Peyton Manning had one of the better lines of Media Day -- sorry, "Opening Night," good grief -- when he said his 12-yard run against the Patriots would probably have Carolina assigning a defender to spy for him running the ball in the Super Bowl. That won't happen, but maybe Denver is thinking along those lines.
Cam Newton is incomparable, of course, but he's not the only running quarterback in the NFL. He's the only one who rushed for over 600 yards and scored 10 TDs, but there were other productive runners. Newton was one of 10 different quarterbacks to rush for at least 200 yards last season.
The Broncos, however, didn't face many of those quarterbacks. They played only four games against 200-yard rushing quarterbacks: Alex Smith twice, Aaron Rodgers, and Jay Cutler. They played 11 games against pure pocket passers: Brady, Roethlisberger, Rivers, Carr, Flacco, Dalton. Newton won't be uncharted territory for the Broncos, but he'll be pretty close.
If you expand the statistical group to include passers who rushed for at least 150 yards, Denver then played six games against those quarterbacks. (Although no one would really consider Matthew Stafford a running quarterback.)
In any case, here's how those six quarterbacks with at least 150 rushing yards last season performed against Denver. The table shows their rushing yards on the season and then their rushing numbers against the Broncos.
| QBS WITH 150-PLUS RUSHING YARDS WHO FACED BRONCOS | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quarterback | Run (2015) | RuAtt | RuYds | RuTDs |
| Alex Smith | 498 | 3 | 15 | 0 |
| Matthew Stafford | 159 | 1 | -1 | 0 |
| Teddy Bridgewater | 192 | 3 | 23 | 0 |
| Aaron Rodgers | 344 | 2 | 31 | 0 |
| Alex Smith | 498 | 6 | 33 | 0 |
| Jay Cutler | 201 | 3 | 29 | 0 |
--Andy Richardson