Though maybe I should have when Von Miller promised a Thursday Night Football beatdown earlier this week. It was great to see the Denver Broncos respond and give life to Miller’s proclamation Youth Connor McGovern Jersey , literally, in a 45-10 ass-kicking of the Arizona Cardinals in Phoenix. It was even better to see the Broncos offense show some creativity and get Case Keenum out of the pocket. But make no mistake about it – the Cardinals are a putrid football team, and that is underselling it. And while Denver looked great, it’s right to question how credible this win really is. Was this just a desert mirage giving us false hope that this team is finding its way out of a football wasteland? Nevertheless, at least the Broncos (3-4) ended their four-game losing streak and have a bit of confidence on their mini bye before the redux with the Kansas City Chiefs. Winners Emmanuel Sanders We know that Denver’s receiver is a playmaker, we just haven’t seen it with his arm. Kudos to the Broncos offensive coaches for the creativity on his 28-yard touchdown pass to Courtland Sutton. It was the first-career touchdown pass for Sanders, who also had a 64-yard touchdown reception. Sanders finished with six catches for 102 yards and a touchdown, and 1-for-1 passing for 28 yards and a touchdown. Sanders is the first Denver player since John Elway on Sept. 7, 1986, and the fourth in team history, to finish with a touchdown catch and pass in the same game. Sanders also is the first receiver in Broncos history to have a touchdown via catch, pass and run, and the ninth player overall.Courtland Sutton Denver’s rookie continues to impress. Not only did he catch Sanders’ first touchdown pass, he drew another pass interference penalty in the end zone. And had Keenum not underthrown Sutton on the Broncos’ sideline, he would have had another touchdown. Chris Harris Jr. Harris got his first pick-six since 2015, and it was the second of the game for Denver’s defense. It doesn’t matter that it was against a rookie quarterback and a terrible offense, the fact the Broncos created turnovers and returned them for touchdowns is a beautiful sight. Todd Davis Speaking of pick-sixes, Denver’s middle linebacker had the first of the game for the first touchdown of the game. It was Davis’ first career interception and touchdown. What was even better to see is him make a few tackles behind the line of scrimmage. Given how bad the run defense has been the last two weeks, it was good to see the Broncos do in fact have middle linebackers on the field.Phillip Lindsay There really is nothing left to say about this young man. It’s just fun to watch this play out like it is for the Broncos rookie and Colorado boy. What makes it even better is he’s doing it in Terrell Davis’ No. 30. Lindsay’s 28-yard touchdown run was the latest highlight-reel play ofhis rookie season. The defense Not only did the Denver defense create five turnovers and have six sacks http://www.broncosauthorizedshops.com/authentic-courtland-sutton-jersey , it held the Cardinals to under 100 yards rushing. Coming into the game, I simply wanted the Broncos to keep Arizona under 200. Von Miller He not only had two sacks, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery, he stepped up as a leader should. For what it’s worth, no player has forced more fumbles (25) than Miller since he entered the NFL in 2011. For the 17th time in his career, he finished with two sacks or more in a game.The Broncos Miller put the onus on his team and it responded in a big way. After a do-or-die game, Denver’s players have some confidence heading into their trip to KC. Losers DaeSean Hamilton The reason the Broncos rookie receiver is here is because of his shitty luck. The hope is the injury isn’t as bad as it could be. Bill Musgrave Despite the fact his team won by 35 points, Denver’s offensive coordinator just couldn’t help himself. He still found a way to call way more passing plays than he should have. When one speaks of false hope that this win could bring, Musgrave is why. Case KeenumI debated on this one, but even against a bad football team the Broncos quarterback still couldn’t play a clean game. Maybe it’s nitpicking, but play a damn clean game. There’s also the underthrow of Sutton I mentioned earlier. Larry Fitzgerald The Cardinals receiver is on this list because of the situation. He deserves better than this. My hope is Fitzgerald is traded to a contender before the trade deadline later this month and he’s able to finish his career with a team that can win. The fans who wanted change Those who wanted change to happen after this game will have to wait. Whether this win is a confidence builder or false hope, we’ll find out. There were failures in all four phases of the game on Sunday. Yes, I said four phases: offense, defense, special teams and coaching. I’ll go in depth into a few of the coaching mistakes later. The frustrating part about the 2018 Broncos is that the talent is there to be a playoff team, but the coaches are generally not putting the talent in positions to succeed. This team is 3-5, but could easily be 6-2 or 7-1 - with better coaching (and better QB). I’ll call out three examples from last game - one from each phase. Remember that our coaches had extra time to prepare for this game after the mini-bye that we got from playing a Thursday night game. On special teams I am not going to rail on Cody Wadman. Yes, he had a 19 yard punt that completely demoralized the team, but that is not on the coaches. The special teams coaching fail was not telling Adam Jones to accept a touchback if the kickoff goes into the endzone. Touchbacks on kickoffs give the offense the ball on the 25 Royce Freeman Jersey , so any time a returner does not make it to the 25, they have made it harder on the offense. Adam Jones returned three kickoffs in the game: the first he caught five yards deep and returned to the 19, the second he caught at the one and returned to the 26 and the third he caught a yard deep and returned to the 19. So left 12 yards on the field by not accepting the touchbacks. Yes, 12 yards seems like a small thing, but his decision are symptomatic of a team that is not well coached. Holding happens often on kickoff and punt returns, and while we did not get flagged for holding on any of the kickoffs that were returned in this game, our offense is not great at digging itself out of deep holes. If Adam Jones had the ability to return kickoffs for huge yardage (or TDs) then the risk of a hold or a turnover might be worth it, but he has never returned a kickoff for a TD (and hasn’t returned a punt for a TD since 2012). So he should accept the touchbacks when he/we can. The defensive coaching failure that I noticed was the confusion and unwillingness to call a timeout in the first half when Todd Davis was somehow left to cover Sammy Watkins in the red zone. The defensive coaches need to realize this and get a timeout called. Timeouts are not that precious in the first half as to allow something this glaring of a mismatch to occur. On offense the coaching mistake was the flea-flicker that was intercepted. I understand that Bill Musgrave was just trying to spark the offense with the team down 10 in the 4th quarter, but the offensive coaches have to coach Case Keenum to throw that ball away if the receiver is not wide open. Again, you could say that the failure was on Keenum there and not on Bill Musgrave, but I disagree. Musgrave made the play call and Keenum needed to be coached to know his limitations on that play. He doesn’t have the arm to make that throw and Kendall Fuller took advantage. Remember, the situation that the led to the play. The Broncos had forced a punt and gotten the ball back on the 20. We had run Phillip Lindsay three straight times for gains of 11, 5 and 5 yards. We were moving the ball on the ground and were at our 41 with 8 minutes and 8 seconds to play in the game down 10. There was no reason to run a trick play there. A simple play action probably would have worked well given that we had run the ball successfully three plays in a row. So now on to the normal focus of my weekly article. The defense was actually quite good at stopping the run on first down for the second straight week. The Chiefs ran the ball 10 times on first down for 29 yards (2.90 ypc). Overall we held the Chiefs to 49 yards on 18 carries - 2.72 ypc. It does not take much to get Andy Reid to abandon the run. Overall the Broncos have allowed 5.23 ypc on first down runs - still 30th. KC is still dead last at 5.72 - cold comfort. Houston lead the league allowing only 3.33 ypc on first down runs. We forced the Chiefs into eight 3rd & long situations and they were able to convert two of them. KC only faced 10 third downs in the game. Both conversions came on the Chief’s opening drive of the 3rd quarter that ended in the touchdown to put them up 23-14. The Broncos are now 26th in the league at stopping opponents on 3rd and long - allowing conversion 31.5% of the time. MIN is currently best in the league having only allowed 7 conversion on 50 3rd and long attempts - 14.0%. The Rams are still dead last allowing 40.9% conversion on 3rd and long. FWIW offensively the Broncos are now 24th in terms of converting on 3rd and long - 21.3% and we have allowed 10 sacks in 3rd and long situations (2nd worst in the league) and four of those sacks have led to fumbles. Right now, this team is in the bottom third of the league. Talent-wise this team could make the playoffs in the weak AFC with better coaching and better QB play, but I don’t expect to see much of either from the Broncos this year - not based upon the first 8 games. Case Keenum has regressed to his historical form. Halfway through the season he has 11 TD passes (plus a rushing TD) and 10 INTs. If he continues on that pace in the second half of the season, he will become the first Denver QB to throw 20 INTs in a season since Jake Plummer did it in 2004. The only other Bronco QB to do it after the merger was John Elway in 1985. That was the only season that Elway threw 20 or more INTs (he threw 23 that year). Frank Tripucka (thrice), Jackie Lee and George Herring also had seasons with 20 or more interceptions thrown prior to the merger.