Broncos coach says loss holds plenty of lessons

By ARNIE STAPLETON
AP Sports Writer

ENGLEWOOD, Colo.(AP) — Now, that’s how most of their fans feared
the Denver Broncos would play this season: dominated on defense,
overpowered on offense, squelched on special teams.

It took two months for it to happen.

So rookie coach Josh McDaniels has some fixing to do as the
Broncos (6-1) try to bounce back from their beatdown in
Baltimore, and they’ll have to do it without one of their best
offensive linemen.

McDaniels said right tackle Ryan Harris won’t play against
Pittsburgh next week after sustaining a toe injury in the
Broncos’ 30-7 loss at Baltimore.

Harris, a third-year pro from Notre Dame, has started 22
consecutive games for one of the league’s best offensive lines.
He was replaced in the first half Sunday by second-year pro
Tyler Polumbus, who is in line to make his first NFL start
against the Steelers next Monday night.

Polumbus, an undrafted second-year pro from the University of
Colorado, also spelled Harris in Week 3 when he went out with a
shoulder injury in the second half against Oakland.

“Tyler went in and did a decent job, hung in there. Again,
they’ve got some really good pass-rushers off the edge. He was
matched up on (Ravens linebacker Terrell) Suggs on more than a
few plays and handled the bull rush and speed rushers and those
kinds of things,” McDaniels said.

“But Tyler’s been in this system as long as anybody else has
this year, so he’s familiar with what we’re doing. We always
give him plenty of reps in practice. He handled himself well in
the preseason. We’ll expect him to go in there and play well.”

And he expects the rest of the Broncos to play a whole lot
better than in Baltimore, where they were outscored 24-7 after
halftime, gave up a touchdown on special teams for the second
straight week, and couldn’t move the ball much, resulting in
eight punts for newly signed Mitch Berger.

“You always hear players say, ’We’ll have to look at the film,’
but most of us know where we messed up,” safety Brian Dawkins
said. “Now, we just go back to practice and work on correcting
our mistakes. I’ve lost games before. Everyone on this team has
lost before. The goal is to learn from this game and move
forward.”

McDaniels pointed the finger of blame at everybody, from coaches
to players – starting with the man in the mirror.

“They were coached better, played better, more physical, played
faster basically in every area of the game. And we certainly
didn’t do nearly enough in any phase to win the game,” McDaniels
said.

McDaniels was noticeably subdued Monday following the first loss
of his head coaching career.

“I think we always learn things that we need to do better no
matter if we win or lose,” he said. “… I think that obviously
losing a game really makes the mistakes that much more glaring
and the need to fix things more urgent.”

Slow starters all season, the Broncos felt pretty good about
themselves trailing just 6-0 at halftime. After all, they had
outscored their opponents 76-10 after the break.

But Lardarius Webb returned the second-half kickoff for a
touchdown and after that, the Broncos did little right and
nothing well.

“Our plan didn’t come together as we thought it would,”
McDaniels said.

Even with more fast, physical defenses on the horizon, McDaniels
said he won’t be tempted to change his offensive approach, which
has been described by outsiders as only slightly less
conservative than Fox commentator Sean Hannity.

“Nope, I mean I’ve game-planned a lot of years against a lot of
good defenses and we need to have a good plan each week that
certainly gives your team the best chance to win, and then we
need to get our players to execute that plan … better,”
McDaniels said.

“If we have a good plan and we execute it, then we win. And if
we have a bad plan or we don’t execute a good one – it doesn’t
really make any difference – the other team’s going to usually
come out with an advantage.”

So, was the blowout in Baltimore a case of an inadequate game
plan or poor execution?

“It’s both,” McDaniels said.

The more pertinent questions are whether the Ravens exposed the
Broncos’ warts and provided a blueprint on how to defeat Denver
and its brash young coach. Other teams will watch the film and
gather clues, so McDaniels knows the mistakes have to be fixed
fast.

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