After a wacky wild card weekend, the Broncos finally know they’ll be lined up against the Pittsburgh Steelers come Sunday afternoon. “Yeah, I was sitting there watching it and I was thinking about the Chiefs for a while and then I’d think about the other team,” Gary Kubiak said after practice. “It went all the way to the end, but that’s NFL playoff football. It’s amazing. You go back and look at the games. First off, not a home team won a game, so that tells you it’s not about where you play, it’s how you play. They’ve been exceptional. I know they’ve won a lot of road games this year and they’ve found a way to win close games. Ben (Roethlisberger) gets them in position to win. Very impressed with them, but we understand that and we’ll have to play as good as we can play. Looking forward to it.”
QB experience proved vital for the winning teams in wild card weekend and the Broncos are starting a player with 11 career playoff wins in 24 games in Peyton Manning, but the decision to start Manning didn’t have anything to do with his resume per Kubiak. “No, that had nothing—it was about his health and how I thought he was playing and preparing and where he’s at right now. Strictly that.”
Kubiak did mention the value experience can have for a team. “I don’t know. I think experience is good from just a team standpoint. The games are a little bit different this time of year. To me, they really speed up. Obviously the emphasis on any given play is just so big. One of the things that stood out to me this weekend—not a lot of offense. When you watch—there was one game where there wasn’t even 400 yards of offense between two teams. A lot of great defensive football teams in the tournament right now, so to speak. You’ve got to play well, you’ve got to protect the ball and you’ve got to do all the little things if you expect to win this time of year.”
The status for Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger is still unknown as he suffered a shoulder injury in Saturday’s crazy win, but the Broncos will certainly have the upper hand with experience if the two time Super Bowl winning QB can’t go. Kubiak will be preparing for the Steelers, not just one player. “We’re preparing for their team. I think they were what, second or third in offense? They’re very good. You’ve got a lot of great players. We’re preparing for the group. We expect everybody to be there, but we’re preparing to play the Steelers.”
The Broncos will be off Tuesday before returning to work on Wednesday to continue preparations for the Steelers.
