The Broncos are four days away from facing the Raiders and they’re still no closer to solving the starting quarterback mystery in Oakland. Will it be Bruce Gradkowski, Jason Campbell or Kyle Boller?
The Raiders couldn’t tell you either.
“We have no idea at this point,” Raiders Head Coach Tom Cable said in conference call on Wednesday.
Cable said on Monday that he might have to play third-stringer Boller, whom the team signed from St. Louis before the season. Injuries ailing Gradkowski and Campbell could keep them out of Sunday’s game, but Cable will scrutinize his passers in practice on Wednesday before he makes a decision for Sunday.
“I don’t know really when we’ll have something definitive,” Cable said.”Hopefully tomorrow, but today we’ll learn a lot, so we’ll see.”
If there is a positive the Raiders can take out of their quarterback conundrum, it’s that their indecision forces the Broncos to triple their preparation.
“We never know who we might see,” Jason Hunter said. “You just have to have your game plan for all three of them.”
Boller has yet to see his first regular-season action for the Raiders, but he threw for 360 yards and two touchdowns in three preseason games.
Campbell started Oakland’s first two games, but Cable gave him the hook at halftime in Week 2 in favor of Gradkowski, who directed a win against St. Louis. When Gradkowski went down early in Week 5, Campbell came in the game and led the team to victory over the Chargers.
The former first-round pick of the Redskins led two touchdown drives to help beat the Chargers, but his team also returned a fumble and a blocked punt for a touchdown, proving a point hammered home by Head Coach Josh McDaniels.
“I’m sure that they would like — like most organizations and coaches would like — to have a stable situation there at quarterback,” McDaniels said. “But it’s a team that is so dangerous because they can really beat you in any phase in the game. It doesn’t necessarily have to be throwing the ball, they can beat you running it, they can beat you on defense, they can beat you in the kicking game.”
To that point, the tandem of Darren McFadden and Michael Bush have led the Raiders to the NFL’s tenth-ranked rushing attack despite a passing offense in the bottom half of the league.
Only 15 runners have more rushing yards than McFadden even though the third-year back missed the past two games with injury. In a conference call on Wednesday, he said he’ll practice this week in hopes of playing in Denver.
McDaniels said the ground game in Oakland takes precedent over whoever might line up under center. An imposing rushing attack that enables the play-action pass defines the Oakland offense.
“It won’t change their offense, I don’t think,” McDaniels said. “That is their philosophy (and) that’s their style. They are very good at doing it, and I don’t expect it is going to change dramatically, no matter who the quarterback is.”
-Gabe Hiatt, DenverBroncos.com
Below are photos from Wednesday’s practice:
Tags: Bruce Gradkowski, Denver Broncos, Head Coach Josh McDaniels, Jason Campbell, Kyle Boller, Tom Cable
I’m gonna be at the game on sunday! GO BRONCOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe after they play us on Sunday they will need to go the fourth string and they will have a crowd. Filthy Raiders.
We really need to gets things going by beating the Raiders on Sunday ! We could easily be 4-2 so far but because of a few mistakes, we are 2-4. We really need to get back on track by beating the mess out of a pretty good Raiders team. when the Raiders get their Qb situation settled, they are going to be dangerous. We must take advantage of this opportunity of playing the Raiders while the have Qb issues and win this Game. I believe the Chiefs are on their way also. This A.F.C. division is getting it’s swagger back. When the Chiefs get a solid Qb they will be dangerous also. I think the Chargers are falling off a little bit but they still have the personnel to go on a 10 game win streak. They done it before and can do it again. We must take advantage of every opportunity we get a beat the teams that are having issues. I think we will be fine this season but Doom being lost for the year is really hurting us. I don’t have many issues with or offense besides our line and having a healthy 3rd. down back, but the D-fense needs some help. We can’t get pressure on anybody’s Qb this year. We give Qb’s all the time in the world to pick us apart. Goodman getting hurt is proving to be costly also. Look at the games he has missed and you will notice nearly every pass is going to who ever Cox is covering. We need to protect him by giving him some help by rotating coverage his way so a safety can support him. We wouldn’t get beat on his side of the field so much. I think he is coming along but it is quite a big task for a rookie. He will be a really good corner the more he plays but right now he is being picked on. Let’s get this thing rolling BRONCOS and Win this Division. It is our for the taking. GOOOOOO Broncos ! IWILLX2
If it wasn’t bad enough they showed the first three QBs, its followed immediately by a pic of Brady Quinn. They must be trying to scare us!
Lol OC. That is awesome. And strange.
My game in 99, was the Monday nighter. It had snowed and man was it cold. They kicked a FG late to send the game into OT. Much to the dismay of my already frozen brother and cousin. All was good, as Olandis Gary broke a big one for the win!!! I was in 5th grade for the 88 game. So, all I remember was dropping my ice cream cone on the walk to Mile-High.
2010 should prove memorable…
100% Raider Hater
I believe a rader fan bumped into me resulting in my dropped iced delicacy. Which instilled the value I hold true to this very day. F.T.R
hometeam007…….well said,I hate them stinkin’ Raiders!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
R8R H8R 4 LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!F.T.R.
Great, I get one more awesome pic of Brady Quinn for my wall as sndvl noticed, man, I have never had so many beautiful pics of a third string QB before in my entire life, and I’m 56!!! This guy is the bomb, and whoever keeps taking pics of him, I’m beyond myself now, just Quinn heaven is what it is.
Ok, hopefully you all get that this crapola talk was all a joke. I have been here since the summer saying no way no how should we waste a roster spot on a third QB like Quinn, if either Orton or Tebow goes down we could immediately find a QB of equal or better value who is looking for a job now. That is how asinine McD can be about his decisions, how does it feel to carry Quinn on the roster just about now, McD?
Another blog please,or change the scenery,I don’t wanna look at them stinkin’ Raider QBs……Booooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Man I wished we would go back to a zoneblocking scheme,when Harris is benched for Beadles,that shows you we’re running the WRONG scheme,I know Harris was hurt,but he isn’t now.Harris is one of the best young RTs in the NFL.Just hope we don’t get rid of him,it’s hard to find 2 bookend Tackles like Clady and Harris.
I know I’m not the coach and I can’t make any of the descisions,but if I were running the show I’d keep scheming the 4-3 Defense(we used to run)and go back to the zoneblocking(we used to run).just saying.
You guys must be too young to remember than when we had two good QB’s in Elway and Kubiak, we didn’t bother to carry a third. I think with Orton and Tebow it pretty much qualifies as the same set up. Repeat: McD is failing the brain test when he carries Quinn as a third QB, that’s been my thinking all along and whatever has happened this season so far only makes me realize how smart I really am, LOL.
After much thought, I agree that the 3rd QB spot is a waste of space. We haven’t had 3 QB’s for a few years now. And our starter hasn’t been gone down injured for sometime, well not since I have been following it (thats on 6 years).
My feelings on the weekends game against the Raiders, is one of great optimism. For a while now I have always worried about playing them as the divisional rivalry games tend to throw things upside-down. This year I have no doubt in my mind this will be a win (close/blow out) it will be a Bronco win.
I reckond calling the QB for the game is a mind game. The Raiders will leave it till the last possible moment before they declear who the QB will be, just to throw off our game plan. BUT IT WONT WORK!! Regardless of who the Raiders put at QB, we will be prepared for all three!
PS ~ Anyone herad from ‘Monodono’? haven’t heard from him in a while.
if anyone is interested there is a great read on espn.com about Seattle reciever Mike Williams and all that he has went through to get to here. i thought it was really good
The Bronco injury report certainly isn’t very heartening. Of all the new inuries, I think Vickerson’s is the most important of all. He’s reallly been playing outstanding ball. Not bad for a Seattle Seahawk reject that many Bronco bloggers belittled as a waste of a space on the active roster when McD picked him up.
BFE92 be careful about making fun of McD’s name that is the reason why i was banned for almost a year. That and missspelling P. Havin’s first name.
I totally agree about the zone blocking. The Jets were 1st in rushing LY, Zone blocking. Atlanta was 1st in rushing two years ago, Zone blocking.
The BRONCOS were always in the top 10 for rushing reguardless of who was running, Zone blocking.Get the idea.
haha, love it when the Raiders are so disoriented that 3 days before the game they have no clue who their QB will be. Makes our job that much easier and a lot more fun considering our defense is going to pick them apart. We may be sitting side by side when you look at our standings but that will change on Sunday. Raiders don’t have a chance… not this time. I have full & complete confidence in our defense after what I was able to watch last week. A very, very young defense (full of talent) put together a decent game. Albeit we lost, but our defense held it together pretty well considering what our situation was and still is. And more than anything, our offense will be at their best come Sunday. Let’s get this running game going some more!!
Have faith Bronco Country…
GO BRONCOS in 2010!!!!
Has anyone thought that maybe Tom Cable is trying to pull a McD and not disclose any useful information?
Reporter: “Will Tebow play?”
McD: “We will have a QB on the field at all times.”
Reporter: “Will Tebow throw a pass?”
McD: “Our QB will probably throw multiple passes in the game”
Reporter: “Will any of them be thrown by Tebow out of the Wild Horse?”
McD: “Maybe if the moon is full, and the planets are aligned, plus the mojo has to be flowing well.”
Reporter: “So that means no?”
McD: “Maybe”
Reporter: “Maybe?”
McD: “Maybe”
Gameday: No passes from Tebow.
Arggghhh, let him throw one.
Go Broncos!!!!
Statement to the division and league game coming up.
34-9 Broncos.
CRUSH THE RAIDERS!!!!
oldsouthstander, touche’…. Vickerson is indeed a very good player and has made his mark here already, specially in the 4-3. He is a key to the puzzle Sunday if we intend on stopping the Raider’s running game. But to be honest he is only one of a couple late additions to have made a difference, him and Hunter, while the majority of the summer additions have been flops, you’re bound to be right a couple of times when you shuffle the deck so many times, just saying.
Great to see that McD seems to not be fallling into the trap of under estimating the Raiders like so many fans do, Lindsay reports:
McDaniels said, is that Oakland is 4-2 on the road against AFC West teams since 2008. That record includes two wins against Denver at Invesco Field at Mile High.
The Raiders return on Sunday for what will be first divisional game for the Broncos this season. One of the Raiders’ two wins this season came against San Diego.
“Coach (Tom) Cable really does a good job of getting them ready to play on the road,” McDaniels said. “They certainly out-played us, out-coached us, out-schemed us, out-adjusted us last December when they beat us here the last time we played them.”
No kidding!
This is what Legwold says of one of the big reason the Broncos were successful with the run against the Jets, and TRB will be real happy to see that since he has basically been preaching the same thing here for a long time that McD is too predictable in his formations with his play calling for opposing D’s. In his article Legwold first names all the obvious reasons why our running game was better, like the performance of the O line, Moreno back and Tebow playing, then this is the interesting thing he brings up:
But one thing may have been overlooked: The Broncos tried to be less predictable in their pass-first offense, especially when trying to run the ball out of the shotgun formation.
Much of the time in their first five games, if the Broncos lined up in the shotgun, the defense didn’t have to give much thought to the possibility they might run the ball out of what usually is a passing formation.
And while any team is going to throw the ball out of the shotgun most of the time, the numbers were brutally lopsided for the Broncos in their first five games:
Against Jacksonville in Week 1, the Broncos threw 22 passes out of the shotgun and ran six times, including two Kyle Orton scrambles.
Against Seattle in Week 2, the Broncos threw 21 passes out of the shotgun and ran just once.
Against Indianapolis in Week 3, the Broncos threw 40 passes out of the shotgun and ran three times.
Against Tennessee in Week 4, the Broncos threw 37 passes out of the shotgun and ran four times.
Against Baltimore in Week 5, the Broncos threw 29 passes out of the shotgun and ran four times.
But against the Jets in Week 6, the Broncos threw 28 times out of the shotgun and ran the ball 13 times, including all six of Tebow’s carries and Orton’s two scrambles.
Some defensive coordinators believe teams that play out of the shotgun so much on offense, like the Broncos do, move the ball well between the 20-yard lines but have trouble scoring.
Running the ball more out of the shotgun gives the defense something more to think about, especially in the red zone when the offense doesn’t have as much room to get its receivers open.
I realize many of us knowledgeable fans know of the predictability of McD’s play calling, but having it laid out with numbers to back it up is always a nice touch, good job Legwold.
Remember the first twenty scripted plays by Shanahan that made us score at will early in games? Well, that in a nutshell is the biggest difference results wise between Shanny and McD.
Are you sitting down? Are you ready for that?
Under McD the Broncos have scored seven points in the first quarter this year. That’s six games’ worth of first quarters. And seven points!!!!
Night and day! You start games that slow no wonder you are in a struggle in most of them….
Man, thats horrid. Somethings gotta change.
And to top off not scoring in the 1st Q, in many of those we had ample opps to score some points but failed to do so. That’s even harder to swallow.
wow 7 points in the first quarter all season, I knew it was low but had not been keeping score. I will go out on a limb here and predict 7points in the first quarter against the raiders, we always seem to be a bit more motivated against them, and we better kick their sorry butts this week. Hope to see TT on the field again, not because KO is not doing the job, just good to see McD mixing up the plays a bit and TT seems to be one of our best runners these days. Looking forward to Sundays game (as always) and feel this is the turn around in our season to get us on that winning streak that takes us to the top of our division, and stomping the raiders is always SWEET.
GO BRONCOS
Basically we don’t start fast and we end prematurely.
We’ve only scored 7 points int he 1st Qtr all season and we’ve given up like 40+ points in the 4th Qtr.
Baylin I will give McD props for changing up the play calling,if a team gets too predictable,the D knows it.He may be learning afterall,which is good.
I loved what I saw in the 4-3 scheme we were in,I hope we use it from now on,even when Doom comes back he can fit in a 4-3 scheme,since he and Ayers used to be DEs.I know both guys can play OLB or DE.
Another thing,I think Wink is doing a great job as DC.
Anyone know the status of Vickerson,Champ,Goody,and McBath???
I just read the injury report and it is as follows:
Ayers DNP foot
Bailey DNP ribs
Dawk DNP knee
Goody DNP quadricep
Lloyd DNP (non injury)
McBath DNP ankle
Royal DNP groin
Vickerson DNP groin
Woodyard DNP hammy
Not good,man we need to get healthy.
Yeah health has been an issue for the BRONCOS the last few years! Is it just me or are there more injurues than there use to be in the NFL???
Is the equipment getting better or worse??? Why are we always the team with hurt player the past five years???
All I know is it’s kind of hard to win when the majority of your salary cap is sitting on the bench watching the game!!! Let’s get healthly and I think we could play with any team in the NFL! We also need to not overpay players that don’t reall contribute to victories . . .Like “our” second highest paid Tight End in the league! Seriously, we need more production from those players that are paid the big bucks!!!
I don’t mean to be a downer, but it seems like we have had a run of BAD LUCK with injury and death and even more with the on field play!!!
LET’S GET HEALTHY AND GET OUT THERE AND EARN OUR MONEY AND OUR RESPECT!!! LET’S LEAVE IT ALL ON THE FIELD AND LET’S F-ING WIN!!!
GO BRONCOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
wow we definitely need to get healthy. thats just a depressingly long list. Im sure champ willbe fine. Just resting up. After all he played the rest of the game. Royal and groin is another matter tho. We all knew Ayers would be out for 6 weeks. And Dawk will probably be out until after bye week.
Nothing against Britt Davis but I was hoping we would more decker not davis…not unless decker is hurt again and I didnt know. Prolly his foot again. Love the kid. BUt thats why u dont draft hurt 99.9 percent of the time. Plus im sure if we knew we would have such passing success, WR wouldnt have been the type of priority it was in the Draft and we coulda gotten help in many other places. Clearly McD didn’t believe in the WR core and passing game without Marshall…he was just as scared as the rest of us lol.
TRB…Decker played on ST,so I am assuming he’s not injured,but I’m like you why would McD play Davis instead of Decker??
BTW…The Broncos played 10 first year players Sunday,Thanks McD for finally playing the Rookies,some of us have been saying that for weeks.It looks like it paid off too,even tho we lost it still was our best game of the year.IMO….It was a game we should have won.
Anyone read the Week 7 Power Rankings? We’re listed at 23 on Bleacher Reports rankings, apparently we’re a “good team” that should of “won against the Jets” and “we don’t have “it” I don’t know what “it” is but the Broncos don’t have “it.”"
Deify, 23 isn’t a good ranking. I’m not sure if you are being sarcastic or not. But all that means is there are only 9 teams in the league considered to be worse than the Broncos. If anything we should be ranked a bit higher then that. But the ranking of 23 probably has to do more with our record because we have played some top notch teams. We need to finish the season strong because our schedule is much easier the rest of the year. Something tells me that our power rankings will be between 10-20 towards the end of the year depending on how we play from now on.
No, I wasn’t being sarcastic everything that was in quotes is what it said on the Bleacher Report, which is why it was in quotes because I didn’t write it. I can see where you think I was being sarcastic because of the quotes. But no I agree with you, call it being bias but I think the Broncos deserve better than 23. Look at last year at this time 6-0 and we were still ranked low on the Power Rankings in fact I think we were ranked lower than 23 even with a 6-0 start.
Deify, I don’t know where you get your information but in the NFL power rankings last year we rated at #3 after our 6-0 start, both in week 7 and 8.
The Broncos have played the hardest schedule in the NFL so far with our opponents record at 23-12,now that’s a rough schedule!!!!!!
Bleacher report can be a bit unreliable because anyone can do it. A lot of these guys that write on Bleacher report don’t know much about football. Those articles are very biased and opinion based. Every so often there are some good write ups there but I don’t check Bleacher report very often because it isn’t very reliable.
Bay you ever get those 2 o’clock feelings? I’ve had them all day today, my head is in a complete fog(had a mild head cold over monday and tuesday), so ignore what I have to say for at least today. Hopefully I’ll feel better tomorrow.
Agreed BFE, we did start with a very difficult schedule. Now our team needs to show the league that we really do have a good team. And it starts with bashing the Raiders. We need to dominate the teams we are suppossed to beat. And then beat the Chiefs and Chargers twice. I know thats a tall order and it may be a “pipe dream” but that is what I want to see.
By the way I predict broncos win 30-10.
anybody else wanna see a tebow pass? it’d throw every body off. maybe one of those jump passes at the goal line for a score?