Broncos special-teams concerns, Derek Wolfe’s take, A.J. Derby’s development and more

By NICKI JHABVALA
November 29, 2016

Broncos coach Gary Kubiak has a list of concerns about his team that seems to grow by the week.

After Sunday’s overtime loss to the Chiefs, special teams became a glaring concern after an array of mistakes that included multiple holdings calls on punts, two muffed punts by Jordan Norwood, an illegal formation penalty on a Chiefs field goal attempt, and a Broncos free kick that Tyreek Hill returned 86 yards for a touchdown.

“That’s really disappointing because that had been a consistency for us,” Kubiak said. “There have been a couple of times here in the last month where we have not played well on special teams. … There are two phases of the game. Field position, we lost that phase of the game and we lost the turnover battle in that phase of the game, too. It’s very disappointing. We need to rebound.”

Critical stretch. The pressure is on high after the divisional loss. If the playoffs started this week, the Broncos wouldn’t be in the postseason field. Which means their final five games are raised in importance.

But defensive end Derek Wolfe said the pressure would have been there even after a win.

“We’re the type of team where we don’t feel pressure, we try to apply it,” he said. “That’s something that we’re going to have to emphasize. … It happened last year. We were in the same type of situation. The margin for error is not there. We can’t be messing up. We can’t be making mistakes.”

Derby’s development. Among the bright spots for the Broncos’ offense Sunday night was tight end A.J. Derby’s involvement. Derby, who was acquired in a trade with New England in October, caught all four targets for a season-high 43 yards. One of those catches was for 13 yards on a critical third down in the fourth quarter that led to Bennie Fowler’s touchdown.

“(We’re) excited about how far he’s come since we’ve gotten him,” Kubiak said. “Obviously, he’ll continue to take more of a part of what we’re doing, but (he) makes a lot of plays (and) he catches the ball well. He can improve in the physical part. Blocking and those types of things are the things that we need him to improve upon, but I think that he has a chance to be a really good player.”

Tale of two halves. Weak pass protection upfront stalled the Broncos’ offense and left quarterback Trevor Siemian little to time to create much of anything in the first half Sunday. So what changed in the second half?

“In the first half, we couldn’t hold the ball to throw anything, to be honest with you,” Kubiak said. “In the second half we found a way to get the ball down the field a little bit and make some plays. We stood committed to the run even though we were down. We didn’t run the ball great, but we ran the ball enough that we could still run play-action. He played extremely well. He made a lot of plays. He made a lot of plays with his feet.”

Phil Dawson Reflects on 400th Field Goal, 'Uncle Phil' Nickname

November 23, 2016
By Joe Fann

There was no denying the moment. Phil Dawson could feel the difference as he paced backwards to line up the 33-yard field goal attempt. Longsnapper Kyle Nelson and punter/holder Bradley Pinion were unusually quiet.

Focus was essential amid wet conditions at Levi’s® Stadium, and neither player wanted to be the one responsible for keeping Dawson away from the looming milestone.

“I could sense the anticipation and excitement,” Dawson said. “I lined up, it was a great snap, a great hold, the guys protected well, and I just tried to punch it through.”

Dawson drilled it between the uprights. The kick put the San Francisco 49ers on the scoreboard against the New England Patriots, but more importantly, it marked Dawson’s 400th career field goal.

The 18-year veteran became the 10th kicker in NFL history to reach the mark.

“It was a great sense of relief. … It felt really good. We’d been tracking it for a while now,” Dawson said, referring to the countdown to 400 that had been in the office of special teams coordinator Derius Swinton II. “It was really special.”

What’s more, Dawson owns the best career field goal percentage of any kicker to make 400 (84.7 percent). That’s a remarkable number given the 14 years Dawson spent in Cleveland’s unpredictable winter conditions.

“Part of being a kicker is that you never know (when your opportunities will come),” Dawson said. “You just have to be ready, and whenever your team needs you, you have to go out there and make the most of it. That’s what I’ve tried to do in my career.”

And it’s what Dawson continues to do. The 41-year-old has made 14-of-15 field-goal attempts this season and is showing no signs of slowing down (as evidenced by his booming 53-yard field goal against the Arizona Cardinals in Week 10).

Dawson't teammates mobbed him back on the sideline. Everyone took the opportunity to shake his hand and congratulate their esteemed teammate best known in the locker room as, “Uncle Phil.” Dawson has learned to love the nickname first given by Torrey Smith.

“I guess it’s a term of endearment, and so I’m gonna go with it,” Dawson said. “My boys think it’s cool and say it’s the in thing to be called, so I guess I’m cool now.”

But it’s better than “Grandpa Phil,” right?

“Yeah, but with the gray hair, that’s coming,” Phil joked about the white hair that is not-so subtly creeping into his beard. “I might be great uncle Phil before too long.”

The 49ers kicker couldn’t have timed his momentous achievement any better. Each year, the kicker’s wife and three kids come to a home game around Thanksgiving. This meant that no special travel plans were needed to be made for the Week 12 contest against the Patriots. In addition, Dawson’s parents alternate Thanksgiving and Christmas with his in-laws.

This year, it was Dawson’s parents who got to be in town for the turkey day trip.

“They don’t get to come to very many games. That was a neat deal, to share it with them," Dawson said. "They’ve been there since my first kick.”

As for the ball, it still resides in the equipment room at 49ers HQ. It will eventually assume it’s proper place on the mantle at Dawson’s home in Austin, Texas.

“That will find a special place,” Dawson said. “That will be one that as I’m done playing, whenever that is, I’ll appreciate that ball even more. Right now, I’m still doing my thing and trying to get ready for another opponent. I can’t really go into grandpa-reflection mode yet, but as time goes by, I think I’ll really enjoy that one.”

Toughness, versatility and ingenuity allow Marshal Yanda to dominate while injured

By Childs Walker
November 29, 2016

Marshal Yanda devised the solution himself.

If there was no way to get his injured left shoulder up to snuff for the remaining seven games of the 2016 season, the Ravens guard would find a way to rely more heavily on his right shoulder. Perhaps if he fired from the left side of the line instead of the right, he'd be able to use his healthier wing to smash interior defenders.

Yanda, a five-time Pro Bowl selection at right guard, suggested the shift to Ravens coach John Harbaugh at the beginning of last week. By Sunday, he looked ready to start the Pro Bowl at his new spot.

So what if he hadn't played a single snap at left guard in 10 pro seasons? So what if his bad shoulder would torment him through two more months of NFL combat? The move provided a perfect mini-synopsis of Yanda's understatedly brilliant career — a blend of will, resourcefulness and rare athletic ability.

"If guys wouldn't look up to Marshal, I don't know who they would look up to just in terms of the total package," Harbaugh said. "The ability to do what he did, the willingness to do it and then to be able to pull it off, it's pretty remarkable."

Yanda has now served as a model of professionalism for an entire generation of Ravens offensive linemen.

"As soon as I came here, I knew one of the guys I'd be looking up to was Marshal," said left tackle Ronnie Stanley, the team's No. 1 draft pick. "He's everything I expected him to be and more. Great teammate, great leader, really understands the game without taking it too seriously. If coaches are doing something he doesn't think is useful to players, he'll say something. He's kind of a players' leader. He's always fighting for us, and out on the field, he's always fighting."

Yanda hurt his shoulder sometime during the Ravens' Week 5 loss to the Washington Redskins. The stoic All-Pro didn't come out of the game, so many were surprised when he appeared on the team's injury report the following week.

He missed three of the next four games, fueling concerns that his shoulder might be wrecked enough to cost him the rest of the season.
Leave it to Yanda, however, to find a way to keep playing.

He did not merely grit his way through a so-so performance. He graded as the best guard in the league, according to the scouting web site Pro Football Focus.

He was flawless in pass protection, a major reason why quarterback Joe Flacco took just three hits all game. And he was the key blocker on the Ravens' first scoring drive, which featured runs of 20, 16 and 18 yards.

After running back Terrance West powered across the goal line, Yanda sprinted to meet him in the end zone, where he wrapped West in a vigorous hug.

The last thing he looked like was a guy with a busted shoulder.

Of course, we've seen this before. Yanda played with a torn rotator cuff during the team's run to Super Bowl XLVII, postponing surgery until five days after the Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers.

As a rookie, he famously took two jolts from a stun gun to win a $600 bet. Easiest money he'd ever made, the Iowa farm boy declared.

Yanda, 32, has accepted pain as an inherent part of the job ever since he blew out his knee five games into his second season.

"You have to understand, it's not if you're going to get hurt. It's when," he said in 2014.

It's an outlook he shares with linebacker Terrell Suggs, one of only two players who have been on the Ravens longer than Yanda.

"That's kind of the mentality, for some of us," said Suggs, who's playing with a torn biceps. "It's the cost of doing business. That's the only way Marshal knows to play. We all be getting banged up, and Marshal's going to be out there. It's good to see your bell cow out there, definitely."

Yanda has never been the most talkative Raven, and he politely declined an interview request Wednesday.

But his teammates are happy to fill in the blanks on one of the most respected players in the locker room.

"I asked him when was the last time he was on the left side, and I forget what he told me, but it wasn't any time close to now," Flacco said. "So it's definitely impressive what he does, week in and week out.

He recalled Yanda was "pretty down" a few weeks ago when his season appeared in jeopardy. But when Flacco showed up for work last week, he noticed "an extra pep" in Yanda's step.

"Then he broke it to me he was going to try to play the left side," Flacco said. "Obviously, I love that."

Harbaugh is no longer surprised by Yanda's adaptability. He has shifted him to tackle several times over the years to cover for injuries to other players. But the right-to-left flip revealed another layer of versatility.

"I don't know if it's quite as drastic as this, but in some ways, it's like you're a lefty all of those years, and now, you have to go over to the right of the plate and hit," Harbaugh said. "You have your other hand down. You have your other foot back and everything is backwards; you're setting to the left instead of to the right. All the plays are flipped. I think for him to do it … I was weary of it early in the week. I was just watching him in individual and seeing how he moved, but he did look natural doing it. … It just shows you what a phenomenal athlete he is and how determined he is and really what a good football player he is."

Stanley made the switch from right tackle to left tackle over an entire offseason in college and said it's no small thing to reset your muscle memory.

"That's the hardest part, is just getting your body parts to react the same way," Stanley said. "Offensive line isn't a normal body position for humans to be in, so to alter that after you've been practicing your legs to move a certain way for so long, it doesn't just come naturally. It's definitely a big feat."

Stanley was mighty impressed with the way Yanda carried it off against the Dallas Cowboys.

"But for Marshal," he said, "it's probably just normal."