Ground attack gone December 15
Denver Post
"Despite expressions of confidence from Denver players and coaches about the state of the team's running attack leading up to Sunday's game at Carolina, few were fooled. Certainly not the Carolina Panthers. Denver's tailback trio of Tatum Bell, P.J. Pope and Selvin Young hardly made a hearty Carolina defense shudder, so it went right after Jay Cutler and his cadre of wide receivers in Carolina's 30-10 victory Sunday at Bank of America Stadium. The Panthers blitzed Cutler and varied their tight coverage on Denver's receivers and just dared the Broncos to run. And when the Broncos tried, the Panthers mostly stopped that, too. "We did a good job of taking away what they wanted to do," Carolina defensive end Julius Peppers said. The result was only 279 yards of offense - Denver's second-lowest offensive output of the season, only 4 yards better than the dismal performance against New England on Oct. 20. "It was one of those games that coming in, I thought on the offensive side of the ball, we were going to have a good day," Denver wide receiver Brandon Marshall said. "We've got to take our hats off to Carolina's defense. They did a good job of mixing it up and rattling us a little bit." Marshall then tried to take it back, saying that maybe "rattled" wasn't the right way to describe how Denver played. But aside from Denver's opening possession - when Jay Cutler led a nine-play, 61-yard drive that ended with a 7-yard touchdown pass to Pope - "rattled" served as a perfect adjective. Cutler was blitzed and battered by the Carolina defensive front more than at any time in the previous six games. The Panthers knocked down Cutler's passes and chased him out of the pocket and managed to penetrate Denver's offensive line. Cutler was sacked three times Sunday after not being taken down in the previous three games. "They started bringing some heat, so we had it hard," Cutler said. Cutler threw his 15th interception of the season in the first quarter. "I don't really know what went wrong," said receiver Eddie Royal, the intended target on Cutler's interception, of the team's overall offensive struggles. "I wish I could put my finger on that one thing. They did a good job of getting pressure on Jay, but we've got to find a way to play better than we did." That starts with the running game. Denver coaches opted to use the three-tailback rotation, with Bell as the starter and Young and Pope in relief. Young saw his first substantial action since injuring his groin Oct. 5. None of the three is a powerful inside runner, a la Peyton Hillis, Michael Pittman or even Ryan Torain, all previous starters who are on injured reserve. Pope had Denver's most impressive run on his 24-yard gain in the final minutes of the game, but that play was just a flash. Coach Mike Shanahan could only point to the failures, though, when asked after the game if any of the three backs had separated himself from the others."
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