Broncos Are Now Complete Team with Addition of Dominant Defense, Running Game

Peyton Manning broke the record for most career touchdowns passes Sunday night against the San Francisco 49ers. He’s an all-time great, but we already knew that. The record was as inevitable as Manning throwing touchdown passes on an NFL Sunday.    

What isn’t inevitable is a Super Bowl victory for the Denver Broncos. After all, Manning has just one in his illustrious career. If he’s going to win another one, he is going to need a complete team around him.

No matter how great Manning is, he’ll need help from the running game and the defense to hoist another Vince Lombardi Trophy. Overshadowed by Manning’s individual accomplishment was the fact that he got that help Sunday night.

“Great team effort,” head coach John Fox told his team after the game, via DenverBroncos.com. “That’s our best to date.”

The pass rush was fierce—totaling six sacks. The running game was efficient—averaging collectively over five yards per carry if you don’t include four rushes by Manning and Brock Osweiler. Throw in an interception and two rushing touchdowns and you have all the help Manning is ever going to need to win a game.

“Obviously a special night,” Manning said after receiving the game ball from Fox via DenverBroncos.com. “It’s only special because of the way we played on both sides of the ball. That was a great team win tonight. Let’s keep it going.”

It took seven weeks and six games, but the Broncos are once again the No. 1 offense in football with 32.3 points scored per game. The passing game is obviously the main reason for the scoring, but the run game still serves a valuable purpose. The Broncos need to be able to milk the clock once they build a big lead or take advantage of soft boxes when opposing defenses try to use an extra defender in coverage.

Stats	Ronnie Hillman	Juwan Thompson	Montee Ball	C.J. Anderson
Carries	55	17	55	13
Yards	240	83	172	64
Yards/Carry	4.5	4.9	3.1	4.9
Touchdowns	2	1	1	0

Running back Ronnie Hillman has seized control of the job after an injury put starter Montee Ball on the sideline. Hillman has rushed for 238 yards in the past three games on 53 carries for an average of 4.5 yards per carry. He’s successfully used his speed to exploit big running lanes created by the solid blocking of his offensive line.

“Guys up front did a good job,” Manning told the media after the game, via DenverBroncos.com. “I thought we ran the ball well, that opened up a lot of things in the passing game.”

On Sunday, Hillman had the longest rush of his career of 37 yards and two touchdowns, which doubled his career touchdown total. After two seasons as a backup, Hillman is playing as the Broncos envisioned when they selected him in the third round of the 2012 NFL draft. Hillman has finally brought the kind of efficiency and effectiveness the Broncos had been looking to get from Ball.

Juwan Thompson has been nearly as effective as Hillman when given the opportunity. He gives the Broncos another runner to help grind time off the clock when they have the lead. Both Thompson and Hillman averaged over five yards per carry against the 49ers even though it was clear early on that the Broncos would be running a lot in the second half.

The running game did most of the work preserving and extending the lead in the second half. A sack by defensive lineman Malik Jackson on 3rd-and-11 gave the Broncos the ball back before Hillman’s 37-yard touchdown scamper in the third quarter.

Up 35-10, the Broncos forced yet another three-and-out before Hillman and Thompson carried the Broncos most of the 73 yards they needed to score again. Hillman scored from a yard out to extend the lead to 42-10.

The running game did what it needed to do when they got the ball, but they can thank the defense for the opportunities. Manning and the passing offense also benefited from the play of the defense. Six sacks, multiple three-and-outs, an interception and a long missed field goal were all the result of the play of the defense.

Turnovers	1
Sacks	6
Rush Yards Allowed	62
Third-Down Conversion Percentage	23%
Red Zone Scoring Percentage	33%
Three-and-Outs	5

Three of the team’s six sacks came in the first half, so it wasn’t just the Broncos teeing off with a big lead. Defensive end DeMarcus Ware had two sacks and one by linebacker Von Miller in the first half and the duo would finish with five combined sacks. Miller now leads the league with eight sacks and Ware is tied for second with seven sacks.

In order for the pass rush to have a chance, the Broncos had to do a good job of stopping the run early. The 49ers are a team that predicates a lot of their offense off the running game, but they not only fell behind early, they couldn’t get the run game going at all. Frank Gore rushed seven times for just 16 yards in the first half and finished with nine carries for 20 yards.

The defense and running game slammed the door shut on any comeback attempt. The Broncos haven’t been able to do that in the past. Cornerback Aqib Talib even intercepted Colin Kaepernick at the start of the third quarter after the Broncos went three-and-out to set up touchdown pass No. 510 for Manning.

For the first time this season, the Broncos were a complete team. The rushing offense and defense contributed to the normally outstanding passing offense orchestrated by the maestro Manning. While the individual achievement for Manning was great, the complete team win is what the Broncos need to achieve their ultimate goal of winning a Super Bowl this February.