Denver, Colorado Sports News

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (CBS4/DenverBroncos.com) ― In collaborative artistic disciplines, "creative tension" isn't just inevitable; it's often encouraged.

With the Broncos' running backs, perhaps "competitive tension" is more appropriate. In the Broncos' last three games, four different tailbacks have taken their turns lining up behind Jake Plummer and the Broncos offensive line, and the leading ground gainer among them isn't even the man listed as the first-teamer.

Individually, only Tatum Bell is on pace for a 1,000-yard season -- and his hold on that is tenuous given the turf-toe problems that have plagued him since the Broncos' win at Cleveland on Oct. 22. Bell is listed on the official depth chart as the first-teamer, but his infirmities have given Mike Bell and Damien Nash the opportunity to each gain more yards in the past four games than Tatum Bell's 64-yard total in that span.

So it's a realistic possibility that the Broncos will go without a 1,000-yard rusher for the first time since 2001. But for the team as a whole, ground yards continue to click past like miles on an odometer.

The Broncos rank third in the league in rushing through 10 games, averaging 142.3 yards per contest, a figure consistent with recent seasons that have seen them notch over 140 rushing yards per game in eight of 10 years between 1996 and 2005.

Some years, the Broncos rely on one back. This year, it's a collective effort as their backs each grapple for a toehold in the race for rushes.

"We've got some competition there. Maybe that's one of the reasons were in the top five," Head Coach Mike Shanahan said.

The competition, though, has seen more twists than a two-lane road meandering between Rocky Mountain peaks. Tatum Bell led the AFC in rushing for a while in October, but has been slowed by turf toes that left him inactive for two of the last three games. Mike Bell took his place against Indianapolis last month and ran for 136 yards and two scores, but found himself scratched from the 45-man game-day active roster two weeks later after he followed the Colts game by averaging 1.6 yards per carry on 17 rushes at Pittsburgh.

When Mike Bell sat out at Oakland in Week 10, Tatum Bell was back in, but his lingering injuries meant that Damien Nash toted the football near the goal line -- even though he had only been promoted from the practice squad on the morning of what would turn out to be a 17-13 win.

All the while, the Broncos' rushing output vacillated. Up to 227 yards against Indianapolis. Down to 63 at Oakland two weeks later. The team's average remained steady, but the consistency of the early season -- when it accounted for between 140 and 160 yards in five of six games -- vanished.

With Sunday night's 158-yard, two-touchdown effort on the ground, the Broncos hope they've found it again.

"What you need to do is have more consistent productivity offensively on the ground that will open up other aspects of the offense," fullback Kyle Johnson said. "More consistency running the football -- that's something as a running back group that we have to put on our own shoulders."

While each of the Bells, Nash and Cedric Cobbs aspires to be the primary back, it's entirely possible that their day-to-day scrum for playing time could leave all of them as parts of a whole, and not primary pieces.

"Everybody wants to be the guy," said Nash, who joined the team in the summer after being waived by the Tennessee Titans in training camp. "But you have to play a role and everybody has a role on this team that should be played."

And the way to discern those roles, Shanahan believes, is through a competition that encompasses games, practices, workouts -- pretty much the entire scope of a player's working existence.

"We think competition is the best thing for a guy to get the best out of people," Shanahan said. "You have to compete in practice, you got to compete on game day and you have a chance to get better."

But the competition is a congenial one -- something that practice-squad running back Andre Hall discovered when he joined the Broncos last week after a series of seven tryouts and summer stints with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Chicago Bears.

It's plausible to believe Hall could someday provide competition at the position; Nash was in the same practice-squad slot just two weeks ago. But his fellow runners didn't look askance at the newcomer in their midst. They sought merely to help.

So it was no surprise when Mike Bell sat next to Andre Hall, helping the newest Bronco absorb the voluminous playbook.

"Not just Mike Bell: Cecil (Sapp), Kyle (Johnson), (Damien) Nash, everybody," Hall said. "All the guys help you. I've gotten so much help (that) I've got the playbook down.

"Mike always offers to come by and help out if I need anything; he gave me his number and said, 'If you ever need to go over anything, just give me a call.'"

Competitive tension might exist, but the Broncos' backfield competition isn't amongst running backs. It's amongst friends, too. With the No. 3 running game in the league, it also appears to be working.

"We're one of the top five rushing football teams in the National Football League," Shanahan said, "so we feel very good about our rushing offense."

(© MMVI CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)