Who’s to blame for Broncos loss to Chiefs: Kubiak or Peyton?

Should Gary Kubiak have played Peyton Manning against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday? Especially after the first quarter when the Denver Broncos were down 10 – 0? Woody Paige and Les Shapiro discuss.

I thought it was both their faults. I thought they, as I told you earlier, Peyton Manning should have gone to Gary Kubiak and said he wasn’t full strength.

You know, as you said, Peyton is very competitive. If I’m Gary Kubiak, I go — even though they lost — If I’m Gary Kubiak I say, “We can win this one without you.”

Because if you look at the Kansas City Chiefs…

They’re not a very good team.

They’re not a great team. It was the mistakes that cost them. I don’t want you behind this offensive line. Gary Kubiak should have said this. I don’t want you behind this offensive line. It’s not playing very well.

I don’t want you with no running game. Son, I’m going to set you out. Even though he’s not much older than Peyton. I’m going to set you out this week. Sit you out. Sorry. That’s a southern thing.

I thought Gary Kubiak was taking a bullet for Peyton Manning. I thought he was trying to…

Well, he takes a bullet for everybody. Every week he’ll go, it’s on me.

I thought he was trying to deflect. He knew, he knew there was going to be a feeding frenzy of criticism against Peyton Manning. I thought at the beginning he was taking the bullet for him.

It’s a really difficult place to be in for Gary Kubiak. He’s got one of the all-time great quarterbacks there. Don’t ya think? He’s got one of the all-time great quarterbacks there. The guy practices on Friday.

Gary said, in this very newspaper The Denver Post, Peyton Manning looked pretty good. He practiced most of the day on Friday.

What happened on Saturday?

And he went on Saturday and he said the same thing.

No, on Saturday he reported with a rib cage problem. So we’ve got some kind of — we don’t know, we don’t know whether it’s cracked or whether it’s bruised or sore or whatever it might be. So you add that to the foot, the shoulder, it was a couple weeks ago…

Then he goes out pre-game yesterday and he threw the ball around pretty well. Now it’s not game conditions . But he threw the ball around pretty well.

If you’re the head coach aren’t you saying to yourself, “I’ve got Peyton Manning, he seems to be ok. He’s telling me he’s ok. I’ve got to play him.”

Ok. Alright. I’ll accept that. At the end of the first quarter. What do you think?

OK. That’s different. That’s very different. Peyton Manning looked terrible. Just terrible. And the offensive line wasn’t giving him much protection. And the running game wasn’t giving him any support whatsoever.

Gary Kubiak needed to pull Peyton Manning before the first half was over.

What was the score at the end of the first quarter? 10 to nothing I think. I could be… I’m pretty sure.

Then it was 16 – nothing at half.

I remember looking up and it was ten to nothing. They scored a touchdown very quickly, four plays. Then they kicked a field goal.

And I thought, this is the time to do it. Before it gets worst. Because you saw it. Everybody saw it. Everybody watching this show saw it. Everybody could tell, he couldn’t throw to anybody.

They called intentional grounding — which was the worst call of all the history of the NFL. Because the guy who was supposed be there wasn’t there. Peyton was throwing to a spot, he was intentionally grounding. That’s what he was. He was there.

He was floating the ball to the point where he was putting the receivers in danger.

Emmanuel Sanders.

And I can remember going to the Broncos locker room when Tim Tebow was quarterback here. And talking to Eric Decker in particular….

And Demaryius Thomas…

I took Eric off to the side and asked him if he was afraid when he puts the ball up?

He said he didn’t have any idea where the ball was going to be, he said too many times it’s down below and I’ll get cracked in the head because I’m reaching or it’s up here and I’ll get cracked in the ribs. And this is not comfortable for me.

This is not comfortable for the Denver Broncos’ receivers right now…

Going back to the original point. Gary Kubiak can take all the blame he wants to but he deserved the blame for it at the end of the first quarter. And if it’s not at the end of the first quarter, it’s gotta be at halftime.

And he says, well I thought maybe we’d get back into it.

No, you remember seeing it and I’ll just add this: if you didn’t see it on television, Gary Kubiak called the entire offense around him and he was talking to these people and he pointed at Peyton.

I don’t think he was saying you’re dogmeat today. What I believe he was saying — and you’re saying why didn’t you ask him? I should have. I wasn’t in there. I was in the other room.

He was saying, “You guys need to help this guy (Peyton Manning). He’s hurting.”