Denver Broncos 27, San Diego Chargers 20
The regular season finale had a lot riding on it. The Denver Broncos could win and get the first seed in the playoffs accompanied by a bye week or they could lose to the 4-11 San Diego Chargers, lose the AFC West and have to play in the Wild Card round. At times in Sunday’s contest either scenario looked likely.
The Broncos dominated every part of the game except two areas. Five Broncos turnovers led to a tight ball game that was 7-6 at halftime, then saw four lead changes in the second half.
Brock Osweiler started the contest and threw for 232 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions. He also was involved in three of the five turnovers. The Broncos ran for a respectable 65 yards in the first half and outgained the Chargers 279-93 but could not avoid costly mistakes. Those mistakes, two interceptions and fumbles by Osweiler, Emmanuel Sanders and C.J. Anderson led to Peyton Manning return following their first drive of the second half.
The Broncos defense held the Chargers to short throws and a fairly ineffective rushing attack through two quarters despite the unfavorable field position. They held the visitors to only ten points off turnovers and sacked Phillip Rivers three times. One of those scores was an Antonio Gates touchdown with 8:27 left in the third quarter that gave the Chargers their first lead of the game, 13-7.
Then Manning made his return. He led six drives, scoring on four of them and running out the clock on the last one. He only completed 5-of-9 passes but turned the game around when it was nearly lost. A 80-yard bomb by the Chargers again gave them a a brief 20-17 lead but the Broncos rallied at every turn.
When all was said and done, the Broncos had outgained the Chargers 503-310 but only escaped the season finale in front of 76,601 thrilled fans by one touchdown. It came on the legs of Ronnie Hillman with 4:44 to go, just a play after safety Shiloh Keo intercepted Rivers.
Here’s a look at the best-of-the-best from the top-seed clinching victory.
Best Quotes
Gary Kubiak on the decision to change quarterbacks in the third quarter:
“Sometimes you just – the feel is that the team is looking around for that guy or that tremendous leadership type of stuff. That’s what I felt. I know Peyton – the last couple weeks have been real good weeks. I knew he was ready to go. I don’t think Brock did anything wrong. I mean, yeah, we had some turnovers, but a couple of them definitely he had nothing to do with. We could have helped him a lot. Just my gut told me to turn it over to him and let him lead the football team.”
Peyton Manning on his impact on the game and how the second half played out:
“I don’t know. I can’t make it any bigger than some people may make it. I think it was just kind of a tale of two halves, in simplistic terms. We turned it over four or five times in the first half. There were some tipped balls and bad breaks. In the second half, after the first series, that didn’t happen. I think just the execution and maybe the football gods smiled upon us a little more in the second half than the first half.”
Von Miller on not settling for a AFC West title:
“Let’s keep going. Let’s keep going. We’ve got three games? Let’s knock these games out. Let’s put all the energy and effort into these coming up weeks. That’s what it’s about. We’ve worked hard to get to this point where we’re at, and we’ve just got to finish now.”
Derek Wolfe on the team victory and the road ahead:
“I got a lot of love for this team. I’m going to play my [tail] off for this team no matter what. At times tonight we didn’t play our best. We have to change that around. We have to make sure we play our best in the playoffs. We are going to strive to play our best in the playoffs. This rest week is going to help a ton. You saw what happened when we had the rest before Green Bay.”
Best plays
With a 20-20 game and less than half of the fourth quarter to play, the Broncos had placed themselves in a precarious position. They had allowed the Chargers to hang around due to five turnovers on offense. The defense had battled and admirably, giving up just 10 points on those turnovers but couldn’t force one themselves until third-string safety Shiloh Keo came up big.
“I was just in the middle of the field,” said Keo, “trying to keep everything in front of me and just let the rush do its job. We have some of the best in the league and they put some pressure on [Rivers] and it forced him to float the ball a little bit. I just took advantage of the opportunity and just squeezed that ball and it led to a touchdown.”
The play immediately turned the game around, giving the Broncos a short field to try and retake the lead. They did so in just one play. Manning handed the ball to Hillman and he did the rest.
“It was just a call that I just so happened to hit and it was a perfect call for what they were doing,” Hillman said. “They shifted the line to the left and we ran right, and we scored. It felt good to know that we went up, now we had to rely on the defense and they did their thing obviously like they do week in and week out, and we came up with the win.”
The run gave the Broncos the lead they needed to seal the victory and displayed the one-two punch of Hillman and Anderson once again. They were the only constant throughout the game for the offense.
Honorable mention: Demaryius Thomas started the game off with a bang. On the second play from scrimmage he took an eight-yard curl route and turned it into a touchdown. He took the ball up the west sideline and made two defenders miss before cutting back toward the middle of the field. His 72-yard touchdown tied for the team’s second-longest of the season and gave him his 32nd 100-yard receiving game, the most in Broncos history. Those were the only points the Broncos would score in the half and turned out to be the point difference when the game concluded.
“I thought we were going to put up a lot of points after that play, the cornerback could’ve made a tackle but really didn’t,” Thomas said postgame. “I went down to score. I went down and made a big play. We could’ve scored again but had a turnover so I thought it was going to be 28-3 at halftime. It could’ve been that way but we fought through it and got the win.”
MVP
The Broncos once again showed grit and needed a total team effort, including both quarterbacks, to get the job done, but two players in particular were solid throughout the contest. Hillman and Anderson combined for 212 yards on 15 carries apiece for just over seven yards a touch while scoring two huge touchdowns.
“We are incredibly lucky to have both of them and just can’t say enough about them today, especially with their running. We feel really good about our team right now,” tackle Ryan Harris said of the two after the game.
Anderson did have the lone turnover of the second half and upset him due to his progress up to that point saying, “I was pissed. I was just mad. You might see a difference, but I was just mad. I thought that I ran hard all game, but when that happens – just like in Cincinnati last week – I was just pissed off and mad at myself.” Despite the fumble, Kubiak continued to use both dynamic backs and their consistent presence helped keep the Chargers off-balance. Even in the first half they had good numbers, rushing 12 times for 65 yards and an average of 5.4 per carry. The Broncos stuck with the run in the second half to help Manning, rushing an additional 18 times.
“When are run is blocked up right, that’s when we can get the long runs. We both had some nice runs today so luckily we were both in for those runs,” Hillman said afterwards. Still, he is not satisfied. “I think that we can still run the ball more and be more effective in that way but we ran the ball great today and C.J. [Anderson] came in and ran the ball well. I think we just had some great looks today.”
Honorable mention: Manning certainly added a spark to the team when he came in with just over eight minutes to play in the third quarter. The Broncos also stopped turning the ball over when he went in. Regardless, he led four scoring drives after the Broncos mustered just one previously. Thomas discussed the signal caller’s impact after the win saying, “He told us to go out and put some points on the board and that’s what we did. He told everyone to calm down. He came in and was the leader that he is. Everybody did their job, we didn’t turn the ball over, we didn’t get many penalties and the main thing was going down, calming down, going down and putting some points on the board. I think our first three drives we put 13 points on the board.”
Defensive MVP
The Broncos had several contributors on defense Sunday. Outside of the an 80-yard touchdown pass from Rivers to Tyrell Williams, they were outstanding. The allowed just 25 yards in the second quarter before relinquishing 317 total on the day. Danny Trevathan once again was the versatile piece that held the team together. With injuries at every level of the defense, including Marshall at linebacker, Trevathan grabbed 10 tackles in the contest, one for a loss. He patrolled the middle of the field and even behind the line of scrimmage, tackling the often used Danny Woodhead (13 total touches) and Donald Brown (23 total touches) nine times. Rivers’ running backs were often his only option with the Broncos heavy pass rush and Trevathan kept them in check most of the game.
“We never give up and we always thing that as play is going to come our way. I know it came kind of late but it came at the right time for us. We were playing the whole game, playing our hearts out,” Trevathan said from his locker. “When you are playing good, got good vibes and you got a great defense that flies around and loves it, good things are going to happen.”
Honorable mention: Derek Wolfe has been having a fantastic season and continued the trend Sunday. He along with Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware added a sack to their resumes Sunday. Wolfe also disrupted the run as he is known to do. He had three tackles on the day, one for a loss, and is peaking at just the right time.
Best statistics
Maybe the best statistic of the game stems from the worst. The Broncos finished the game minus-four in the turnover battle and as Kubiak said to the team following the win, 35 times in the NFL this season teams have finished the game minus-four and all of them lost the contests. Sunday the Broncos did not.
“You’ve turned the ball over five times – statistically, you’re supposed to lose the game. We overcame a lot of adversity today. It just shows how strong of a team we’ve got, but going down the road, we can’t make those same mistakes. Hopefully we’ve got them all out of the way,” Emmanuel Sanders said Sunday.
A defensive player remained calm at halftime despite the turnovers due to the fact that the Broncos were moving the ball well on offense in the first half, totaling 279 yards.
“Cool as a fan, man. We were cool as a fan. It wasn’t like we were losing or anything,” Aqib Talib said of the atmosphere in the locker room at halftime. “We just knew they couldn’t stop our offense they just kept turning it over. 10-yard run, turnover. Wide open receiver, dropped ball, turnover. Emmanuel Sanders, 70-yard catch and run, turnover. It wasn’t like they were stopping us, we knew we just had to settle down and make the plays that presented themselves.”
The offense turned it around in the second half, led by Manning. They scored 20 points in quarters three and four, finishing the day with 503 total yards. Manning was quick to point out why they were successful in the second half as opposed to the first in his comments after the game.
“I’m not sure that had much to do with me being in there,” Manning said. “I think just that the execution was better in the second half. Up front, they gave some bigger holes to run the ball. I can’t say – I can’t take credit for having a really good handoff. Like I’m helping those guys hold onto the ball. I refuse to do that.”
The Broncos defense held up under the immense pressure the turnovers placed on them. They gave up only two field goals in the first half and held the Chargers to only one play of over 20 yards Sunday. The top-ranked defense has become accustomed to tough situations and coming out on top.
“We don’t even really think about that, its just when it is time for us to go play, we go play,” Wolfe said in reference to the turnovers.”We’re excited to go play. We turn a negative into a positive and its our chance to go out and show why we are the best.”
Despite playing the Chargers offense on short fields after Broncos fumbles and interceptions, the defense only allowed the opponents in the red zone once. They also stopped the Chargers on both of their fourth down attempts and held them to only 6-of-18 on third downs. The Broncos win also helped the defense to the NFL’s top-ranked defense in total yards allowed (283.1 per game), pass defense (199.6 per game), sacks (52) and finished third in rushing defense (83.6 yards per game).
Up next
The Broncos were given a gift before they kicked off Sunday. The New England Patriots lost to the Miami Dolphins in their regular season finale, leaving the door open for the top seed. The Broncos just had to win to clinch that spot and many of the players were watching that game prior to meeting the Chargers. When asked if they were able to watch the Patriots Sunday, former Patriot Aqib Talib said, “All of it, every second, every second we could.”
The Broncos thrilling 27-20 victory clinched their fifth-consecutive AFC West title even with the Kansas City Chiefs winning their ninth-straight game and earned them a bye while also guaranteeing them home-field throughout the AFC playoffs. The Broncos and the Patriots will have an off week to watch the Chiefs face the Houston Texans and the Cincinnati Bengals take on the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Wild Card games.
In the NFC, the Carolina Panthers clinched a bye and top seed more than a week ago and the Arizona Cardinals also will get a week’s rest despite a 36-6 loss to the Seattle Seahawks Sunday. The Seahawks will face the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers will take on the Washington Redskins.
The highest remaining seed (Broncos in the AFC) will face the lowest remaining seed in the divisional round.
The Broncos main focus this week will be the health of their team. Darian Stewart, Brandon Marshall and Louis Vasquez all left the game at times and several others are nursing injuries as well. The main attraction for fans and the national media will obviously be the quarterback controversy, but the they will take time to evaluate the game film before announcing a starter.
“That is something that has not been discussed. I’m sure [Head] Coach [Gary] Kubiak will look at things over the next couple days,” Osweiler said after the win. “My belief is whether I’m the starter, whether I’m the backup, I’m going to show up the same exact way. I’m going to prepare the same exact way and I’ll always be ready to go.”
Sunday’s opposing quarterback, Rivers maybe summarized the now awkward situation for both quarterbacks after he lost to the Broncos.
“So yeah, did [Manning] give them a spark? Sure. The place obviously went crazy, but Brock’s put in a tough spot. He’s done a heck of a job getting them here. Brock’s done a heck of a job. I hate it for Brock in this position. I know it’s awkward for him, but I was happy to see Peyton back out there playing. I didn’t want to see Peyton go out that way either.”
Email Sam at sam@milehighsports.com and follow him on Twitter @SamCowhick.