Happy Tuesday, #BroncosCountry –
We hope you're enjoying this lovely day! The players have the day off today and will be back Wednesday morning to begin preparation for Oakland. In the meantime, here are a couple things to get caught up on, starting with the defense:
1. Broncos reinforce position as top defense
Don't let anyone tell you any different: The Broncos have the best defense in the NFL.
Well, according to Pro Football Focus, who crowned them with the prestigious title last week, they do.
But then the Broncos went out and held Philip Rivers and the Chargers to just three points and it definitely became *official*.
To give you an idea of how good this performance was from the Broncos, only two players that recorded a defensive snap posted a "red" overall grade (below -1.0). In fact, eight players earned "green" grades (above +1.0), with Malik Jackson and Von Miller playing up to their extremely high season-levels.
Four of the five top performers for the Broncos came from the defense: DE Malik Jackson (+8.4), OLB Von Miller (+7.9), DE Derek Wolfe (+5.4) and S Darian Stewart (+3.4).
To put that in perspective, the Chargers' top performer, safety Eric Weddle, only earned a +4.4 grade.
Jackson earned the second-highest grade of all performers in Week 13, trailing just St. Louis' DT Aaron Donald (+9.5).
2. Anderson reunites with former teammate
C.J. Anderson and Jason Verrett, swapped jerseys at the end of the Chargers-Broncos game on Sunday. Both Anderson and Verrett attended junior college in Northern California, with Anderson at Laney College and Verrett at Santa Rosa Junior College. Even before college, Anderson and Verrett played each other in Pop Warner football.
Verrett went on to sign with TCU and Anderson left to play at Cal, but the pair hasn't forgotten where they came from:
3. In case you missed it …
- Brock Osweiler stays starter as Manning prepares for throwing program
- AFC Playoff Picture: Osweiler, Dalton could duel
- Broncos' Harris: ‘Only (QB) that didn’t cry was Andrew Luck’
