ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOW

Manning, Broncos Humble Pack in Blowout

So much for a perfect season. In convincing fashion the Peyton Manning-led Denver Broncos mopped the floor with the Green Bay Packers Sunday night before a very disappointed national television audience. The marquee matchup of the young season failed to materialize as Denver not only showed off what can only be now considered the best defense in the league but Manning also dispelled the notion he is weak of arm and at the end of the line.

Manning was nothing short of brilliant in outdueling Aaron Rodgers. The Packers offensive woes

continued and while there may not be cause for concern there is no disputing the fact the beatdown the Broncos D laid on the Pack raised a few eyebrows and opened a few more eyes to just how good Denver really is. Denver’s D is not just good. They’re very good. As in VERY good. Scary good. Good enough to now be in the talk of the best team in the NFL with the New England Patriots good.

And Green Bay, for the moment, is no longer in the discussion.  The Broncos took care of that in limiting Rodgers to a puny 77 yards passing. Now toss in the 3 sacks by the Broncos for a loss of 27 yards and Rodgers had in a game less than what he has in a typical pass – 50 yards. Now add in (a stretch to say that) the running game. Eddie Lacy and James Starks combined for the princely sum of 47 yards on 16 carries; Rodgers added another 31 yards on the ground but the damage is across the board.

There are few, if any, highlights to take away from this game. In fact perhaps the only Packer who will escape scrutiny as they now prep for another road trip to face an unbeaten opponent in Carolina next week is K Mason Crosby who boomed a 52 yard field goal with plenty to spare. So much for the highlight reel this week.

Injuries in the secondary aided Denver’s cause in the loss. Starting CB Sam Shields went out early with a shoulder injury as did rookie CB Quentin Rollins. The injuries forced Dom Capers to move Micah Hyde from the S slot back into to the nickel CB position and even seldom used Demetrius Goodson was on the field trying to slow down Manning and Demarious Thomas. Thomas had a huge game at the Pack’s expense and posted 8 catches. Thomas led all receivers by a wide margin and up to this point Denver’s passing attack consisted of Thomas, Emmanuel Sanders and Manning and not much more.

But Manning found a few new toys to play with by involving his TE’s as heavily as he has all year.

Owen Daniel and Virgil Green each had 3 catches good for a combined 105 yards. The expectation of Thomas and Sanders went by unrealized as Sanders was an afterthought with only 2 receptions for 22 yards. The Broncos weak sister running game shed the moniker as both C. J. Anderson and Ronnie Hillman literally exploded and had a huge day on the ground. Anderson had 101 yards on 14 carries with 1 TD will Hillman chipped in with another 60 yards on 19 carries and 2 TD’s. Whatever had been keeping the stallions in the stable was not evident and Denver ran over and threw around Green Bay’s very tired, very overmatched defense.

The Broncos threatened to run away and hide early as Manning helped stake them to a 17 – 0 lead, the first time all year the Pack had been down by 3 or more scores. Manning looked sharp and silenced, at least for a week, all the talk about his arm not being strong enough. He hit on quick hitters underneath and laid a few long ones over the top to Thomas. He was mid 00’s accurate. His line was more than capable yielding zero sacks. Manning did throw 1 pick to rookie Damarious Randall who laid out for his first career interception. While Manning did not have a TD toss he didn’t need to have one. The Broncos running game awoke at just the right time to find the end zone repeatedly.

The game started out pretty much according to the script drafted by Mike McCarthy. Win the toss, defer the kick, stop the other guy’s opening drive, and turn it over to Rodgers for a long, clock killing drive for another first period/ first possession score. It has been a wildly successful formula so much so the Green Bay has held the 84% of the time and been behind only 8% of the time thus far, figures that lead the NFL by a very wide margin. That stat held little relevance on Sunday. After stifling the Pack’s opening drive Denver and Manning went to work.

Dinks and dunks. Quick hitters. A rejuvenated running game finding holes that hadn’t existed before

this year. The Packers could not generate a pass rush of enough merit to test Manning’s ability to escape. Denver’s offensive line was the biggest winner of the night and vastly outplayed Rodgers’ protectors. The Broncos struck first on Hillman’s short plunge after Denver ran the ball down the Packers defense’s throat to set up the score.

After holding Green bay to a 5 play/ 17 yard next series Manning set up the next score with a bomb to Thomas to the Packer 2 yard line. Denver then pushed the lead out to 17 – 0 and the rout was on. But Rodgers is still Rodgers. He followed by engineering a long 10 play/ 80 yard drive that mixed the run and passing game well and for one drive the Packers looked like the Packers. Green Bay threatened to make a game of it when they closed to 17 – 10 but that was it. The guns had been fired and it just simply wasn’t enough.

On this night the opponent was irrelevant; Denver was going to beat whomever they would have played. Manning looked sharp, rested, and young again. Rodgers looked anything but. Mike McCarthy summed it up best after the game when he pointedly said “I haven’t had my ass kicked like that in a long time.” Harsh words but they are spot on. Under McCarthy’s stewardship the Packers are one of the few teams that don’t suffer an embarrassing defeat as a staple of their regular diet. Rodgers added “We need to play better.”

The Packers are a far better team than the team that was on the field Sunday night. In all reality every team will lose somewhere along the way. Now the Pack has to show some grit and resolve in their bounce back game upcoming against the unbeaten Carolina Panthers next week. While the loss was humbling it was far from devastating. It certainly made the NFC North race more compelling; don’t look now but the vastly improved Minnesota Vikings are only 1 game behind Green Bay ‘s 6 – 1 at 5 – 2 making their first meeting in 3 weeks a bigger date on the calendar. It is so big the NFL flexed their option to move the game to the prime time 4:25 EST slot.

Green Bay’s loss to Denver should be taken as a good wake up call. In their first big test of the

season the Pack failed miserably. But the loss doesn’t derail them at all. The coming matchups with Carolina next week and Minnesota in 3 weeks are of a far greater value with stronger playoff implications. The formula is rather simple. Beat Carolina and Green Bay takes the upper hand on the valued home field advantage in the playoffs. Lose the game and all bets are off, especially with the Vikings now breathing down their necks.

After the beatdown the Pack will need to look at several components that let them down. The pass rush that was expected to make Manning’s life miserable never materialized. Green Bay’s offensive line did not open the holes for Eddie Lacy and didn’t give Rodgers enough time to find a receiver. The receivers literally played the game with the Bronco secondary playing inside their jerseys. Lacy and Starks need to get untracked. The receivers have to find the separation they lacked in Denver. Randall Cobb has become the focal point of defenses now and the remaining pass catchers will have to somehow find a way to pick up the slack.

The offense has been out of sync for the better part of a month and the defense has carried them. There was a bit of good news when it was revealed CB Sam Shields did not sustain a major injury to the shoulder the knocked him out of Sunday night’s contest. Morgan Burnett is back. While Clay Matthews also rolled an ankle he should be able to go.

More than the loss how Green Bay plays in the next one against the red hot Panthers and Cam

Newton will be a good indicator of what this team is made of. At 6 – 1 the season is far from over and by the time January hits this game will be all but forgotten. Now the Pack has a week to right the ship and given McCarthy’s caustic response in his post-game press conference it’s a safe bet there won’t be much huggy, lovey, touchy feely going on in practice this week. Rodgers sounded more ticked off by his performance as well.

Will that translate into a better performance? The Packers have less than a week to prove it.