The Sports Xchange

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Considering that the Denver Broncos are a Super Bowl contender laden with veterans that includes the league’s oldest active starting quarterback, the amount of change and uncertainty that surrounded the team as the preseason ended was surprising.

But the Broncos seem mentally prepared for a hiccup or two early as they adapt to new schemes on offense and defense, an overhauled offensive line and the use of Peyton Manning under center more often than at any point in recent years.

Their first task before getting ready for the Ravens was to pare their roster to 53 players, and their 20 cuts included inside linebacker Steven Johnson, a core special-teamer who started seven games at linebacker last season after Nate Irving tore his medial collateral ligament. Johnson struggled in pass coverage, but was a solid run defender who worked with the first team throughout the summer while Brandon Marshall recovered from foot surgery.

“There were some tough, tough decisions,” Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak said.

Keeping just four inside linebackers was among them. Although the Broncos managed to slip training-camp standout Zaire Anderson to the practice squad as one of six players they brought back Sunday, the waiving of Johnson and 2014 fifth-round pick Lamin Barrow left the Broncos with just two inside linebackers on the 53-man roster behind Marshall and Danny Trevathan: Corey Nelson and Todd Davis. Davis played extensively after both were injured late last year, so he has experience, but Nelson was a bit player last year.

If the recoveries of Marshall and Trevathan hit a snag, those backups will have to produce. But general manager John Elway did not seem too concerned.

Marshall and Trevathan did not see any preseason game action together until Aug. 29 against San Francisco, but their work that night — as well as in training-camp practices — convinced Elway that he didn’t need to keep extra reserves.

“We feel like they’re healthy and ready to go,” he said. “That was definitely a consideration, but we felt that they were healthy and, as I said, ready to go. There are always going to be — knock on wood — bumps in the road that we’re going to have to deal with as they come at us, but where we sit right now with the 53, I feel pretty good about them.”

Despite the changes, the Broncos should still be in good shape. They lost Ryan Clady to a torn ACL in May, but landed Evan Mathis to help shore up the offensive line three months later. The roster has nine players who were selected for the Pro Bowl last season with another, T.J. Ward, returning from a one-game suspension Sept. 14.

Their pass rush averaged one sack every 7.0 pass plays in the preseason, the best in the league. Shaquil Barrett and Shane Ray showed enough speed and explosion rushing off the edge to be viable options when Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware need rest. Denver’s first-team defense did not surrender a touchdown in nearly four quarters of work in the preseason, and its offense appears to battle-hardened, if a work in progress, from facing its defense daily.

Teams will try to attack rookie center Matt Paradis and left tackle Ty Sambrailo. They will attempt to put Marshall and Trevathan in situations where they have to cut and cover. But the roster is so deep that the Broncos should be able to compensate in a big way.

“We’ve got a good group of guys,” Kubiak said. “It’s time to go to work. We’ve got a tough early schedule here. Nothing is bigger than what we’ve got going on next week.”

–Running back Montee Ball’s descent from Week 1 starter last year to the waiver wire Sunday afternoon was stunning on the surface, but predictable given where he eventually fell among the Broncos’ running backs.

By the end of the preseason, he was fourth on the depth chart behind C.J. Anderson, Ronnie Hillman and Juwan Thompson, who factors into the mix as a short-yardage back and prominent member of multiple special-teams units. Ball struggled to 27 yards on 16 carries in the preseason finale, and even though he had little room to navigate — he was met in the backfield on nine of 16 attempts — he didn’t show the same spark the other running backs did.

Ball survived the Saturday cut, but not the Sunday moves after the Broncos claimed center James Ferentz and tight end Mitchell Henry off waivers. That left the Broncos with just three running backs, but given that they are only likely to activate three on the 46-man game-day roster, it was not a surprise.

Despite playing the last two seasons, Ball still has practice-squad eligibility under the NFL’s tweaked practice-squad rules. But it seems likely that he would not pass through waivers unclaimed, even though the Broncos’ reported attempts at trading Ball proved fruitless.

Ball represents the biggest miss of general manager John Elway’s tenure. He’s the only first- or second-day pick of Elway’s to be placed on waivers. The emergence of Anderson as a Pro-Bowl running back from the undrafted ranks of the 2013 class ensured that Ball’s struggles didn’t help them, but with just two of seven 2013 picks still on the roster, that class represents Elway’s most fallow crop to date.

–By the time the Broncos’ roster moves this weekend were done, 60 percent of their first-team offensive line when training camp began was no longer with the team.

One day after guard Ben Garland was among 20 players waived, the Broncos waived center Gino Gradkowski after they were awarded James Ferentz off waivers from Houston. Garland and Gradkowski began camp as the first-teamers at left guard and center, respectively, but were demoted to the second team after five days of practice in favor of Max Garcia and Matt Paradis.

Those moves, paired with the Aug. 31 trade of tackle Chris Clark to Houston, revealed the fluidity of the Broncos’ line, which has been a question mark since Ryan Clady tore his anterior cruciate ligament during the first practice of OTAs.

Despite the instability, general manager John Elway wasn’t worried about whether the line would find cohesion — even though starting left guard Evan Mathis did not arrive until the morning of Aug. 26 and only began receiving full practice repetitions last week.

“We think that he’ll be fine,” Elway said of Mathis. “We brought him in because of not only his physical ability, but also what he can do with his experience. Max will be right in the middle of it, too. I think that it’s been a good preseason, especially with the youth that we have there and the first time that really a lot of them have worked together.

“They’ve adjusted very well and I think we’ll hit the ground running that first week.”

The emphasis could be on “running,” since the line has already congealed as a run-blocking unit. Its pass blocking, however, needs some work, and the 49ers used timely blitzes to sack Peyton Manning three times during the first half of their Aug. 29 preseason game.

–T.J. Ward could not hide his frustration at the news that he would serve a one-game suspension as punishment for a May 2014 incident at a Denver strip club in which he was charged with assault after he allegedly threw a glass mug at a bartender.

Ward accepted community service in exchange for having the charges dropped and said in a statement that he took full responsibility for his actions. But despite that and the fact that the incident was caught on videotape, he protested the suspension.

“I feel it’s really unfair,” Ward said after the preseason finale. “I’m getting punished for being accused of doing something. Not doing something, but being accused. And I’ve got to pay the consequences.”

The Broncos are expected to use special-teams captain David Bruton Jr. in Ward’s place during the regular-season opener against the Baltimore Ravens.