The first quarter of the season has come and gone, and I’m happy about where we stand.

I’m so glad to be a part of this organization. I’ve settled into my current role well, and I’m excited about what I’ve brought to the team so far. I try to go in and do what I can to help the team out, give the team energy, do my job.

That is always the goal of any running back in the NFL, and any player really. Just do your job. If you don’t, they’re going to find somebody else to do it. So every time my name is called, I go out there with all my heart, and mind, and soul and put my team in position to be successful.

Everybody keeps saying that I’m back to myself, but I feel like I’ve always been myself. Nobody was really paying attention because of the injuries, but I never lost a step. I’ve been working hard to make sure that’s the case, to get to where I’m at right now and exceed it. Every week in this system, all I’m going to do is get better and better. The Broncos gave me an opportunity, and I’ve just got to show each and every week that I love playing football, and still have it.

I’m looking to continue to stay healthy, and help my team win by making plays and showing that I can still play great football. I have been letting it all come to me and it is working well. It hasn’t been too hard. Every challenge, I just try to step up. My role is to be the next man up. Whether it’s running the football or staying in to block for my quarterback, I take pride in it. It’s all part of mindset. I think real pride is all about your mind and your soul.

In pass blocking, you can get embarrassed or you can embarrass somebody else. I’m not going to get run over. So I take real pride in stepping up in pass protect and being physical at the point of attack. It’s an opportunity, too. These guys get to hit me when I have the ball, so I’ll hit them when I don’t to protect my quarterback and allow him to step up and make a great throw. I think of it as part of my role and a way to keep my job and be on the field even more.

I’ve always felt that way about pass blocking. In college, my coach told me that if I didn’t block, I wasn’t going to play. So, I’ve always felt like it’s been a big thing for me. I have taken more pride in that than I have in running. I’ve always been able to run naturally. That is my gift. But blocking is something else I have had to work on and develop.

Now, it sure did feel good to get in the end zone a few weeks in Buffalo. I was very grateful to score my first touchdown in a year and as a Bronco, but it’s a shame that it happened in our only loss. I wish I could do more, score more touchdowns. So, I keep on working hard at practice, and putting in a lot of time studying film. I will continue to take advantage of my opportunities, and find more ways I can get in the end zone. I know I’ll find a way to get back in there.

UPS AND DOWNS

That game in Buffalo showed us something. The Bills outplayed us. Their effort was tremendous, and we know that we can’t play poorly like that anymore. It’s a full team effort, and we didn’t play team football. We didn’t execute. They were a better team than us that day. But hopefully that won’t happen again.

We learned that it’s not going to be easy. We’ve got to go out there and play with more energy and the best effort and be more energetic than the other team every time we step on the field.

I was really proud of the way we bounced back against Oakland going into the Bye week. It was big. You always want to win that game before the Bye. But a lot of times, guys lose focus because they are looking ahead. Coach Joseph made sure that didn’t happen. He came in at the start of the week, calmed everybody down and locked us in. It was a huge game, a division game, coming off a loss. We had to have it. So he made us a deal and said, “After Oakland week is over with. You all can just go ahead, and take a long break, and get away from football, and enjoy it.”

That motivated us and we were able to focus on that game alone in a good way.

I’ve heard that this is a good time of the year to have a Bye and I’ve heard it’s too early, but I’ve been in the league long enough to know it doesn’t really matter. I’ve had early Byes, late Byes, Week 8 Byes. The schedule is always going to be what it is, and a challenge. We’ve got a Monday night game coming up soon, so that’s a long week followed by a short week. Later in the year, we play on Thursday, so that’s a short week followed by a long one. To me, it doesn’t really matter. It’s kinda like playing pick-up basketball. You go to the gym and play every day regardless of who else is playing. Your body might get sore, but you still got to play if you want to win no matter what else is going on.

One of the things we’ve got to do better with is playing on the road. It’s tough for teams to come in here and play us. We’ve been dominant at home. We’ve got a nice home-field advantage. Heck, when I first got here, it took me a bit to get used to the altitude. Going through practices during camp, I thought I was having an asthma attack almost. But I got used to it after a while. Now it’s just upped my level of performance.

Playing at altitude and being used to it probably gives us an advantage, but at the end of the day, we’re still playing football and we’ve still got to win the ballgame by doing the usual things that lead to winning. Everybody out there is competing with each other; everyone is a professional, so all that conditioning stuff is important but at times can almost go out the window when everyone is giving all they got. When you get in the heat of competition, you aren’t thinking about conditioning. You’re thinking about playing well and making plays, giving all you have, all of the time.

RB BY COMMITTEE

We’ve got a really great group at running back, and the coaching staff is trying to put us in the best situation to make plays for the team and win.

I’ve got a good relationship with Coach Studesville. He’s great in meetings, just pushing us to be the best, and it helps knowing he will put us in the best situations. That is what a coach does. He motivates us to go out there and play every week.

Playing with C.J, Anderson has been great. He’s a really good player, a smart player. He is a leader on the team. He’s been here since he got drafted, so he is very hard working on and off the field. You can tell he’s a guy that really wants the ball a lot, and wants to make plays on the field for his team. That’s the guy he is. I’ve always been the same way.

Devontae Booker is really looking good in practice, too. He’s a young guy, but you can tell he wants it and he’s a hard runner. He was drafted last year and had to take over when C.J. went down, so he’s got some experience. Book knows the game very well. He’s still young too and not as experienced as myself or C.J., but he’s got two people to learn from with the two of us. He will be a great player in this league one day. De’Angelo Henderson had a great preseason, and as a rookie, he’s still learning. But I think when his time does come, he will have a great and successful career.

I take a lot of pride in helping those young guys along, on and off the field, teaching them stuff about life and football. I’m trying to help them understand how to trust and use the game of football, how you keep this job, that you have got to keep working hard and study. So, it’s just stuff like that, and it applies to life as well. Because at the end of the day, football only lasts some of a lifetime. So it’s important to learn about yourself and about life while you’re playing.

I’ve fit in really well here. I’m close with the running back guys now, but we’re all a big family in the locker room. There aren’t any cliques. I feel like NFL is a fraternity, so I was familiar with all these guys before I got here. It’s like you don’t really know them, but you know them because you watch them. So it’s easy to fit in.

FIRST QUARTER IMPRESSIONS

We’ve got a lot of talent on the team here. A lot of guys on the team with a lot of ability.

I can’t say enough about what Trevor Siemian has come out and done through the first quarter of the season. He carries himself and plays like a guy who has been playing quarterback in this league for a long time. He’s got a really good arm on him and he has been a strong leader for us. There is obviously room to grow, but I think he is getting there and wants to be an elite quarterback. He’s got the right weapons on the team to do it, and he’s a very smart guy when it comes to protection and reading a defense.

But it’s not about one guy. Different guys make plays on each side of the ball, and we spread the wealth around. That is the best thing about this team. A lot of teams have a main guy they go to all the time. This team really has so much talent that everybody touches the ball. It’s all going well and we’ve got to keep that up, all the way around, on special teams, the defense, the offense. We’ve got to be able to keep that up.

The coaching staff has played a huge role in helping us get to this point. The game plans have been really good. They just want each of us to be able to make plays and their job is to put us in the best position to do that. So they push us at practice, and we approach it with the same mindset as a game, trying to be the best, and it translates over to the game.

We’ve still got a long way to go. It’s not close to the end of the season, so we’re going to get better as the time goes on. Because that is the only way you can be there at the end, at the real end, is to get better every day.

For me, it almost feels like I’m in graduate school here. I’ve already learned so much about this game, being in the league 10 years. Honestly, you learn more stuff as a rookie than any other year, and after that, you see things that you’ve been seeing the whole time you have been playing in the league, so it becomes more about the little things. Some things never change though. It’s still Xs and Os and versions of a lot of the plays you have run since high school. You’re still playing the same game now that you were playing as a rookie and in a way, as a kid.

The biggest things in the NFL that do make it different are anticipation and execution. You can tell where the pressure is coming from, and then you just have to make the block. You can tell what the defense trying to do, and where the hole is going to be, you just have to hit it. Easy! Ha ha.

WHAT’S TO COME

We’re trying to figure out a way to win enough games to make it to the playoffs, and hopefully win the division. We’re just taking one game at a time. It’s such a long season. We went 3-1 through the first quarter, and we’ve got three more quarters to go. So right now, we worry about the second quarter of the season. That is all we can do.

We definitely have room to improve and do more as an offensive unit. We can move the ball, but we have to find a way to put more points on the board. Our defense is doing a great job right now of keeping us in games. We have got to find a way on the offensive side to play an even more well-rounded game and let the defense have some games where they don’t have so much pressure on them at the end of it.

We can’t ask for much more out of those guys on the defensive side. They’ve been a shut-down unit for the most part and that’s what you want out of them, but it’s a long season and every week is different. We’ve got to become a great team, and not just a great defense. To do that, we need to play great football all the way around, offense, defense and special teams.

With our fans behind us, I’m confident we’ll get there. I hope you know that we’ll keep working hard to win and make our championship goals come true. All we ask is that you support us through good times and the hard times. Let’s go, Broncos Country!