The Denver Broncos played in their third coldest game in franchise history Monday night against the Cincinnati Bengals; just as the playoff picture is heating up.
The Mile High crew was outshined in the first half by the Bengals, with a 204-89 yards difference in the first half. Denver’s defense did not have an answer for the young quarterback A.J. McCarron. McCarron was able to find gaps in the Denver secondary and exploit their mistakes to jump out at a 17-3 halftime lead. Denver came into Monday’s game in control of their own destiny and knew they needed a solid win to keep one game ahead of the surging Kansas City Chiefs; that’s exactly what they got.
The second half was a completely different story for the orange and blue. Broncos quarterback Brock Osweiler was given more freedom in the latter stages of the contest and shined bright. put it best. Kubiak said it best.
“I got one thing to say — how ’bout that ****ing second half? How ’bout that ****ing second half,” said the head coach in the locker room.
The head coach was slightly more subdued when he met with the media later.
“You know what, the first half, defensively, we really struggled,” Kubiak said. “Cincinnati played lights out. It was a little bit like the Pittsburgh game we were in last week, but with the shoe on the other foot. I think the drive right before the half was positive for us, but we talked at halftime. ‘Hey, we’ve had some struggles in the second half. It’s time to play the best second half we’ve played all year,’ and we did that tonight.”
The first-year Broncos headman also went on to praise his team for the effort they put out.
“I am so very proud of our guys, how we battled,” he explained. “We’ve really found some explosion as a football team at times here in the last couple weeks, and we’ll stay positive and see if we can find it for four quarters, but I am very proud of our team.”
Kubiak was also asked about the halftime adjustments.
“Well, we had no possessions in the first half, so we had to do something,” he told. “Let’s go to the two minute, Brock will handle them.”
As pleased as he was with Osweiler’s poise down the stretch, the coach was just as enamored with the way Osweiler handled that lack of possessions.
“That’s extremely impressive, but it’s also extremely impressive in the first half not to have the football at all and keep your poise,” he explained. “You know, a lot of guys get frustrated and do something wrong, he just hung in there. He makes a big play to Emmanuel Sanders right before the half, goes down and gets us points. I think that composure is really about the course of the game. He just hung in there until we got ourselves back and played extremely well at that time.”
“Whenever offensively you’re not moving the ball, you want to try something different,” Osweiler told Denver media when asked about the halftime adjustments. “Our conversation at half-time was to pick up the tempo, show them a look they had not seen on tape.”
The adjustments made by the coaching staff go a long way towards re-instilling confidence towards the staff, who had seemingly dropped the ball in that category in the weeks prior; now these Broncos are stampeding into the playoffs and even still have a chance at the overall No. 1 seed in the AFC.
