Manning on the momentum following his appearance:
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I can—sometimes those things are so easy to say after the fact because [RB] Ronnie [Hillman] made a good run and [RB] C.J. [Anderson] made a couple of good runs. I’m not sure that had much to do with me being in there. 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.”
Emotions are running high, the Broncos won the AFC West and the playoffs go through Denver, but we still have to find a way to look at this Broncos team objectively. And aside from “sparking” the offense, Manning didn’t really do anything.
Ronnie Hillman and C.J. Anderson are the ones who did something, and they did a lot.
As we’ve restated again and again, it doesn’t really matter who the quarterback is when the line isn’t blocking and the receivers aren’t catching. Manning, Osweiler, Siemian, nobody is going to succeed when they don’t get any help; just look at how Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady and Phillip Rivers have dropped off as their weapons have fallen to injury.
If the Broncos are going to succeed, it’s going to be because Hillman and Anderson start looking like the running backs we saw at the end of last season, and maybe because the Broncos get Michael Schofield off the field for good.
The one thing that Manning can do better than Osweiler, or anyone else, is read the defense and call the play that leads to a 17-yard (almost) touchdown run from Anderson.
