Denver defense gears up for 49ers' Frank Gore

ENGLEWOOD, Colo.—On a day when the last running back they faced won AFC player of the week honors for trampling all over them, the Denver Broncos tried to regroup defensively in anticipation of an even bigger challenge—containing the San Francisco 49ers' Frank Gore.

"I think he is the best running back we've faced so far," Broncos defensive coordinator Don "Wink" Martindale said Wednesday. "What he is good at is finding your mistakes."

The Broncos made plenty of them last Sunday in a 59-14 loss to the Raiders in which the newly anointed player of the week, Darren McFadden, ran for a career-best 165 yards with touchdowns of 57, 4 and 4 yards, to go with a 19-yard catch-and-run for another score. McFadden's performance was part of a Raiders rushing attack that gained 328 yards and dropped Denver's rushing defense to a No. 30 ranking. The Broncos are allowing an average of 156.6 yards per game. Only winless Buffalo (174.4)and Tampa Bay (157.7) have allowed more.

"Any time something like that happens, it's going to be a rough week if you're a competitor at all," said Martindale, whose preparations also were complicated by the team's 10-hour overseas trip later this week to play the 49ers in London on Sunday.

"We just need to be more consistent. We've shown some spurts. We've played well against some really good running backs and then that happened to us last week and I'd be sitting up here telling you a lie that I wasn't shocked that that happened to us. We're all in this together and this hurt our pride, no doubt about that, and we're making a conscious effort to being exact on every single play this week in practice."

While the 49ers have managed only one win this season and are now dealing with a quarterback change to Troy Smith because of a shoulder injury to Alex Smith, Gore has continued to bedevil defenses. Gore rushed for 102 yards in last week's 23-20 loss at Carolina—his club-record 23rd 100-yard game—and he leads the NFL with 914 yards from scrimmage (573 yards rushing, 341 yards receiving).

"He's a big part of the offense and we expect that to go up," Broncos linebacker Mario Haggan said, referring to the anticipated increased workload for Gore because of the quarterback change. "He's a very explosive runner and very underrated in this league, if you ask me. He can find holes, he catches the ball a lot out of the backfield and he definitely makes you pay for the mistakes that you make on defense."

The Broncos have had success at times defending the run, most notably limiting Tennessee's Chris Johnson to 53 yards on 19 carries in an Oct. 3 victory over the Titans. They used outside linebackers Robert Ayers and Jason Hunter to hold the edges and funnel the runs back inside, where inside linebackers Haggan and D.J. Williams typically made the tackles.

But Ayers broke his foot a week later at Baltimore and remains sidelined and the defensive line has been banged up. Strong safety Brian Dawkins, the top run defender in the secondary, also sprained his knee against Baltimore. He has missed the past two games but resumed practicing this week and indications are that he'll be available for Sunday's game. Veteran cornerback Andre Goodman, who has missed four of the last five games with a thigh injury, also is practicing this week and should be available, barring a setback.

Coach Josh McDaniels believes the return of Dawkins and Goodman will help restore some of the defensive "togetherness" critical to swarming to the ball and slowing down the run.

"The run game, the run defense is a lot of things that work well together," McDaniels said. "It's not just a single thing that you have to do right, it's everybody has to take care of their responsibility in the front so that you don't give (Gore) any opportunities to find a bunch of easy yards.

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(mercurynews.com)