Great article, broncos_mtnman!
I watched the game again, and have a few comments to add on the weaknesses ...
The sad part about this is, for a whole half, Special Teams played pretty well, all factors considered; kickoff - Hester: 4 yards; punt - Hester: 7 yards; punt - Hester muffs: Denver recovers; kickoff - Hester: 11 yards; kickoff - Hester: 23 yards; punt - downed at 24 (plus a 10 yard penalty to make them start at the 14); punt - downed at 22.
That's only 1 return of more than 20 yards; all else were 11 yards and below, plus they even recovered a touched ball. That's pretty darn good against the most dangerous returner in the game.
Unfortunately, they made 2 big mental errors; the punt for a 2nd return TD by Hester, and not getting protection for Sauerbrun during the blocked punt.
I now don't include the 1st return TD as a mental error, as so far, they have been containing Hester pretty well. After Hester did return that for a TD, though, they should've decided to play safe and not kick to him at all, and specially not in the middle of the field. They should've just given the Bears good field possition, but force them to work for their points, which they could not do much of most of the game. Sometimes, you have to cut losses .. they already gave him 7 points; take that and don't give him any more, even if it means sacrificing field position.
The 2nd mental error was when an illegal formation forced them to re-punt the ball, when the initial punt was pretty good. O'brien says he was signaling to bring in protection, but he wasn't seen/heard; if they had a timeout, he could've at least called for one, or do anything else ... I don't know much of the rules here ... maybe take a delay of game, anything to stop the punt. He did nothing and allowed the defender to get to Sauerbrun untouched. That was just stupid.
So that's only 2 mental errors on the kicking team, but unfortunately for Denver, they were huge, and nullifies all their effectiveness, specially in the 1st half.
Not a major excuse, but the field conditions were terrible. A lot of Cutler's early passes were off target; maybe the ball was a bit slick and more difficult to grip. The field had everybody falling down. Cutler's only interception came from Marshall falling to the ground. On one 3rd down pass, Marshall fell to the ground again before catching the ball. It was tough for runners to make a decisive cut without falling.
For a lot of the game, though, we didn't need a lot of 3rd downs, as we were converting a lot of big plays. Offensive playcalling at the end, though, became very predictable when Denver was trying to use up clock. So when you go run, run, pass, tough to convert when the defense knows whats coming.