Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning (18) before the game between the Denver Broncos and the Oakland Raiders at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. “He just really was unblockable most of the day”. The loss isn’t all on Osweiler, but nearly immediately, there were grumblings about the quarterback position in Denver.
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Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio has been praised by his players this season.
“I think his understanding of how to finish”, Del Rio said of Mack’s biggest area of recent improvement. “I knew he was awesome”.
In roughly 17 quarters, Osweiler has been sacked 17 times, including once for a safety Sunday.
With both snappers out and his team leading by three points at the time, Del Rio opted to go for a two-point conversion that failed.
The Broncos were able to open up Kubiak’s entire playbook with Osweiler under center, including play-action passes, bootlegs, sprint-outs and rollouts, and heavier use of the tight ends as targets. We’ve got confidence in those guys. Well after his encounter with Denver defensive back Aqib Talib he still needs about 80 yards, because he left the game without a catch.
“That’s the next step is that he’s coming back to practice”.
The frustrations boiled over in the locker room after Denver’s 15-12 loss to Oakland when Harris, who held Amari Cooper without a catch, fumed, “I’m hot”.
For that to not happen, the Broncos need other teams in the mix – the Patriots, Bengals, Chiefs, Jets and Steelers – to lose some games. “Defensive-wise, we played great”.
The Broncos are 3-1 in Osweiler’s starts and 7-2 when Manning starts, although Denver has struggled to find the end zone no matter who’s taking the snaps.
However, Kubiak said he wants to see Manning practice first before evaluating his readiness for a game. “Just because your brother isn’t doing so well that doesn’t mean you have the right to get on him. I don’t mind frustrations at all as a coach because we work hard at what we do, but you get over those really quick and you go to the next week and that’s what we’ll do”.
“We’ll have a plan in place by the time we get to Wednesday”, Kubiak said.
Denver’s eight-game winning streak over the Raiders ended despite allowing just 126 yards of offense, including 27 yards on 24 rushes.
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“I wasn’t making the right reads at times”.
