Virgil Green: ‘We’ve got some dogs up front, guys hungry, wanting to be great’

Eric Goodman and Les Shapiro of Mile High Sports’ Afternoon Drive talked to Virgil Green today about the Broncos’ offense and facing the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday.

Shapiro, doing his best to bait Green into saying this offense is better this year, did get Green to acknowledge good chemistry and improved toughness on the offensive line overall.

"It definitely seems like we’ve got a little bit more of a chemistry, we understand things a lot more, understand what we’re looking for and what things we can do to combat what defenses are going to try to do," Green said.

The sixth-year tight end had four catches for 28 yards in Week 1 versus the Panthers, which is already one-third of the number of catches Green had last season.

With a Gary Kubiak offense that likes its tight ends - and an injured Jeff Heuerman just getting back to the field this week - all signs point toward Green being a very important receiving factor for the Broncos.

Green called the offensive unit confident (though not as assuringly as Shapiro was trying to make him), but Green acknowledged that it felt good to go up against a very tough defense in the Panthers and still be able to move the chains and get three touchdowns.

"I think we are [confident], but we can’t sit here like we’re the greatest thing in the NFL right now," he said. "We’ve got to go out there and put it out there on the field every Sunday. But it’s definitely encouraging to know those are some premiere guys - they weren’t slouches."

One thing Green does believe is different this year is a tougher mindset among the offensive line.

"We’ve got some dogs up front, guys who don’t care who’s across the line of scrimmage, guys up there hungry, wanting to be great," Green said, adding that they were all in the huddle last week motivating each other to be tough. "Now we have those guys."

This Sunday the Broncos will face the Colts who just dropped a tough loss to the Detroit Lions despite putting 35 points on the board. But the Lions put up 39.

While Broncos fans may be salivating over what that means this Broncos offense can do against the Colts, Green is the first to keep it real.

"Up front, I know for a fact the guys they have - Erik Walden is a good outside linebacker and very physical; Robert Mathis...they’ve got guys who play hard on every snap," Green said, adding that scoring against the Colts is never easy. "39 points is a great fact to enjoy, but we’ve got to go out there and execute regardless of what they did last week."

And recent history would tell the Broncos that taking for granted the Colts’ ability to score on our defense and to stop our offense would be a huge mistake.

Bonus Listen:

Citing early season power rankings, Goodman and Shapiro give Chad Brown an impossible task - if Broncos and Patriots played today, who wins? Silly question, but nevertheless, Brown gives the right answer even if not very convincingly.

Then they ask Brown if the Broncos are playing dirty. According to "2016 football," Brown says yes. Are they dirty players? No, of course not.

Well, two out of three isn’t bad, I suppose.