Manning resumed throwing last week on his own under the watchful eyes of the strength and conditioning staff. But he has yet to practice with the team since having his hard cast removed and ditching his walking boot two weeks ago.
Advertisement
Manning has been sidelined for a month with a left foot injury. “I think that helps”, coach Jack Del Rio said. Demaryius Thomas leads all Broncos receivers with 88 receptions for 1,067 yards and three touchdowns.
Yesterday, we wrote about a bit of haze over who will start at quarterback this Sunday for the Denver Broncos. “He can go out there and he has the ability to get around guys or go through them”.
There is a chance – not a certainty, but a chance – Manning will start one of the Broncos’ final two games – either Monday night, December 28 against the Cincinnati Bengals, or January 3 against the San Diego Chargers.
In the worst performance of his career, Manning completed five-of-20 passes with four interceptions in a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on November 15.
Manning may have his health back, but expect Kubiak to continue to start Osweiler as he has given the Broncos more balance and effectiveness on offense than they had with Manning.
“I believe it’s the quarterback’s job, no matter how the day is going, to get his team in the end zone”, Osweiler said.
Stepping strongly into his throws, Manning threw tight spirals without any apparent difficulty or pain during the brief media viewing period Wednesday.
The Rams disagreed with an offensive holding call on Cody Davis that wiped out Tavon Austin’s 83-yard punt return for a touchdown. “I thought last Thursday was one of our better practices of the year, so I thought we created momentum in that practice for what we saw” Sunday.
“You just can’t go out there and say, “Well, the defense did good”, said Jackson. Everybody was excited to see him back. And at the same time, he was among the best OLBs in pass-coverage as well.
Right or wrong, a decision to put Osweiler back on the bench would leave a lot of fans bitter and likely harping every single poor throw Manning would make from there on out. “That was very beneficial to us because we were allowed to sit back in coverage and allow our front four or front five to go and rush the quarterback”. I never quite jumped on the Osweiler bandwagon the way the rest of the country did and a loss at home to the Raiders raised red flags. It’s another football game against a great opponent on the road. Raider wide out M. Crabtree (who just got paid) didn’t fair much better against corner Chris Harris Jr.
“Whatever happens in the future happens in the future”, Osweiler added. That’s out of my control.
Manning isn’t the same player he was during his Colts tenure, or even during the Broncos’ 2013 Super Bowl campaign, when he was at the helm of one of the NFL’s all-time most productive offenses. Some of the Steelers took it as a dig at Ben Roethlisberger, but Sanders insists that wasn’t the case.
Advertisement
With no setbacks, Manning was cleared for additional work this Wednesday. “And that’s all I was saying”.
