Broncos maintain charge

Royal: many happy returns

We're far from perfect, we know that, there's a lot of football still to be played.

Josh McDaniels
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The Denver Broncos continued their impressive start to life under Josh McDaniels with a 34-23 victory over AFC West rivals the San Diego Chargers on Monday evening.

Kyle Orton passed for 229 yards and two touchdowns, both in the second half, and Eddie Royal returned a kick-off and a punt for touchdowns as the Broncos joined the Minnesota Vikings as the NFL's only 6-0 teams.

Chargers kicker Nate Kaeding opened the scoring at Qualcomm Stadium with a 20-yard field goal with just under five minutes of the first quarter remaining.

But the Broncos struck back immediately with Royal weaving his way 93 yards after fielding the resulting kick-off for the game's opening touchdown.

After San Diego quarterback Philip Rivers found Vincent Jackson from three yards to cap an eight-play, 74-yard drive, Broncos kicker Matt Prater tied the score at 10-10 early in the second quarter with a 34-yard field goal.

And Royal then made his second intervention on the night, taking a punt all the way back untouched from 71 yards.

But it was the Chargers who led 20-17 at half-time after another Kaeding field goal, this time from 44 yards, was followed by Darren Sproles' 77-yard punt return for a touchdown with just over a minute remaining in the second quarter.

The home side's lead was extended to six points mid-way through the third quarter when Kaeding was on target from 50 yards but thereafter it was one-way traffic from the Broncos.

Scheffler touchdown

Tight end Tony Scheffler hauled in a 19-yard touchdown grab late in the third quarter and Prater added a chip-shot field goal to put Denver 27-23 ahead.

And Orton iced the result with a five-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Stokely with just under three minutes left on the clock.

"We're far from perfect, we know that, there's a lot of football still to be played," said rookie head coach McDaniels.

"We want to win every week. We're going to prepare hard every week and we want to keep it going.

"We have a lot of good guys who work hard and we've got a lot of guys who care about doing things the right way."

The result puts Denver in total charge of the AFC West as San Diego, now at 2-3, remain their closest challengers.