Establish ground control on both sides

Denver wants to have an offense that is equally capable of beating a foe on the ground or in the air -- but Head Coach Vance Joseph knows that his team must establish the run first.

"That's our formula to win," he said. "Obviously, this [Seahawks] defense, it's a really, really stout front. They are a single-high coverage team, so they're going to have one more guy in the box than you can account for every down. We have to have a great plan to block that guy or influence that guy, but we can't get frustrated with the running game."

Since Pete Carroll became Seattle's head coach in 2010, the Seahawks are 23-1 when they hold opponents to fewer than 50 rushing yards and 36-0 when the opponent rushes 19 or fewer times. The second record is a bit of a chicken-and-egg proposition, as teams typically ditch the run when they fall behind.

Considering that Seattle is 4-19-1 in the Carroll era against teams who run 35 or more times, the Broncos' task is clear: Maintain fidelity to their ground commitment, even if it takes a while for success to arrive.

"We have to stay with it," Joseph said. "It may look ugly sometimes, but we have to stay with and puncture some runs to make our pass game more available."

On the defensive side, multiple players pointed to gap-control issues as the primary cause of the first-team defense's occasional problems containing the run in the Broncos' first three preseason games. In those contests, Denver's No. 1 defense held opponents to one yard or fewer on 13 of 35 attempts. But the Broncos also allowed six gains of 20 or more yards -- a rate of one double-digit pickup every 5.83 attempts. Last year, Denver allowed run of 10 or more yards once every 10.19 attempts.

The key to preventing that is for each defensive player to focus on his task.