In his first career start (did you hear it was his 25th birthday?), Broncos quarterback Brock Osweiler looked the part, completing 20 of 27 passes for 250 yards, two touchdowns, and (perhaps most importantly) no turnovers.
So Osweiler will play again with the Patriots coming to town next Sunday night, right? After the win, coach Gary Kubiak wouldn’t commit to a starter for Week 12.
“I knew that was coming,” Kubiak said when asked about the situation by reporters. “Here’s the deal: We got healthier here today. We’ve got some guys on this team that we’re trying to get healthy, so that’s important. And we won our eighth game. So we’re going to focus on winning today and enjoy winning and we’ll go back to work next week.”
Still, other things Kubiak said made it clear he’ll have a hard time putting Osweiler back on the bench, especially only two weeks after a 0.0 disaster from Peyton Manning.
“He can do everything,” Kubiak said of Osweiler. “He’s a very composed young man and the more he plays, I think, the better he’s going to get. We [bootlegged] a little bit, not a lot. They were up the field quite a bit but the threat of us doing that, I think, helped us run the ball a little bit. He’s a sharp young man. He has a lot of confidence in himself and he should obviously gain some more through this experience.”
Last week, Kubiak said Manning will play when he’s healthy. The definition of that term surely will hinge in large part on whether Osweiler continues to play like he did on Sunday in Chicago. And a win on Sunday night against the Patriots could ensure that Peyton may, in the estimation of Kubiak, never be healthy again.