Dear Tre Mason and the Rams running backs,
Hi! I’m Ben! I’m actually from St. Louis originally, so I figured I’d send you some suggestions on fun ways to spend Sunday afternoon. Since no one can run on the Broncos’ defense, you might as well take the day off and visit, say, the Botanical Gardens to see the azaleas and rhododendrons! Or perhaps check out the St. Louis Zoo and ride the conservation carousel!
The next team to run well against the Broncos will be the first. Denver’s defense devours. It’s getting stupid. The Broncos head into Sunday’s game at St. Louis allowing only 67 run yards per game, fewest in the NFL.
Yeah, OK, teams pass more these days. But 67? That’s like an .
Oh, and only Kansas City (133) and Seattle (129) have run for more than 70 yards against Denver — and the Seahawks tallied much of their total in overtime.
“I think it’s just a collective attitude. We all have the same mentality and goal — to finish as the No. 1 rush defense,” defensive tackle Terrance “Pot Roast” Knighton said Wednesday. “The D-line, we have high expectations for the group. At one point in the Oakland game, they had 20 yards rushing, and we thought it was too much.
“I just think the ultimate character of a team shows when you play on the road. It’s easier to play at home when the crowd is on your side and you don’t have to travel. If you’re a great team on the road … you know you’re doing something right. It also shows the type of fight you have as a team when you go into somebody’s house and throw the first punch.”
Knighton doesn’t get many hurries — shoot, it’s hard to think anyone weighing a metric ton can hurry at all. But he’s the fulcrum in the scrum.
“It all starts with T-Knight up front,” Denver cornerback Aqib Talib said.
We don’t hear about Knighton the way we do DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller and, lately, the malicious Malik Jackson. But earlier this season, Knighton called himself the “Chris Paul” of the Broncos. See, Knighton gets the “assist” for gobbling up the offensive linemen, plural, allowing speed rushers to tally tackles and sacks.
Sure, maybe St. Louis will occasionally puncture the Denver D, but the Broncos enter this game having allowed only 11 runs of 10 or more yards. Yep, this leads the league too, five fewer than San Francisco, six ahead of Detroit and Seattle.
“Our defense can do a great job of getting teams into third-and-long because they can stop the run on first and second down,” Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning said. “Usually on one of those two downs a team is trying to run it, and oftentimes they’re running for a negative play that, all of a sudden, gets you in that third-and-10 or 10-plus. That’s what offenses don’t want and defenses do want. So I know that’s a great strength for them, and I know that can be frustrating to an offensive coordinator or a play-caller because it affects your play call.”
St. Louis is 3-6, but that record is deceiving — there were the Rams, not only defeating Seattle and San Francisco, but playing close games against Philadelphia, Dallas and, for a stretch, Arizona.
But I think the most running Sunday in St. Louis will be done at .
Sincerely,
Benjamin Hochman
Benjamin Hochman: bhochman@denverpost.com or
