But the kicker is you add in that there was an obvious overt desire to get to this record. THe broncos threw a lot more than they needed to this year. Some will argue that but, to me, its clear they ran it up here and there when they could have eased off and those handful of TDs here and there is the difference. Did the Broncos really need to be throwing every single down, up by 20+ yesterday until they broke the record and then immediately call it a day? Probably not (again, just one person's opinion).
Great post, but here's why I disagree with the part quoted above:
On the surface, it looks like they were running up the score in some games, but this is Peyton's first season testing out some of his new weapons...Julius Thomas, Wes Welker, etc. If you're a high powered offense that is designed to put up 45-50 points in a playoff game, why on earth would you take the air out of the ball in the second half and play conservatively like you're the Chiefs? You might as well continue to refine the passing game and not let off the gas because that's what you'll need to do in the post-season to win games. It would be downright stupid do switch to a conservative offense in the second half of each game you're winning. That's a terrible way to prepare for the offseason SB run when you're a team with incredible offensive talent and a swiss cheese defense.
Denver didn't run up the score this year, though. Peyton Manning threw two touchdowns in the fourth quarter with a 3-score lead. The first came back in week 1, when Denver had a 17-point lead and 14 minutes left in the game. The second came against Houston, when Manning got his 51st touchdown before coming out of the game (which, admittedly, was running up the score by any reasonable definition I can think of). Every other touchdown on the season either came in the first three quarters (i.e. with a ton of football left to be played), or within 2 scores in the 4th quarter (and as New England demonstrated against Cleveland, a 2-score lead in the 4th quarter should never be considered safe).
It seems like Denver ran up the score because some of their final scores looked so ugly, but Denver was a relatively slow-starting team that just happened to be the highest-scoring second-half team in history. For instance, that 51-28 blowout of Tennessee? It was a 6-point game entering the 4th quarter (34-28), and when Manning threw his fourth and final touchdown, Tennessee was still within 9. The 45-21 blowout of Washington? Denver actually
trailed heading into the 4th quarter, 21-14, before Peyton tossed his 2nd touchdown to tie it, his 3rd touchdown to take the lead, and his 4th touchdown to stretch out a 10 point lead to 17. The 35-19 Jacksonville blowout was, at one point, 21-19 (and Denver scored nothing but rushing TDs the rest of the way, anyway). The 37-21 blowout of Oakland in the first game was a blowout the whole way, but Peyton didn't throw any TDs in the second half. In the 41-23 dismantling of New York, the Giants were within a single point midway through the third, and Peyton threw his last TD of the day early in the 4th quarter while Denver was still nursing an 8-point lead (24-16). In the 52-20 beatdown of the Eagles, Peyton sat for the entire 4th quarter and left Osweiler with mop-up duty. In the season-opening 49-27 victory over Baltimore, Denver trailed at halftime before turning on the jets in the second half, and Manning's last touchdown came on a dinky little screen pass designed to kill clock that Demaryius wound up breaking for a huge gain.
It looks like Denver was involved in a lot of blowouts this year, but the truth is that most of them were games that were still extremely close through the third quarter that Denver turned into a laugher in the 4th. Peyton wasn't running up the score in the 4th, in most cases he was just trying to get a comfortable lead.