Broncos vs. Rams: Score and Twitter Reaction from 2014 Regular Season

When Jeff Fisher benched 25-year-old Austin Davis for veteran Shaun Hill, it seemed like an oddly timed shuffling of the deck chairs for a 3-6 football team. It appears Fisher knew what he was doing. 

Hill threw for 220 yards, Greg Zuerlein kicked five field goals and the St. Louis defense halted a depleted Denver Broncos offense in their 22-7 victory over Peyton Manning and co. on Sunday at the Edward Jones Dome.   

The Broncos lost Julius Thomas, Emmanuel Sanders and Montee Ball due to injuries. Left with little in the way of a supporting cast, Manning struggled to make plays downfield and the St. Louis pass rush generated consistent pressure. Manning finished with 389 yards, but most of those came on plays where he was doing exactly what the Rams defense schemed.

The game proved a stark contrast to the week before for both teams. Denver, coming off a thrashing of lowly Oakland, seemed well on its way to another easy win against another last-place team. St. Louis, coming off a 31-14 loss to Arizona, looked rudderless and totally out of options. Even Fisher seemed generally resigned to stopping the Broncos' prolific offense. 

"It’s like playing a computer," Fisher told reporters of Manning. "That’s what he is. He runs that offense. He’s going to put them in the best possible position. He’s nearly impossible to fool and is hard to get down."

Manning's task was made more difficult when his weapons started dropping like flies. As the team reported, Thomas injured his ankle in the first half and did not return.

Ball, who was back for the first time since Oct. 5, re-injured his groin within his first handful of snaps. Sanders had five receptions for 102 yards and a touchdown before taking a scary hit from Rams defensive back Rodney McLeod and leaving with a concussion.

Left without his top options, Manning struggled. He threw two second-half interceptions and was sacked twice as he waited for receivers to get open downfield. Running back C.J. Anderson finished with a team-high eight receptions for 86 yards as he became Manning's go-to dump-off receiver as pressure barreled in from Robert Quinn and Aaron Donald.

Tom Gannam/Associated Press

The Rams defense has recorded 13 sacks over the last three weeks after notching only six in their first seven games. Viewed as one of the best units in football coming into 2014, St. Louis is finally rounding into form for the season's second half.

While it's unlikely to result in a playoff berth, the Rams looked far improved on both sides of the ball. Hill, who started Week 1, but lost his job to Davis after being injured, completed 20 of 29 passes for 220 yards and a touchdown. The veteran hit Kenny Britt over the top for a 63-yard score in the first quarter, helping the Rams build an early 13-0 lead.

“It’s never an easy decision when you make a change in the middle part of the season,” Fisher told reporters of the switch to Hill. “As I told the team today in front of Austin, I appreciated Austin, his work ethic, and his poise and his dedication. The tireless effort he put in to prepare himself.”

Britt set a season high with four receptions for 128 yards. The former Tennessee Titan hadn't had more than 69 yards receiving in his first nine games this year.

Charlie Riedel/Associated Press

Rookie Tre Mason also turned in the finest game of his Rams career, rushing for 113 yards on 29 carries for his first 100-yard game. The former Auburn star has clearly moved ahead of Benny Cunningham and Zac Stacy in the St. Louis hierarchy. Despite inklings of a three-way split, Mason has received a majority of the work for five straight weeks.

"He's an explosive back, obviously a guy that you watched last year in college football make a lot of plays, and watching him on film this year, he's the same type of back," Denver defensive tackle Terrance Knighton told Andrew Mason of the Broncos' official site. "He's explosive, you know he runs hard. He's a cutback runner, he finds the holes."

The Denver ground game spent most of the day in nonexistence. Anderson carried the ball nine times for 29 yards. The Broncos largely abandoned the rushing game as they fell behind, with Manning topping 50 pass attempts for the second time in three weeks.

Not coincidentally, both of those high-attempt games were Denver losses. At 7-3, the Broncos' grip on a first-round bye has become tenuous. The division rival Kansas City Chiefs moved to 7-3 with their fifth straight victory Sunday, taking down the Seattle Seahawks at Arrowhead.

Denver currently holds the tiebreaker, but has a far more difficult Week 12 game than its counterparts. The Broncos host the Miami Dolphins, while Kansas City travels to Oakland. The two teams meet for their second game of 2014 in Week 13.

With the Broncos struggling and missing key components of their offense, they'll need to hit the drawing board fast or risk not hosting any playoff games.

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