Trevor Siemian played a big role in the Broncos' run game resurgence

ENGLEWOOD, Colo – Often times, football is not as simple as many folks want to make it seem. The same way it’s not always the quarterback’s fault when he throws an interception, it’s not always the running back’s fault when the team can’t get anything going on  the ground. And it goes the other way, too.

As the Broncos had far-and-away their best game of the season running the ball last night, it wasn’t just because C.J. Anderson and Devontae Booker were playing well. One of the beautiful things about football is that the success of a play can really be attributed to all eleven guys. Yes, even on a run play, the quarterback often plays a big part.

“I think he’s getting more comfortable from a call standpoint,” head coach Gary Kubiak explained of Trevor Siemian on Monday. “I think he’s getting more comfortable handling his team. Trevor did a great job last night of getting our team in some great runs. Trevor had a lot to do with us running the ball well. We’re getting more comfortable with him, letting him go up to the line of scrimmage and giving him some ‘either-or’ plays. I think we’re growing from that standpoint.”

Siemian’s understanding of the offense and ability to make changes at the line is one of the big reasons he won the starting job in the first place. Despite only notching 14 completions for 157 yards, the Broncos’ QB displayed once again why he is in that position.

Of course, also of huge importance is the offensive line. The same line that struggled mightily during the two-game skid had a rough start to the game, hit for multiple drive-killing holding calls, but the theme of the night was resilience.

“I heard [offensive line coach] Clancy [Barone] getting after them last night, saying, ‘Just keep playing, just keep playing, we’ll work ourselves out of this,'” Kubiak remembered. “[We were] trying to be positive working ourselves out of it and I think we did a good job of that. Being committed to the run, staying involved, staying committed to what we were doing I think really helped them play better.”

“We have to worry about ours but I think it’s going on around the league,” Kubiak added of the holding calls. “I think there are a lot of calls going on. You look at the overall number of calls going on in a game week in and week out. We have to go address ours, I think they’re dead on on a few of them, we’re going to argue about a few of them, we do that all of the time. The early ones really hurt us, we had two big third-down conversions, ready to go do something and we go right back to thrid-and-long, but I liked our poise in overcoming them.”

As the game progressed, the team got into the right plays, the line executed their assignments and the backs took off. The balanced attack on offense was even balanced within the run game, with Booker notching 17 carries to C.J. Anderson’s 16.

“When guys push each other [it’s a good thing],” Kubiak said. “Last year it was C.J. and Ronnie pushing each other—I think Book is becoming more comfortable with what we’re doing, we’re more comfortable with Book on the field in pass protection.”

The balance within the balance is something Kubiak plans to continue.

“Hopefully we can have that many touches over the course of a game,” he said. “I saw two guys competing, I saw fresh guys on the field; I think that was good for us. We also gave them more room to run; those things go hand-in-hand.”

The Broncos had their backs up against the wall heading into Monday night’s game, a two-game losing streak on their backs much in part to poor offense and a poor running game. In response, the entire offense stepped up and guided the team to their fifth win.