Whatever the Denver Broncos put in their Gatorade during halftime last night, keep doing it; it worked a lot better than the previous three weeks.
In all honesty, though, something is going on during halftime. Against the Chargers, Raiders and Steelers, that something was not good, as the Broncos failed to score a single point in the final two quarters; last night, it was all good.
Now, in reality, I’m not sure it leaves us in much different of a situation than we were last week. Any time you only play two good quarters, the game is going to come down to the final whistle, at best. The only difference between the Steelers and Bengals game is that their “good” quarters came in different halves.
If you combined the first half from last week and the second half from this week, the Broncos would look like the best team in football; conversely, if you took the second half from last week and the first half from this week, you might wonder if the Broncos were fighting for the No. 1 pick, not the No. 1 seed.
The players recognized it too, and they had a lot to say about their Monday night turnaround following the game:
Gary Kubiak on if the halftime was emotional:
“No, actually if anything it was just the opposite. I told them I believed in them and I told them we’re fixing to go play a great second half and I had confidence in them. We hadn’t done a lot right up to that point, but we’re fixing to go do a lot of things right. That was my message after the game. It was one hell of a second half of football.”
Kubiak on whether the change from half to half is concerning:
“I guess that could bother some people, but I’ve been doing this long enough. To me, it actually excites me to watch what took place in the first half last week and what took place in the second half this week because that’s what this league is about at the end—finding it all. They know. They know what they’re capable of. We do have to go find the consistency, but we have shown some flashes of being able to do that. As I said all last week talking to you guys, we’re going to hang on to the positives. We’re going to keep working on the negatives that aren’t happening, but we’re going to stay positive and battle. We feel very confident in the direction that we’re headed.”
Brock Osweiler on the halftime strategy:
“Whenever offensively you’re not moving the ball and you’re not generating points, you want to try something different, and why not? Our conversation at halftime was to try to pick up the tempo a little bit, show them a look that we have not shown on tape and then. At the same time, [Head] Coach [Gary Kubiak] really preached us all week long, ‘Focus for 60 minutes. One play at a time. Whether that play is good, bad or ugly, move on to the next play and keep your focus there.’ That’s truly what this football team did tonight. It was a huge team win and it means a lot to this football team.”
Osweiler on the halftime communication:
“Absolutely. There were a lot of conversations going on at halftime—talking to the running backs, talking to the offensive line, talking to the coaches, talking to the receivers—and just trying to make adjustments. Obviously the first half didn’t go the way that we wanted it to, and we knew that we had to play better. Nobody was looking in the rearview mirror thinking about that first half. It was all about how we can be better in the second half. There was great communication at halftime. Our coaches made great adjustments, and the players executed it.”
Osweiler on what the win means for the Broncos:
“It says a lot about our team. We’re able to win football games in many different ways. Tonight, obviously the first half didn’t go the way that we wanted it to, but that’s football. Sometimes you’re going to have tough first halves. I think what it shows is that this team didn’t blink. We didn’t flinch. We re-grouped at halftime, we came together as a team and we got the job done in the second half.”
C.J. Anderson on what the comeback win means for the team:
“We’ve just learned a lot throughout the whole season. I’ve said it before, but it takes four quarters to beat us and we learned last week it takes four quarters to beat another team. It just takes four quarters. We have to focus for all 60 minutes and all three phases of the game.”
Owen Daniels on the feeling at halftime:
“I think we felt we had a little bit of momentum. We put a good drive together at the end of the half and we knew we were getting the ball to start the second half. We knew we had to put some drives together and get some points. The whole second half BS that has been going on, we just kind of cleared that out of our minds this week. It was great to see a lot of guys contribute.”
Chris Harris Jr. on halftime adjustments:
“Really, [Defensive Coordinator] Coach Wade [Phillips] leaned on me and [CB Aqib Talib] again. That’s what we do. We play man-to-man. We bring the heat and that’s what we kept doing. We just kind of stuck to what we did, and we just made enough plays today.”
Malik Jackson on being a four-quarter team:
“It was something we have to work on. You can’t be a one-half team or you get beat in this league. We know what we want to do. We know it is getting late in the season and we want to go to the playoffs, get that first-round bye and to do that we have to win these two games. We have to keep working on putting a whole game together. [Head Coach Gary] Kubiak is preaching that and we’re going to get that right.”
Jackson on halftime adjustments:
“No. Just do what you have to do. Coach came in here and said ‘play football.’ We just played football. No scheme changes, just play football.”
Von Miller on what was said at halftime:
“We knew that we hadn’t even started yet, so we knew the second half was going to be our half. We didn’t have a lot of corrections when we came in at halftime. We just talked about some of the stuff they were doing.”
Miller on the importance of the win:
“Every win is big. We just needed this emotionally, we’ve been through tough times this year and we just needed it emotionally. I knew last night that everybody was comfortable and everybody was relaxed. We came into the game a little too relaxed but we kicked it up and got the (win).”
Emmanuel Sanders on what changed in the second half:
“The first half wasn’t good. It is crazy because the past couple games, the first half was good and the second half we weren’t. Obviously, it flipped on us. We went up-tempo and started running the football. We knew we needed to make plays. Sometimes when your back is against the wall you start swinging, and that is what we did.”
Aqib Talib on the team’s mindset:
“We’re in a good mindset right now. We’re good. We’re just going to play football. Once you get in that tournament, the best man wins on Sunday’s. We just have to prepare, keep the same routines and play hard, play fast. The best team will win.”
Danny Trevathan on the importance of the win:
“It’s big for us, especially moving forward trying to get to where we want to go. This game was much needed. We need these last two. We got this one. Now we’re going to focus on the next one next week, but we came out here and played our game. Like I said, it was kind of flat at the beginning, but our defense and the way our team is set up, we like to work our tail off. We enjoy guys trying to come after us. Anybody who’s ready, come on.”
T.J. Ward on what the win does for the psyche of the team:
“It just lets you know the things we can do. We can come out firing early, and then come out and finish it firing late. We’ve won in a lot of ways this year—overtime, game-winning field goals, blocked field goals, strips, fumble recoveries—we’ve won in a lot of ways. I think when you get down to the playoffs, you’re going to need all those types of wins.”
DeMarcus Ware on stepping up in the second half:
“It feels really good. Especially from the last three games, we’ve played really well in the first half and then didn’t come out and finish in the second half. Now it was flipped a little bit. We didn’t play well in the first half. We came out and really wanted the second half and were able to finish the game.”
Ware on the changes at halftime:
“I think the changes that we made at halftime [were different] and then the heart of the guys. The guys really wanted to get out there and win. This was a big game for us. You can see how they really came out, played and made some big plays. It just felt great.”
