In Head Coach Josh McDaniels’ first season at the helm of the Broncos, he has instilled a simple, yet focused motto upon his team: “Do your job.”
In every phase of the game, McDaniels asks players to handle their specific assignments to the best of their ability — and let their teammates take care of their respective roles, too.
Come this Sunday, the Broncos plan on bringing that same “do-your-job” attitude to their Week 17 matchup with AFC West rival Kansas City. There are 10 different scenarios that could play out on Sunday that would propel the Broncos into the playoffs. But the team fully realizes it needs to take care of business against its opponent at INVESCO Field at Mile High, the Chiefs, instead of worrying about how the six other teams fighting for an AFC Wild Card berth are performing on Sunday.
“I just hope we’re focused on (our) game,” McDaniels said. “I know there are a lot of other factors that are at play, and there are so many different scenarios that if you’re sitting there trying to calculate all those you might miss the first quarter. I think we should just focus on the Chiefs, get ready to play and go out there and coach and play as hard as we can on Sunday, and then whatever happens, whatever they tell us to do on Monday morning, that’s what we’re going to do. We’ll see how it all unfolds.”
As he prepares for Denver’s regular-season rematch with the Chiefs, Champ Bailey isn’t paying much attention to the surrounding circumstances. He hears what people tell him, but he sure isn’t asking any questions about postseason scenarios. He is much more concerned with a Kansas City receiving corps that will have Dwayne Bowe opposite Chris Chambers this time around.
“We’ve just got to prepare to win and everything will take care of itself,” Bailey said. “We’ve just got to make sure we go out and take care what is in front of us and not look past that.”
Offensive players, such as Kyle Orton and Brandon Marshall, echoed those sentiments.
“We’ve got to win,” Orton said. “Everything else doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters but winning.”
Marshall said he won’t watch the earlier games or pay attention to the scores around the league. While he is dedicated to playing his part on Sunday, he admitted he will be rooting for a handful of teams, including the Bengals.
“Deep down — yes I am,” Marshall said. “I am a fan of a lot of teams this week.”
And rightfully so. If the Broncos can qualify for the playoffs, they don’t have to look to far back to find a team that made a successful postseason run after being counted out entering Week 17. Just last season, the Arizona Cardinals were 8-7 entering the final week of the regular season after losing four of five games, and they advanced to Super Bowl XLIII.
“In this business, the key is to get in,” said Chiefs head coach Todd Haley, who was Arizona’s offensive coordinator last season. “It’s not how you get in or how you look getting in, but to get in. Anytime you have a chance to get in, you need to do everything possible to execute — whatever game it is that gets you in — so you can be playing when most everybody else is sitting at home.”
– Zach Eisendrath, DenverBroncos.com
There were six changes to the Broncos’ Week 17 Injury Report on Thursday. After sitting out Wednesday’s practice session, Daniel Graham (knee) and Eddie Royal (head/neck) were limited participants on Thursday. Limited participants on Wednesday, Spencer Larsen (hamstring), Ty Law (hamstring) and Darrell Reid (knee), were all full participants on Thursday. Brandon Marshall (hamstring) did not participate in Thursday’s practice session after being a limited participant on Wednesday.
There were two changes to the Chiefs’ Week 17 Injury Report on Thursday. A limited participant in Wednesday’s practice session, C/G Andy Alleman (back) did not practice on Thursday. CB Brandon Flowers (shoulder) practiced in full one day after being listed as a limited participant.
Below are a few pictures from the start of the team’s final practice of 2009. Happy New Year!
– Zach Eisendrath, DenverBroncos.com
Tags: Brandon Marshall, Champ Bailey, Head Coach Josh McDaniels, Kansas City Chiefs, Kyle Orton, Week 17
Stopping the run starts with the D line, why don’t we concentrate on that first, just like we wanted to do last year.
I don’t care about the N-E players thing, bring in Wilfork and Seymour (I know he is a Raider now), that would be a great start.
What a joke…
Oh gimme a break…Marshall goes all out for this team…he is our offense…has helped us win a lot of games this year…he gets hurt and sits out one game all season that we shoudl be able to win with our eyes closed…I haven’t seen the McD thing yet but its ridiculous to see fans praise him one second and as soon as he doesnt do what they want go back to he is only looking out for himself…doesnt care about the team and all that garbage.
All honesty…wouldnt blame him either…we don’t know how much it hurts. Not to mention last year he felt his injury was miss diagnosed by the staff and he played injured the rest of the year and played well for the team only for them to come around next year and cite his injury as one of the reasons they won’t pay him…..If that happened to me too i would look out for my health as well…Players are only good when they are healthy…if the hamstring gets worse and he does serious damage to it…guess what….he sucked it up liek many asked and played a whole year “under payed” by NFL standards just for the pay day at the end of the rainbow and if he was to get really hurt he is completely out of luck without ever hitting that payday so he is screwed….
Seriously if u don’t liek Bmarsh just stick with that stand all the freaking time and when he does good ignore it and say “i still want him out of here” but don’t just up and flip….its yalls opinion and u can speak it as u see fit but i personally believe is bull manure. How about we just say get well soon, we will need u in the playoffs if we make it
Anyway whatever im done…im out…
Just got through the press conference. In my mind it is fairly clear that Scheffler won’t play on Sunday either, or it would be very limited. McD put both Marshall and Scheffler in the same boat, as players who don’t want to do everything that’s rquired for the team to win. We know that Cutler was let go because of his refusal to play what ever role McD had for him that gave the team the best chance to win, it is now evident that Scheffler and Marshall will follow those foot steps and if you step back and look at the situation back in the Spring, it should come as very little surprise, Cutler, Marshall and Scheff were best buddies, three amigos if you wish, so something ties them at the hips, and that something is looking like it’s about to run them all out of town. Marshall’s personality has always been a very strong issue with me, just ask TRB, and I can see that McD just doesn’t think he is the team player we need regardless of his tremendous abilities, and I will respect that, I don’t know much about Scheff because he doesn’ t say much off the field, but I did notice as I mentionned here this morning that he had fallen considerably in production on the field lately, so I can see him being in the doghouse also.
Not what I wanted to hear for this must win game, but as the previous blog stated, it is what it is, and we must go on from here. I’ll say this, players like Bailey, Dawkins and DJ, who give it their all week in week out, are probably not too bummed out about the turn of events, like McD said, let’s have the 45 guys on the field who want this win the most, I agree, the other ones are expendable as we just found out. WOW, what a doozy for the first day of the year!!!!!!!
Everybody needs to listen to McD’s press conference, whether you agree with it or not, it’s a must see.
TRB, I know you bleed for Marshall and I feel real bad for you, hopefully you can reconcile with it whatever the outcome is, we need you here, Marshall or not, you are a great poster.
I for one was not happy with the way Marshall was acting in the preseason and I voiced it many times on this blog. I admit this team is better with him but not at the expense of the rest of the team if he is not going to be a team player. This is and has always been my stand on Marshall. I fully support McD’s decision. Baylinocrush is right, everyone needs to watch the press conference whether you agree with McD or not.
I don’t know baylinocrush, I’ve never seen TRB to know if he would make a great poster, but he is a very good blogger! JK. LOL!
lmao…thx Baylin…but u know when people are quick to bash Marshall i am always quick to point out the other possible side of the story…Didn’t mean any disrespect to any of yall and even tho none of yall voiced you felt that way would just like to point that out cuz i enjoy reading all yalls blogs….And I REALLY hope Marshall is a life time Bronco but Ill definitely be here whether he is or not cuz couldn’t do without the blue and orange (even my college was blue and orange) lol
haha thx Broncofanlvnm, took me a while to get that joke but when i did it was a good one lol
wish i could watch the game they air the stuipediest games
I wish they fired McDaniels …. hell give it to a coach that actually us worth it….. Bill Cowher! McD has been a pain every since he got here. Anybody that liked Cutler he has an issue with them. Scheffler, Marshall …. I mean dayum those are some good players and we need all the help we can get for a win !!!!!!!!!!!!!