Broncos welcome Vernon Davis to the mix

“It’s about winning. Winning the game and adding onto what these guys have accomplished here before I arrived”, said the newest Broncos’ tight end Vernon Davis.

And Manning? Well, OK, let’s not get carried away here and say that this was vintage Peyton, but let us also say that there are not a lot of quarterbacks whose bodies are as ravaged as Manning’s who would be capable of putting up 340 yards passing against the Packers. San Francisco, look at the year when I started to drop off. What happened with the team?

When I reminded him the Niners were the NFL’s best team for a 24-month span from 2011-13, only to see their dreams of a ring dashed by incomprehensible turnovers in the conference title game one year and a drive that stalled in the red zone late in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl the next season, the eyes of Davis turned stormy with the memories of what could have been. “It’s hard. It’s tough to be able to play for a team where you just don’t have everything you need”.

“Obviously it’s going to take him a little bit of time to get used to what we’re doing”, Elway said. Really it will come down to ole Peyton Manning and whether he can continue playing like he did last week. “But sometimes things happen and you just have to be prepared for it. I think anyone would be upset”.

“I like the monkey on the back”, Miller said.

Returning to Lucas Oil Stadium for the second time as a visitor, Manning brings the undefeated Denver Broncos into Sunday’s showdown with a Colts team that hasn’t been through this much turmoil since his departure. Really? That’d be an incredible place to go to, I mean Peyton Manning’s there. The Broncos need to help Davis fall in love with football again. No one really excelled, no one really had success.

Colts QB Andrew Luck, whose team is 3-5, said he wasn’t aware of Manning’s chances at making more history Sunday, “but I don’t think that will be any extra motivation for anybody”. Both these teams came in at 6-0, but the Broncos were a home underdog for good reasons, and the first of those reasons was that nobody really believed Manning could hold it together against a team as good as the Packers. They were good at their craft. They outscore all of their opponents in the fourth quarter, so this is a game where we have to be on our game throughout the whole game.

“Peyton is one of those guys that every wide receiver dreams about having”, he said.

“Guys, I don’t. I see the big arm, being able to make plays moving around”. He had been splitting snaps with the 49ers but was second on the team receptions, with 18, even though he missed two games with a knee injury.

The Broncos defense, which has gone on an incredible run through seven games, has faced some impressive tight ends in Travis Kelce, Eric Ebron and Gary Barnidge to name a few, but they view Davis as a game-changer and certainly still an elite tight end.

Until Sunday night, that’s exactly what they were, winning their first six games by a total of just 37 points, the lowest point differential for a 6-0 team in more than 80 years. “He has that vertical threat, that speed threat from the tight end position”, Harris said. “We had goals and hit all our goals tonight”, Von Miller said.

“Last night, I was just lying in my bed and I just couldn’t sleep”, he said. “I was like, ‘I’m here in Denver with Kubiak and Peyton”.