as a whole is only 11th in points allowed), that Denver can put up the 20-plus points he thinks the Broncos will need to escape Pittsburgh with a win.
Bash is not so confident. He’s concerned that the Denver offense, which is averaging 21.6 points per game on the year but has just 19 per game under Osweiler, might not score more than 10 points against the Steelers, especially if they can’t correct the offensive woes that plagued the team against Oakland.
Denver rushed for only 34 yards against Oakland, who is giving up just over 101 yards per game after Sunday. Pittsburgh, meanwhile, is No. 6 in the league against the run, allowing 88.3 YPG. As the Broncos learned against Oakland, an inability to run and poor pass protection can be big problems for the offense.
Erickson’s taking more of a longview, however, and looking at what Denver did against San Diego, New England and Chicago on the ground. He thinks there will be a renewed emphasis on the ground game and a healthy(er) Ronnie Hillman and C.J. Anderson will turn around the running game that had its worst performance of the year against Oakland. Denver will run the ball 30-35 times in his estimation, which will open things up and exploit the issues Pittsburgh has on the back side of the defense.
Bash isn’t so confident. He says he closes his eyes and envisions Emmanuel Sanders returning to Pittsburgh and having a huge game against his former employer. But when he wakes up he can’t forget what Denver did against the Raiders.
It’s a week-by-week league, and opinions about what will happen sometime change day-by-day. For now, Bash and Erickson seem divided on how things will play out this week.
Listen to their full debate about how things go down in Pittsburgh in the podcast below…
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