SEATTLE –Quarterback Peyton Manning got his longest game action of the 2013 preseason in Saturday's 40-10 loss at Seattle.
Manning left the game with 7:52 to play in the second quarter after completing 11-of-16 passes for 163 yards and one touchdown for a QB rating of 122.7.
"I thought we had some tempo," Manning said. "Loud crowd noise and had some communication at the line that I felt like we were on the same page. Everybody got the audibles, got the checks. When you get beat with the score as bad as it is, it was bad. But you do try to find a couple of positives that you can build off of. We'll certainly learn from the negative plays as well."
Manning led the Broncos on a pair of sustained drives, one for 80 yards that resulted in an 11-yard touchdown pass to Wes Welker and the other for 79 yards that ended in a fumble at the 1-yard line.
Turnovers limited the scoring for the first-team offense as a pair of drives ended with a fumble in Seattle territory.
The first came when tight end Julius Thomas fumbled the ball after making a catch for a 20-yard gain. Then after the nine-play, 80-yard touchdown drive, Manning and the offense were again on the doorstep when a turnover produced a big play for the Seahawks.
Ronnie Hillman tried reaching the ball across the goal line on a 2nd-down carry when it was knocked loose and Brandon Browner returned it 106 yards for a Seahawks touchdown.
"Those are game-changing plays," Manning said. "They are hard to overcome. We'll learn from it. Those are correctable mistakes. Ronnie did some good things getting down there, made some good runs. He is competing, trying to get in the end zone. He'll learn from it. You don't want to every reach the ball over on first, second or third down. Only on fourth down. That's something he'll learn from.
"Julius (Thomas) made some good plays. He is competing. Julius hasn't been hit in quite a while – not making excuses, but it was hopefully good to get those out of both their systems. We can learn from those."
Manning said the important takeaway was correcting the mistakes that will show up when the team watches film from the game.
"We had a lot of things that we need to fix and correct, he said. "I do think there are things that are correctable, but we have to do it. We can't just keep saying we have to correct it, we have to go and do it"
One positive that came out of the game was the first connection between Manning and Welker outside of the team's practice field.
Welker caught all three passes thrown his way by Manning, totaling 31 yards and the lone Broncos touchdown of the game.
"It was good to hit him on a couple of routes today," Manning said. "We had a blitz read where he and I were on the same page on a communication. And then hit him on a play down in the red zone that he's scored a lot of touchdowns on in his career. Those were all positive."
