Game-day
Denver players arrived at the facility today knowing it was a mile-stone for some of the rookies, and even Vets. The first home game of the season. Many saw Denver's last outing when they took care of the Raiders, today, however, a much tougher opponent comes to town.
The game started off on a bad note for the Broncos, as the Chargers took to the ground game converting down after down vs a normally tough Denver defence, after running it all the way to the 20 yard line or so, San Diego hit the defence with a play action and
Rivers threw a nicely placed pass to
Antonio Gates on a beautifully ran corner route in the end-zone. Touchdown,
7-0 San Diego.
The first quarter was surprisingly dull, as normal, both teams feeling each other out and seeing what worked and what didn't. The Defence came through and stopped the San Diego offence with 1.40 to go in the first half, Cutler came onto the field with one thing on mind, get into the end zone. After marching down the field to around the 40 yard line in San Diego's half, the coaching staff noticed that the Safetys and linebackers were constantly coming down for the run, not read and react, just react. We took advantage of this and ran a bootleg,
Cutler taking the ball amidst a strong pass rush, threw a beauty to TE
Tony Scheffler, who got a great block from
Brandon Marshall and simply ran over a smaller DB, taking it 38 yards for the score.
7-7.
San Diego got the ball back half way through the second half, they once again took to
LT and let him pound the round, racking up yards and making people miss, nothing out of the ordinary. We was keeping him to average yardage for such a complete back, eventually our defence came through after they tried to run it on a 3rd down, and they was forced to kick the field goal.
10-7 San Diego.
Getting the ball back, with fire in his eyes,
Cutler knew what he had to do. Connecting on a simple hitch route to
Marshall, Marshall turned and made a person miss, taking it 35 yards, then an extra 5 yards with a person on his back. Beast! Taking a 5 yard pass into a 40 yard gain was only normal for the chemistry
Cutler and Marshall have, next play, connecting on a 19 yard post route. Beautiful! Sitting around the 45 yard line,
Smash Jackson went back to his routes and pounded the rock, all the way down until the 5 yard line, when
Cutler failed to convert on 3 attempts, we put faith into out run game and
Pittman ran one in on 4th down.
14-10 Denver.
With time still left,
Rivers looked to make things happen, 1.50 to go in the second quarter before half time,
Rivers threw a deep one looking for
Vincent Jackson, however, he over threw it and rookie free-safety
Glenn Anderson (
Glenn would have 2 picks today) picked it off and ran it back 20 yards. Now Denver, looking in good position at the 50 yard line, looked to make it 21-10,
Cutler went to work, hitting
Stokley one a slant for 15 yards and a hitch the next play for another 10 yards. We had lots of time left so we decided to run the clock out while moving up the field. Sitting around the 6 yard line we put faith into
Pittman, giving him '96 bounce Z left block', he bounced it outside the tackle and walked into the end zone for his second touchdown of the day.
21-10 Denver.
Getting the ball back in the second half, Denver looked to control the clock and put the game away. Marching down the field without any problems again,
Cutler looked on fire, hitting
Marshall once again on a 'go' pattern, for another 30 yard gain. The offence did however stall around the 26 yard line when
Cutler got sacked twice and couldn't convert the down, Denver had to settle for a FG.
24-10 Denver.
Don't count San Diego out yet, however, They came right back and
Phillips was throwing like a mad man, hitting pass after pass until the redzone, when they reached out redzone they stalled, they handed it off to
LT for the first time this drive and he got stopped 1 yard short. 3rd Quarter and 3 minutes to go, they decided to go for it and
LT got in for the 1 yard touchdown.
17-24 Denver.
No other scores happened in the 4th, but it was extremely exciting. With
2:00 to go in the Game,
Phillips marched them down to the 5 yard line, using no time outs and the Denver fans crying that it could go to over time, the last play of the game,
0:05 to go,
Phillips made the biggest mistake he could do, throwing it to
Champ Baileys side.
Champ had his receiver on lockdown and knocked the ball down on an attempted fade route. Denver come out with the
win 24-14!
Denver win 24-14
Notable performances:
J. Cutler 132.4 Rating, 1 TD, 0 INT, 257 yards, 16 Complete, 21 Attempts, 76% Completion rate
B. Marshall 4 Rec, 77 yards, 0 TD
J. Lynch (Game ball) 15 tackles, 2 TFL, 1 sack, 3 pass deflections, 1 force fumble. WOW!
J. Beason 8 tackles, 1 TFL (Commanded the middle)
Glenn Anderson (Rookie, FS) 8 tackles, 2 ints!!
DJ Williams 7 tackles, 3 TFL.