LVPs

Broncos offense was pedestrian at best Sunday afternoon and many players did not play to their potential. With that said, a group of players couldn’t get on the same page or excel at any particular level of play.

The offensive line has struggled to protect the quarterback all season and Sunday was not different. They allowed eight quarterback hits and five sacks (all from Mack). The tackles in particular were unable to block the pass rush but that is not just where the group failed.

After two weeks of well executed run blocking the Broncos line came out and couldn’t get anything going to keep the Raiders balanced. The Raiders defense entered Sunday’s contest allowing an average of 106.7 yards per game, good for 17th in the NFL. The Broncos only gained 34 yards on 21 attempts for a horrid average of 1.6 yards per carry.

“We lost the line of scrimmage,” Kubiak said. “There is no doubt we got pushed around. We did not run the ball well at all. They were in our backfield. I think we had 16 carries for [25] yards in the first half. Came out in the third quarter, I think we had four three-and-outs and we dropped a few balls, turned the ball over—just added that to the we were struggling at the line of scrimmage. We had many, many chances to get it done and didn’t get it done.”

Runner up: The blame for the loss should go squarely on the Broncos offense’s shoulders but one area of the defense allowed the struggling Raiders offense to find success. The tight ends came up with big plays when the Raiders needed them most. Rivera and Clive Walford combined for six catches for 96 receiving yards and one touchdown. It is not great numbers but accounted for over 75 percent of their net yards on the day.

“You’ve got [Chris] Harris, [Bradley] Roby and [Aqib] Talib, those guys are three of the best corners in the whole NFL, and they’re all on the same team. You’re going to have chances to go at them, take shots at them, but you’ve got to be smart about it,” Carr said about avoiding the Broncos cornerbacks. “Coach [Offensive Coordinator Bill] Musgrave did a great job of designing plays to get the tight ends involved and things like that. I thought that he did a great job at that.”