Cutler threw for 300 yards with long touchdown passes to rookie Eddie Royal and Darrell Jackson that helped the Denver Broncos beat up on their AFC West rivals in a 41-14 victory over the Oakland Raiders on Monday night.Cutler showed why the Broncos made him a first-round draft pick in 2006, completing 16 of 24 passes and confidently picking apart Oakland's rebuilt defense in a dominating season-opening performance despite missing suspended big-play receiver Brandon Marshall.
"We're a young team. There were a lot of questions about us, but we felt good about what we have," Cutler said. "You have that little bit of doubt about what's going to happen with the young guys when the lights come on, but they came through time and time again."
It was a pleasant sight for the Broncos to see after an up-and-down performance last season when Cutler lost 35 pounds and the zip on his throws while struggling with diabetes that was not diagnosed until March. Now he's back to his healthy self and the Broncos couldn't be happier
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For the Raiders, the season couldn't have gotten off to much worse of a start. They lost their sixth straight season opener and only avoided their third straight shutout on Monday Night Football when JaMarcus Russell threw two meaningless fourth-quarter touchdown passes.
Oakland committed five personal fouls, botched a reverse for a 15-yard loss and was dominated on both sides of the ball in a performance that drew plenty of boos from a frustrated crowd that has grown all too used to this type of game. The Raiders have an NFL worst 19-62 record since 2004, and even the first game with Russell and Darren McFadden together couldn't change that.
"It is one game. We're 0-1," coach Lane Kiffin said. "Whether we lost 7-6 or by 34 or whatever it was, we're 0-1."
Royal helped make sure of that in an NFL debut that made sure the Broncos did not miss Marshall, who was suspended for violating the NFL's code of conduct. Royal, a second-round draft pick out of Virginia Tech, caught nine passes for 146 yards.
"You dream about it and you hope you can come out and play this well, but the main thing is we won," Royal said. "It was a great feeling, especially in the stadium against our rivals. Our game plan was to attack. We knew we had a lot of weapons and Coach drew up a great game plan. We just wanted to keep the pressure on them."
Royal was featured in the offense from the start, running the ball twice and catching a pass in the first four plays from scrimmage. He capped the opening drive by getting behind cornerback DeAngelo Hall and safety Gibril Wilson and catching a 26-yard pass from Cutler on a third-down rollout.
After a 72-yard pass to tight end Tony Scheffler moved the ball down to the 4, Royal had a second touchdown called back when he lined up illegally. That forced the Broncos to settle for a 26-yard field goal by Matt Prater.
Royal caught three passes on the Broncos' third scoring drive, drawing two personal fouls from Hall along the way to set up the first of two touchdown runs by Michael Pittman to make it 17-0.
