CINCINNATI -- When Denver Broncos coach Gary Kubiak says “we’re going to need everybody," he means it.

He means it because the Broncos lived it on the way to a Super Bowl 50 win last season, when the team lost two left tackles, quarterback Peyton Manning missed six games, and outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware missed five games along the way. With Ware now out for several weeks because of a fractured forearm he suffered in the team’s Week 2 win over the Colts, the Broncos will look to dip into the depth chart again and will once again ask more of Shane Ray and Shaquil Barrett.

“We’re counting on some young players," Kubiak said.

With a 29-17 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, consider the first post-Ware test passed. Ray, who was the Broncos’ first-round pick in the 2015 draft, finished with three sacks. Much like they did last season and in this season’s early going, the Broncos didn’t hesitate to use Ray and Barrett together at the two outside linebacker positions to give Von Miller a rest from time to time.

It was the way the Broncos' starting defense spent much of the offseason, as Ware was held out of the workouts because of back issues and Miller skipped the offseason program because of negotiations on a new contract that he didn't sign until July.

“I think you’re going to see that from Shane and Shaq," Kubiak said. “I told the team last night, I said, ‘You know, they’re stepping in for D-Ware, but they’ve really been working as starters since April 27, when we went to minicamp, because Von wasn’t there.'"

It was an odd, mix-and-match day at times for the Broncos’ defense. The Bengals got the Broncos out of sorts early, as Cincinnati found a little something in its preparations and decided a traditional counter play would work in the run game.

It turned out the Bengals were right, at least initially, when they pounded out 65 yards rushing on their first possession -- a total that included a 50-yard run by Jeremy Hill. It turned into a five-play, 74-yard touchdown drive to give the Bengals a quick 7-0 lead. The Bengals rushed for 78 yards the remainder of the game, and Hill, with those 65 yards on his first four carries, had 32 yards rushing on his remaining 13 opportunities.

“We just took a deep breath, and we went back to what we do," Broncos cornerback Chris Harris Jr. said. “We feel like we can recover from situations. We’ve been through a lot of things, in big games, and we feel like the guys can come in and play to the standard we need to when they have to go in there. Those guys know we need them sometimes, and they need to be ready."

Safety T.J. Ward also left the game in the first half because of a neck injury, and rookie safety Justin Simmons didn’t play because of a fracture near his left wrist. With Ware out, that forced some in-game juggling. It meant a career day for Ray. He and Miller had sacks on back-to-back plays in the Bengals’ last drive of the game. It meant rookie safety Will Parks had his first career interception.

“I was pretty confident," Parks said. “I prepared. T.J. actually met with me on Wednesday night, and coaches told me to be ready all week, just in case somebody went down."

When the Broncos’ offense had given the team a two-score lead with just under seven minutes to play, the Broncos put up two of their four sacks in the game on Cincinnati’s final drive.

“You’ve got to attribute that to the offense," Harris said. “Once they get up, it’s sack and interception time. Once we get up by two scores, we think that it’s over for them ... and we feel like that no matter who we have in there. We believe in the guys we have. We always want guys like D-Ware in there, like T.J., but we get everybody ready to play every week."