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OAKLAND, Calif. -- With one sterling half, Peyton Manning accomplished all he needed to in the regular-season finale by seizing another prestigious record and home-field advantage in the playoffs. He knows his next time out probably wont be so easy. Manning set the NFL single-season record for yards passing and threw four first-half touchdown passes to clinch the top seed in the AFC playoffs for the Broncos with a 34-14 victory over Oakland on Sunday. "This was a good game today," Manning said. "We needed this win. We needed to improve on some things. The coaches challenged us in a couple of areas and I think we responded to those challenges." The Broncos (13-3) were nearly perfect in building a 31-0 halftime lead before coach John Fox gave Manning and some other regulars the second half off to rest for the first playoff game two weeks from now in Denver. Manning threw touchdown passes to Eric Decker and Knowshon Moreno in the first quarter and added two to Demaryius Thomas in the second quarter. He broke Drew Brees record of 5,476 yards set in 2011 with a 5-yard pass to Thomas with 13 seconds left in the half to make it 31-0. That ended Mannings day having completed 25 of 28 passes for 266 yards. He finished the season with 5,477 yards and 55 touchdown passes. "The first half was about as good in all three phases as weve been all year," coach John Fox said. "It allowed us to get some guys out of the game and rest them and still take care of business on the field." The Raiders (4-12) ended their 11th straight non-winning season with six consecutive losses and big questions about the future of second-year coach Dennis Allen. Oakland has won eight games in Allens two seasons but after showing signs of progress early this season, regressed down the stretch to put his job in jeopardy. Allen said he expects to meet in the next few days with general manager Reggie McKenzie and owner Mark Davis to discuss the future of the organization. "Thats a decision thats made over my head," Allen said. "I fully expect to be back. I fully believe that I deserve the opportunity to come back here and get a chance to go through the reconstruction phase. I want to be part of the rebuilding phase." The Raiders, who allowed the second most points in franchise history, were completely exposed by Manning. He frequently targeted fill-in cornerback Chimdi Chekwa, who started for the injured Mike Jenkins. The Broncos forced a punt on the opening possession and then easily drove down the field. Manning completed eight of nine passes for 70 yards on the 12-play drive, capping it with a 3-yard pass to Decker. A bad snap by Stefen Wisniewski on the first play of the next drive set up a 7-yard TD pass to Moreno and the rout was on. Oakland held Manning to a field goal early in the second quarter before he beat them deep with a 63-yard pass to Thomas to make it 24-0 and then methodically led a late drive down field that was capped with the short throw to Thomas that broke Brees record and earned Manning some rest in the second half. "I feel like its a record every other week," Thomas said. "Its great to be a part of, to get it. We just have to sit back and talk about it but our main goal is to win the Super Bowl. Its a good accomplishment for our offence. The main thing now is being able to win." Brock Osweiler played the entire second half in his most extensive action of his two-year career. He completed 9 for 13 passes for 85 yards but only led Denver to one field goal The decision to go back to Terrelle Pryor at starting quarterback after six games with Matt McGloin failed to provide the spark Allen had been seeking. Pryor looked rusty in his return to the lineup, missing receivers and having little room to run on read-option plays and scrambles. Pryor completed 21 of 38 passes for 207 yards and two touchdowns after the game was out of reach. Pryor also ran for 49 yards to give him 576 yards rushing for the season, breaking Rich Gannons franchise mark of 529 for quarterbacks set in 2000. "I would say Im inconsistent," Pryor said. "Period. I got to get better." The Raiders couldnt even capitalize on their one good chance as Sebastian Janikowski missed his ninth field goal of the season after blocked punt by Jamize Olawale gave Oakland the ball at the Denver 24. NOTES: Broncos S Duke Ihenacho left the game with a concussion. ... The Raiders had about 45 members of the 1983 team that won the Super Bowl on hand for a halftime ceremony. Custom College Jerseys . RAPTORS STRUGGLING: The bottom line is the true test in sports isnt just how you handle failure, but how you handle success. Fake College Football Jerseys . -- The Detroit Lions made it crystal clear to Golden Tate that he was their top target in free agency. https://www.fakecollegejerseys.com/ . Miikka Kiprusoff had just announced his retirement after a decade-long run in Calgary and it would be up to Berra and Ramo to fill the void. Cyber Monday College Jerseys . The Grizzlies erased most of a 25-point deficit before Durant, the leagues scoring champion, got hot. Cheap College Jerseys .Y. -- As if the worst start in franchise history isnt bad enough, Buffalo Sabres President Ted Black braced his teams win-starved fans for potentially more tough times.TORONTO – “Play the right way.” It’s a phrase and mindset that Maple Leaf players and coaches co-opted after a pair of particularly humiliating losses last week and one that helped sparked back-to-back wins in response. But head coach, Randy Carlyle, doesn’t want to say too much about it. “We’re going to just keep that one close to our vest,” said Carlyle of the phrases meaning, always guarded when it comes to matters in-house. “They know what it means and we as a coaching staff know what it means, so we’re just going to keep that between ourselves at this point.” What’s clear is the Leafs needed to change something after they were kicked twice in a matter of days by the Sabres and Predators. But instead of pinning it down to wins and losses they decided to cut the big picture into very small pieces, aiming for little changes to affect big picture results. It started with conversations between coaches and management and filtered down from there. “…we felt we had to reset and focus on the process,” Carlyle said. “And the process for us, instead of looking at wins and losses, was to pick something within it and say ‘Hey, if we can accomplish this our chances of having success are going to go up’ and that’s really the way that it was presented.” Changes were easily evident in back-to-wins over the Lightning and Red Wings. The Leafs played a cleaner, more structured and sound game against a pair of division rivals, resulting in fewer turnovers, fewer dangerous chances to contend with and, thus, fewer shots to handle for their typically busy goaltender. “I think it’s like anything,” said Stephane Robidas, sounding a lot like a coach himself, “whenever you set long-term goals, it’s far, it’s far ahead, and it’s tougher to see the big picture. Whenever you put short-term goals, like little things you can control, it kind of makes it easier. It’s little things. It’s details.” The team came up with “process goals” before last Thursday’s game against Tampa, objectives they could focus on during the course of a game. One such goal was holding opponents to 25 shots or under, a particular challenge for one of the worst shot suppression teams in the league in recent years. And while they weren’t able to hold Tampa and Detroit at or under 25 shots, they did keep both to a very respectable 28 shots apiece. Few of those shots and subsequent opportunities came off the rush – because of wiser puck play and increased engagement from forwards defensively – a particular point of peril in those one-sided losses to Buffalo and Nashville. All of which made life for Jonathan Bernier quite a bit easier than the norm of his Toronto tenure. Fewer run-and-gun opportunities for the opposition means far more predictability for the goaltender, less danger to manage in just a matter of seconds, and more shots from those areas of the ice that aren’t quite as menacing. “Rush shots are the hardest to stop,” said Bernier, appearing relaxed after back-to-back games of fewer than 30 shots against, a harkening back to his days with the Kings. “[But] when it comes [from] the outside, you only have one shooter, you don’t have to worry about the back-side [shooter], you can challenge a little bit more and, obviously, [your] percentage to stop that puck is pretty high and most of the shots will go in your belly.” To tame the shot totals of their opponents, the Leafs have a conneected “process goal” of improving back-side pressure – making certain that the high forward in the offensive zone is in proper position if the puck is turned over and play goes the other way.dddddddddddd That not only helps the group on defence – which will be without the injured Roman Polak, likely for the next month – hold the opposition up at the blue line, but it puts Bernier in a better position to succeed. His approach changes dramatically when contending with a 3-on-2 rush as opposed to a 3-on-3 – he can play deeper in his net, for example. “When you have that back-pressure, it’s either going to be a dump or a wide shot,” said Bernier. “There’s not many options out there because, if the D and the back-pressure do a good job, then they shouldn’t get anything out of it.” That’s just another one of the minor adjustments the Leafs have made and hope to continue to stick with as the road moves forward. They started addressing such matters at a video session in the hours after last Tuesday’s 9-2 pounding from Nashville. It came down to improvements as small as increased urgency on the forecheck. “If you think about it,” said Robidas, “if you get a real good forecheck, what’s going to happen? You’re going to get the puck and you’re going to be in their end - if you’re in their end, they can’t shoot the puck on net. That’s a pretty good start.” “We talk about Detroit for years, how good they were with the puck,” the 37-year-old continued. “Yeah, they’re really good with the puck, but they didn’t have to defend that much because they had the puck the whole game. Whenever they lose it, they track it back and they get it back.” But unlike those Red Wing teams of the past couple decades, the Leafs were an awful possession club last year, worst in the league with a 42.3 per cent Fenwick rating in 5-on-5 situations. That number has improved to 47.7 per cent this year, still not great at 23rd overall, but an improvement nonetheless. More possession of the puck means less time in the defensive zone and fewer shots against, all part of the thread toward “playing the right way. Toronto is still fourth from last in yielding 33 shots per game at the quarter mark of the season, but that number will edge lower if they can somehow maintain their current form or something close to it. “That’s the way we tried to beg, borrow, steal, whatever you can do to convince your players that there is a certain way that we have to play,” said Carlyle. “We’re going to focus on trying to block shots, trying to create less defensive [and] more offensive zone time, be stronger in structure - all those things -and then, usually, the shot clock will go down if you’re doing those things effectively.” Whether or not it continues is the question. The Leafs are an unpredictable bunch and as ripe as any to veer off course when the script changes for the worse, if even a little. But after skidding so violently off the rails, Carlyle – whose job veered into questions general manager Dave Nonis had to quiet – has managed to get his group back on track (albeit, in only two games) with a simple edict and message. “You start by doing little things and, by the end, it gets tougher,” Robidas observed, “but now you’ve proved to yourself that you can do it. You’ve broken it down and you know what you need to do to keep going.” And that presumably is playing the right way. ' ' '