NEW ORLEANS -- The last time Mike Anderson visited the Superdome was in 1991 and he carried five drums. He was the lead drummer for Fairfield Central (S.C.)
High School marching band, and, as he remembered it, his high school won a
Governor's Award in the prestigious Endymion Parade.
|  | | Broncos rookie Mike Anderson bursts up the middle for one of his four TD runs. |
On Sunday, Anderson beat the NFL's third-ranked defense like a drum.
The former Marine set an NFL rookie record by rushing for 251 yards on 37
carries and set a Broncos team record by scoring four touchdowns in a 38-23 win. The Saints couldn't stop whichever side of their
defense Anderson ran at.
"It was a lot easier," Anderson said of his percussion days
compared to his NFL Sunday, "because you don't get beat up enough."
Sunday was made easier for Anderson because the Broncos' offensive
line showed that offensive line coach Alex Gibbs is the maestro who
directs the best marching band in pro football. This was a showdown of the
best lines in football. The Saints pound teams with their brawn -- tacklesWillie Roaf and Kyle Turley and guards Wally Williams and Chris Naeole.
The Broncos destroy defenses with execution. They average 281 pounds
per blocker, 24 pounds less than the NFL average. Jimmy Johnson and running
coaches will tell you that lighter athletic guys can sometimes do more
damage than lumbering loads on lines.
What makes this line effective is that they don't have one-on-one
matchups. The Broncos zone block. The teams that give them problems are the ones
who employ the Broncos' defensive scheme, which tries to penetrate gaps in
those zones and squeeze their bodies between linemen. But the Packers and
Broncos are the main teams using that defensive strategy.
Coach Mike Shanahan and Gibbs figured out early in the week that
they were going to have to run the ball to win. The Saints lead the NFL with
56 quarterback sacks. Defensive tackle La'Roi Glover has 16 sacks while ends Joe Johnson and Darren Howard have 19 between them.
Playing with backup quarterback Gus Frerotte and Anderson, the
rookie who entered the season as a third-stringer, the Broncos' coaching staff told the team they were going to run right at the Saints' defensive line.
"Those are great things to hear, but you never know what's going to
happen in the course of a game," left tackle Tony Jones said. "I was
telling (center) Tom Nalen during the week that the thing we didn't want to do is
pass because of their great pass rush up front. We've got to run the ball."
Their edge was that the Saints' best run stopper, Norman Hand, was
playing with a tear in the lower part of his left foot. Hand was going to gut it out, but not without the Broncos testing him. The Broncos zone-blocked their first two runs toward the middle of the line to test him. Anderson gained eight yards. Their plan was going to work.
"We knew he hadn't practiced during the week," Nalen said. "We
knew he was kind of hurt."
Saints general manager Randy Mueller had seen this nightmare too
many times before. He came to New Orleans from Seattle where he had watched
Gibbs and Shanahan pound the Seahawks on the ground. "I've seen this for so
many years," said Mueller, who has watched Terrell Davis gain 2,000 yards
behind similar blocking schemes.
Last year, he watched the Broncos turn Olandis Gary into a
1,000-yard rusher as a rookie.
Hand hurt his right foot in the second quarter and was pretty much
done for the day. That allowed Shanahan to simplify the game plan even
further. They worked three to four base running plays, and to keep the
defense honest, Frerotte ran a few bootlegs.
Suddenly, Anderson felt as though he were back in the Superdome as a
drummer. In the first half alone, he rushed for 146 yards and scored three
touchdowns on just 17 carries.
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Am I jealous of Mike? No. I'm proud of what he's doing. He's helping our team, and I'm not afraid of competition. ” |
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— Terrell Davis, Broncos running back |
"We pretty much used two base running plays all day, handoff right
and handoff left," Anderson said. "You've got to give the line all the
credit."
Downfield blocking by receivers Rod Smith and Ed McCaffrey turned
runs into long gainers once Anderson broke through the Saints' front four. By the
half, the Broncos led 28-13.
All Anderson had to do was follow the lead of fullback Howard
Griffith, whose main job was to pick off the safety if he crept near the line
of scrimmage. Nalen or guards Lennie Friedman or Dan Neil wound get
underneath the run-stopping defensive tackle -- Hand or backup Martin Chase.
They'd try to get defensive tackle Glover to overpursue. Anderson picked the
hole and kept running and running and running.
Hand couldn't finish the second quarter. All the Broncos linemen did
was finish their blocks on every play.
"They just beat us," Saints coach Jim Haslett said. "It didn't
make a difference who was in there. We could have put dummies in there. Alex
Gibbs, I think, is one of the best offensive line coaches in the league. We
worked on it all week. They roll up on the back of your legs, but you have to
get upfield and you've got to tackle."
The Saints didn't and lost. Leading 31-16 in the third quarter, the
Broncos had a scare. Anderson broke through the defense for a 13-yard gain
only to have cornerback Kevin Mathis collapse his left knee with a helmet
and shoulder hit.
As Anderson stayed on the ground in pain, the Broncos flashed back
to similar knee injuries that took away Davis and Gary.
"It was painful," Anderson said. "I felt I might be out for some
time. But once I was able to get up and walk off the field, I thought I'd be OK."
So were the Broncos because they brought KaRon Coleman off the bench
and he broke runs for 7, 12, and 6 yards. Before long, Anderson was back to
finish off the greatest rookie running day in NFL history.
"Am I jealous of Mike? No," Davis said. "I'm proud of what he's
doing. He's helping our team, and I'm not afraid of competition."
Davis, who has a hairline fracture in his left calf, expects to be
back in three more weeks. The way the Broncos' line played Sunday, Floyd Little can
come out of retirement and gain 1,000 yards.
These zone blockers are in a zone. Just like he did in 1991,
Anderson marched into the Superdome and marched out with a trophy.
John Clayton is the senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.
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