Christian Ponder is going to work out for the Broncos

The Broncos brought Ponder in Wednesday to work out and they signed him as Manning is expected to miss at least two games with a partially torn plantar fascia. After the cast is removed, he will begin additional rehabilitation on his injured foot.

Few teams have figured out how to slow down New England tight end Rob Gronkowski, but it will be imperative for the Broncos to limit what he does in this game. You have to try to stay out of long-yardage situations, which is hard because they do a good job of trying to stop the run, getting after the quarterback. He’s talking me through all of his past experiences going against the Patriots and whatnot.

The Broncos have lots to be thankful for this season and they showed their appreciation today on Twitter for things like – “Yams”. According to ESPN, Osweiler is just the second quarterback to win the award in his first career start. With yet another injury to Danny Amendola, it might start to get trickier against Denver’s no. 1 ranked defense. We know without a shadow of a doubt he’s not playing against the Patriots, and he’s not playing the week after that against the San Diego Chargers either. If Denver doesn’t want him, I can’t see Manning desiring to learn a whole new system and team culture at 40.

Manning hasn’t necessarily played well this season and if Osweiler continues to win games with the future Hall of Famer sidelined, the team certainly will have an interesting decision to make once the veteran is healthy enough to play again. Instead, Brock Osweiler will be the quarterback of the Broncos. Add it all up and Osweiler and the Broncos have a solid chance of winning. The young Osweiler, had not started a regular season game since week one of the 2012 season so technically this was his second National Football League start, but who’s counting. Any AFC team that hopes to reach the Super Bowl is in all likelihood going to have to beat the Patriots.

Uneven flags. Some Broncos players say the officials are keeping a closer eye on them. With Ware, the Broncos defense is the most effective pass rush in the league, backed by an incredible secondary.

While the Broncos have risen to the occasion recently as betting underdogs, history is not on their side in recent matchups with the Patriots, dropping five of their last six overall against New England both SU and ATS. He is 5-foot-11, 202 pounds – 15 lighter than last season – and inflicts pain.

“We used to play against Shannon Sharpe every day on defense when I was here (from 1989-94)”, Phillips recalled.