After five days of uncertainty, running back C.J. Anderson knows he’ll be playing for the Broncos. Much more time may pass before he knows who will be handing him the football.
So does that uncertainty create anxiety for Anderson?
“Not at all you,” he said on Wednesday’s PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio. “There was times during the season it was Peyton [Manning] or Brock [Osweiler} and we didn’t know who it was gonna be at that point. It doesn’t matter and at the end of the day whoever is lining up behind center, they don’t have to be a hero. All they have to do is do their job accordingly. We have to do our job accordingly to make it easy on them and we’ll make it easy as much as possible. We’re gonna ride or die like we did for Peyton, like we did for Brock. We’re gonna ride or die for whoever under center and we’re gonna make sure we make plays to make their job easier. Protect the ball and just play football the way we know how.”
Anderson doesn’t specifically know why Osweiler left, but Anderson offered up a theory.
“Brock wanted a fresh start,” Osweiler said. “It’s tough. I don’t know why he left, can’t explain those reasons but I just know the pressure playing behind Peyton, that’s always tough. Probably the pressure playing behind John Elway that makes it even worse. You’ve got two amazing quarterbacks for one organization and for you to fill that role it could be tough but he had the playmakers behind him [in Denver]. No disrespect to Houston over there but he had the playmakers behind him over here.”
I then floated a semi-hot take to Anderson, the idea that having Manning and Osweiler exit reduces the pressure on the Broncos to repeat. Does Anderson agree with that?
“Oh no, not at all,” Anderson said. “Us as an offense, expectations would be better as an offense. A lot of us are going to have a second year in that system. We want to flow and flourish in [coach Gary] Kubiak’s system like we have seen it when he was in Houston, when he was in Baltimore. We want to flourish and have some big plays, big runs, big catches.
“People act like we lost our best defensive player. We lost two guys and we’re gonna get Von [Miller’s] deal done. We got DeMarcus [Ware] still there, we still got in the back end Darian Stewart and T.J. Ward, [Bradley] Roby, [Aqib] Talib, Chris [Harris Jr.], Brandon Marshall. I mean we’re still stout, so we’ll definitely have that target on our back and if you didn’t wanna be a part of that target on our back that says something about your character.”
Some would say Anderson just called out the guys who left. If that’s what it takes to rally the remaining troops and prepare for a second straight run at a Super Bowl win, so be it.