Osweiler still starting, but Manning nears return

Denver Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak must decide between Peyton Manning and Brock Osweiler?

Manning will travel with the team to Pittsburgh, and Kubiak expects that he will be on the sideline during the game, although he could sit upstairs.

Manning, out since November 15 with a torn plantar fascia in his left foot, worked under center, executed dropbacks, threw from the shotgun formation and performed in 7-on-7 drills, showing encouraging progress since his last game action.

Manning returned to practice on Wednesday, the first time in a month that he has been able to go through drills with the team.

“It was good to see him back”, Sanders said.

“I’d been having some symptoms that I’ve been dealing with”, Manning said. “We’ll have a plan in place by the time we get to Wednesday”. However, in recent weeks Osweiler and the Denver offense have grown stale, failing to score an offensive touchdown in the past seven quarters.

“I’ll visit with Peyton here this afternoon before he leaves, ” Kubiak said.

Who knows, maybe Osweiler has more than meets the eye to him and the learning process will give the Broncos a better quarterback who can move better than he is right now and be a more unsafe passer than he is right now.

Although the frustration on Osweiler’s performance has been high as of late, recent reports claimed that he will still be the starting quarterback against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Although Osweiler ran practice this season on just about every Wednesday even when Manning was healthy, this certainly represented a real role reversal for the longtime apprentice and the five-time MVP. There’s clearly an argument to be made for Osweiler remaining the Broncos’ starter for the rest of the regular season and into the playoffs.

Stewart out with sprained foot: Panthers coachRon Rivera says running back Jonathan Stewartwill not play Sunday against the New York Giants due to a sprained left foot. He missed trips to Chicago and San Diego and watched the Patriots-Broncos game from inside the locker room before watching Denver’s 15-12 loss to Oakland last weekend from the sideline.

“That’s the next step is that he’s coming back to practice”. Let me see where we’re at. “I don’t mind frustrations at all as a coach because we work hard at what we do, but you get over those really quick and you go to the next week and that’s what we’ll do”.

“I’ve learned a lot from it”, Mallett said. The team has a championship-quality defense and could have a strong chance to win reach the Super Bowl if Osweiler can continue to offer strong performances.

“I believe Brock will play well”.