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Broncos Struggling To Run The Ball

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (The Sports Xchange) - What the Broncos want to do on offense, they cannot.

They want to establish the run. They want to create a run-pass balance. They want to use the run to set up the play-action.

But on Sunday in a 13-10 loss at Tennessee, they could do none of the three, leaving the offense one-dimensional and reliant upon the right arm of a quarterback just two weeks removed from a sprained foot.

Trevor Siemian nearly led the Broncos back from a 13-0 deficit. If not for a dropped potential touchdown by Bennie Fowler or a fumble by tight end A.J. Derby with 53 seconds remaining to scuttle a potential game-tying drive, he possibly would have led a comeback that could have been definitive for establishing himself as a starting quarterback around whom the Broncos can build.

But it shouldn't have come down to that. Not after the defense, gashed on the ground by the Titans in the first half, shut them down after halftime.

It all came back to the running game, which was so punchless that the Broncos virtually abandoned it after the first quarter. Starter Devontae Booker and waiver claim Justin Forsett combined for 18 yards on nine carries. Just five of Denver's 52 plays in the final three quarters Sunday were runs, including only one of their 23 fourth-quarter snaps.

Justin Forsett
Justin Forsett of the Denver Broncos runs the ball during a game against the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium on Dec. 11, 2016 in Nashville, Tennessee. (credit: Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)

The Broncos haven't picked up a first down on the ground in their last six quarters; when Forsett reached the sticks via a 9-yard gain in the first quarter Sunday, he suffered his first lost fumble in seven years, setting up a field goal that put the team in a 10-0 hole.

Denver now ranks in the league's bottom quarter in almost every rushing metric. Injuries to C.J. Anderson and Kapri Bibbs haven't helped, but the Broncos weren't exactly thrashing teams with them in the lineup, either.

This is hardly what Broncos coach Gary Kubiak envisioned when he returned to Denver 23 months ago, vowing to bring more balance to an offense that had piled up yardage in the three previous seasons with Peyton Manning at quarterback, but had bogged down in short yardage and was often imbalanced.

Sunday, the Broncos were more imbalanced than at almost any point during the 2012-14 seasons -- and it was out of necessity, because they simply could not move the football.

With just three weeks left in the regular season, it seems that the illness that plagues the ground game and blocking scheme may have no cure, at least not this year. But Kubiak maintains that the problems are fixable.

"First off, you have to do it," Kubiak said. "(Sunday), in my opinion, we needed to throw the ball to have a chance to win. I'm the one that started throwing the heck out of the ball. We have to eliminate negative plays. We had nine runs. There were more runs called where we gave Trevor the option to do some things with the ball. There were more called.

"To me, it's negative plays. We had negatives going backwards and I think we had three holding calls on three different running plays out of nine or ten. We put the ball on the ground in another play. It's just too many negative things. We have to get rid of those for us to keep moving the ball forward."

If the Broncos don't, they'll slide backward -- and out of the playoffs entirely for the first time in six years.

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