THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2013
NFL
PAGE 7
Manning leads Broncos to 45-21 win over Redskins
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DENVER — In all those years roaming the sidelines in Denver, Mike Shanahan never saw one get so ugly, so fast.
Not surprisingly, Peyton Manning had a hand in turning Shanaah's homecoming sour.
After being showered with aplause, then staked to a two-touch-down lead, the Broncos' old coach watched Manning and the Broncos score the last 38 points Sunday in a come-from-behind 45-21 victory over the Washington Redskins.
Manning overcame four turnovers and threw for 354 yards and four touchdowns, as the Broncos came back from a 21-7 deficit early in the third quarter.
Ahead by those two touchdowns after Manning threw a pick-6 to DeAngelo Hall when receiver Demaryius Thomas fell on an out route, Shanahan squinted into the sunlight, rolled-up game plan in hand, and looked at a familiar sight on the scoreboard in Denver, his team comfortably ahead
— his team comfortably ahead as the sun began to set over the Rockies.
Things changed quickly, though. Manning led the Broncos (7-1) on a 75-yard scoring drive to make it 21-14, the key play coming when Knowson Moreno ran for 5 yards on fourth-and-2 from the Washington 22.
Then, after the defense forced a punt, it was Manning picking and poking again, moving Denver 83 yards in 16 plays for the tying score, a 1-yard pass to Joel Dreeseen on the first play of the fourth quarter.
Robert Griffin III threw three straight incompletions and Sav Rocca followed by shanking a punt 15 yards. On the next play,
Manning gave Denver a 28-21 lead with a screen pass Moreno took in for a 35-vard touchdown.
The rest had all the makings of a routine runaway for the Broncos, who knocked Griffin out of the game late with an injured left knee, then got their final touchdown when Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie picked off backup Kirk Cousins and returned it 75 yards.
Von Miller ended the next drive with a sack and forced fumble to give Denver a field goal and a 10-point lead, and Washington (2-5) never got closer.
But all the video-game numbers, including the franchise-record 31 fourth-quarter points, masked some growingly troubling problems as the Broncos reach the halfway point.
Most notably, Manning has had some issues the last three weeks.
Yes, he went 30 for 44 and hit four receivers for scores, including Wes Welker, who scored for a career-high ninth time.
But Manning doubled his interceptions total for the season and lost a fumble, bringing Denver's league-leading total to 11 lost fumbles. In all, the quarterback simply didn't look as comfortable as he did the first five weeks, before he sprained an ankle that forced him to miss his first regular-season practice as a Bronco last week.
He got bailed out by the lowest-ranked pass defense, which held Griffin to a 15-for-30 day a week after he led a late winning touchdown drive in a 45-41 victory over Chicago. The Broncos forced five turnovers, including interceptions by Chris Harris, Rahim Moore and Shaun Phillips.
Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning (18) pulls away from Washington Redskins linebacker Darryl Tapp (54) in the first quarter of an NFL football game on Sundav in Denver.
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Stafford's sneak steals win from Cowboys
ASSOCIATED PRESS
'The Dallas Cowboys did, too. Stafford's 1-yard lunge over a pile of linemen with 12 seconds left and Johnson's 329 yards receiving lifted the Detroit Lions to a 31-30 win over Dallas on Sunday.
'I was yelling that I was going to spike the ball.' 1.
But their 't
DETROIT — Calvin Johnson thought Matthew Stafford was going to spike the ball for at least another snap.
"I was yelling that I was going to spike the ball," Stafford recalled. "But their linebackers were just standing there."
The Cowboys weren't just stand- around letting Johnson make catch after catch, but he made them look helpless.
Johnson almost broke an NFL record, and could celebrate the hat because of a comeback from a 10-point, fourth-quarter deficit that some people who entered Ford Field didn't see because they had left.
Even our fans didn't think we could pull this one out," he said. They were leaving, but we knew we could do it."
Johnson's total trails only the 336 yards receiving Flipper Anderson had for the Los Angeles Rams against New Orleans on Nov. 26,
1989 in a game that went into overtime. Anderson had 296 yards receiving in regulation.
The Cowboys dared Detroit to throw to Johnson with a lot of one-on-one coverage. They usually asked cornerback Brandon Carr to do the improbable by defending
CALVIN JOHNSON
Detroit Lions wide receiver
him by himself, and sometimes attempted to slow him down with a zone.
"He had his way," Carr said. "And, we couldn't find a way to keep him from rolling."
Johnson noticed.
"It was crazy," he said. "We had a lot of one-on-one coverage today, and we were able to take advantage and hit some deep balls. Matt made some great throws to me." The Lions (5-3) overcame four turnovers without forcing a turnover, becoming the first team to do
that and win since New England did against Miami in 2007, according to STATS.
On their last drive, Stafford threw a 22-yard pass to Johnson to set up the winning score. The quarterback caught at least some Cowboys by surprise, including linebacker Sean Lee, who appeared to expect him to spike the ball to stop the clock.
"He kind of caught us off-guard," defensive tackle Jason Hatcher acknowledged.
Dallas (4-4) seemed to set itself up to win three straight for the first time this year to build a bigger lead atop the NFC East when Tony Romo threw his second touch-down — and third of the game — to Dez Bryant with 6:45 left to take 27-17 lead.
The Cowboys, though, allowed Reggie Bush to cap an 80-yard drive with a 1-yard TD with 3:33 left. They also had to settle for Dan Bailey's third field goal with 1:02 left after Tyron Smith was flagged for holding on third down, a mistake that stopped the clock even though Detroit declined the penalty.
"If we don't get called for a penalty, I think they probably had 20 seconds or so left." Romo said.
With no timeouts, the Lions went from their 20 to the Cowboys end zone thanks in large part to a 17-yard pass to Johnson, a 40-yard connection with Kris Durham and Johnson's 14th reception that gave them the ball at the Dallas 1.
Instead of spiking the ball, Staffo took the snap and leaped with his arms extended to beat the team he rooted for growing up in Highland Park, Texas.
"I was just as fooled as the defense was," Lions offensive guard Larry Fordford said.
Stafford was 33 of 48 for 488 yards —his second-highest total — with a 2-yard TD pass to Johnson in the first quarter and two interceptions. Reggie Bush had 92 yards rushing and a score.
Romo was 14 of 30, failing to complete half his passes for the first time since 2009, for 206 yards without a turnover.
Dallas began the game without two starters on both sides of the ball: DeMarco Murray and Miles Austin on offense and DeMarcus Ware and LILWilcox on defense.
Late in the first half, Romo threw two straight passes to Bryant — after not making him the intended receiver once — and he caught the second one with his left hand.
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Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford (9) celebrates scoring on a 1-yard touchdown run against the Dallas Cowboys in the fourth quarter of an NFL football game in Detroit on Sunday.
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