Schlereth: Broncos made ‘mistake’ going away from ground game

After the first two weeks of the season, the Denver Broncos had rushed for a league-best 318 yards on the way to a 2-0 start.

C.J. Anderson, who rushed for 118 of his 199 total yards in Week 2 alone, trailed only Kareem Hunt for the most rushing yards in the NFL.

Four-time Pro Bowler Jamaal Charles had 86 yards on the ground himself.

And the duo seemed poised to continue pounding the rock through one half of play in Buffalo on Sunday, with Anderson averaging 6.8 yards per attempt with 34 yards and Charles earning his first touchdown in a Broncos uniform.

However, Anderson would gain only two more yards through the rest of the game and Charles, while grabbing an additional 40 yards, never made it back to pay dirt in Denver’s road loss to the Bills, 26-16.

“I’ve been critical of C.J. at times over the course of his career, but (Sunday) was a mistake, not letting him wear that defense out a little bit,” said Mark Schlereth, co-host of “Schlereth & Evans. “It was a mistake.”

After saying in his postgame press conference Sunday that he felt the Broncos ran the ball “fine” against the Bills, head coach Vance Joseph said Monday that he was “disappointed” in how his squad attacked Buffalo’s defense.

“I thought they gave us a number of different looks, and they kept us guessing. They played a lot of heavy box stuff on obvious run downs and forced us to throw the football,” Joseph said. “We threw it enough, and we didn’t win enough on the outside.”

Schlereth put 25 percent of the blame on the Broncos not running the ball more, along with another 25 percent on the “No Fly Zone,” penalties, and quarterback Trevor Siemian.

Siemian, who had shined through the first two weeks of the season, threw a season-high 40 attempts for 259 yards but came away with no touchdowns and two interceptions.

On Monday, 104.3 The Fan’s Sandy Clough theorized that throwing the ball as much as Siemian did on Sunday was only a detriment.

“I understand that flies in the face, my theory, that for the most part in this league if you’re going to score big you have to throw well,” Clough said. “But, you notice I said throw well. Not necessarily throw it often. Throw it well. Buffalo threw it well yesterday.”

Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor finished 20-of-26 for 213 yards and two touchdowns

Throughout his career, in all but one of the six games in which Siemian threw 40 or more passes did the third-year pro win the game — last season against New Orleans.

Siemian’s record when throwing the ball: 9-2.

Follow digital content producer Johnny Hart on Twitter: @johnnyhart7.