Denver Broncos’ Remaining AFC West Games Will Make or Break Season

We are 11 games into the NFL season and the Broncos still haven’t figured out if they are Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde.

They get crushed in their own backyard by the Chargers only to bounce back on four days rest and roll against the Giants. It seems that they can’t decide whether they are playoff contenders or pretenders. Maybe they just love driving their fans crazy.

Certain people, myself included, thought Kyle Orton wasn’t anything special at quarterback, yet the Broncos passing game completely fell apart when he was out with an ankle injury. We were sure the offensive line was one of the league’s best, only to see the protection break down when Ryan Harris got hurt and Ben Hamilton become a shell of his former self.

Oh well, at least no one on the team has suffered a concussion yet (knock on wood).

One thing I’ve learned to expect from the maddeningly inconsistent Broncos is to never know what to expect. I have no idea how their season will finish out and you’re lying through your teeth if you think otherwise. 

At 7-4, the Broncos are a game behind the Chargers in the division. They’ll chase them as valiantly as Wile E. Coyote chases the Road Runner. The problem with that is Wile E. never catches the Road Runner, he just gets mangled and embarrassed.

Looks like a fourth straight division title goes to San Diego, and yet they still have issues with local television blackouts. Why does no one go to see that team play?

On the other hand, Denver is at the top of the wild card race and Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Houston, and Miami all lost yesterday. However, the way things are shaping up a 9-7 finish probably won’t be enough to make the playoffs, so the Broncos have to find a way to prevail in at least three of their five remaining games, which are at Kansas City, at Indianapolis, vs. Oakland, at Philadelphia, and vs. Kansas City.

No matter how bad the Chiefs are, Arrowhead Stadium has never been a kind place to the Broncos. Not to John Elway and certainly not to Mike Shanahan. The place is like a Broncos torture chamber.

However, it hasn’t exactly been a banner year for the Chiefs, and Orton and Co. has been through enough adversity. I say they gut it out and Josh McDaniels finds out just how hard it is to win in Kansas City. 

If Arrowhead Stadium has been Denver’s torture chamber, then Peyton Manning has been their executioner. You may think that title belongs to Phillip Rivers, but Eli’s big brother started owning them before Rivers was even drafted. 

Since 2003, Manning is 4-2 against the Broncos (the Colts starters played only the first quarter in one of those losses) and has thrown 15 touchdowns to only one interception. In that span, Indy has outscored Denver 193 to 149. Oh yeah, and the Colts are 11-0 so far this season.

Still think the Broncos are going to win that game? Neither do I.

Assuming that Manning doesn’t kill the whole team before they board the plane, it’s back to Denver for a showdown with the pitiful Raiders. I would feel really good about this game if those same pitiful Raiders hadn’t stunned the Broncos at home last season.

However, its a well known scientific fact that the only thing that doesn’t strike twice in the same place other than lightening is a Raiders victory. Wait for it, wait for it…. Well, I had to get my cheap shot against Oakland in here somewhere. Regardless, chalk a “W” up for Denver.

On to Philadelphia, where this game will likely mean as much to the Eagles as it will to the Broncos, and for more than one reason. My biggest question is not in regards to the outcome of the game, but rather how Brian Dawkins will be received by the Philly faithful as a member of the other team. This is equivalent to Steve Atwater returning to Denver in a Jets’ uniform.

My take? Eagles’ fans are infamously ruthless and ferociously loyal when it comes to their team, but I can’t see them turning their backs on Dawkins after everything he did for them. They won’t be nearly as kind to the other Broncos, and unfortunately neither will the Eagles, who seem to always play their best football in December and January.

At last, the roller coaster comes to a stop in the season finale against the Chiefs. As much as the Broncos struggle in Kansas City, the Chiefs struggle just as much in Denver, where they are winless since 2000. If the playoffs are on the line for the Broncos in this game, I seriously doubt that Matt Cassel and Todd Haley will be able to break that slump.

If things go the way I see them (they probably won’t), and if I am as smart as I think I am (I’m not), this means that to get to 10 wins, the Broncos can’t lose any of their remaining games against the division. Victories against the Colts or Eagles are possible, but highly unlikely—especially against the Colts.

The Chiefs and Raiders have long been out of the playoff race, but they would love nothing more than to spoil it for the Broncos as well and that’s what scares me.

The only question remaining is which Denver team will show up to play these final five games; Jekyll or Hyde?

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Step Up or Get Out: Denver’s Key Players at Washington

Is it me, or is this year’s team starting to remind anyone else a little bit of the 2006 Denver Broncos?

Personally, I hate to make comparisons to old teams. What happened three years ago should have no relevance to what’s going to happen for the rest of this season. Still, the two teams are a little too similar to ignore.

That team, as you may remember, was famous for not allowing a single touchdown through their first 11 quarters of play and did not surrender more than 20 points in a game until their loss at home to the Indianapolis Colts in Week Eight. The offense wasn’t scoring as many points as Mike Shannahan would have liked and he eventually benched Jake Plummer in favor of rookie quarterback Jay Cutler.

Until their last two games, the 2009 Broncos had not given up more than 25 points in a game nor had they been outscored in the second half. Or lost a game at all. The offense, though mostly efficient and turnover free, has struggled to put points on the board. Some in the media are already calling for Chris Simms to replace Kyle Orton at quarterback despite the fact that Orton has been a good fit for Josh McDaniels’ offense.

After ending the first half of 2006 at 6-2, the Broncos slumped badly in the second half of the season and finished with a record of 9-7. The team missed the playoffs for the first time since 2002 and it was the beginning of the end for Mike Shannahan in Denver.

After ending the first half of 2009 at 6-2, the Broncos…?

That part of this article, or season, has yet to be written for the Broncos. It starts this Sunday at Washington, where Josh McDaniels and co. desperately need a win to avoid going into their key Week 11 matchup with San Diego on a three-game losing streak.

Here are three players that need to play well for the Broncos to win in our nation’s capital.

QB Kyle Orton: If you read my column from earlier this week, you know my feelings about Orton’s play as of late. He hasn’t thrown a touchdown pass in the last two games and has looked frighteningly inconsistent passing the ball. Based on what he’s done, it’s hard to be too tough on Orton, but it’s obvious that something is off.

For those of you who think the Broncos would be better off with Jay Cutler (five int’s last night) or Chris Simms under center, you are mistaken. A switch to Simms would only be detrimental to the progress this team has made and barring an injury or a simply awful performance by Orton, McDaniels wouldn’t make that change anyway. So what then?

We’ve seen that Orton has a hard time getting the passing game going when the running game is faltering as well, so Denver needs to get back to what they do best. And speaking of running the ball…

RB’s Correll Buckhalter/Knowshon Moreno: Most people thought that under Josh McDaniels, the Broncos would deviate from the running game that they had relied on for years and move towards a more passing-oriented offense. This supports my belief that most people know nothing about football. Wait a minute, I was one of those people!

However, this much I do know. This season, when the Broncos run the ball well, they win. When they don’t…well, you saw what happened in the last two games. And I don’t know about you, but I say it’s time for the No. 12 pick in the draft to earn his paycheck. Moreno has been solid, but the Broncos expected him to be more than just solid when they drafted him.

CB Champ Bailey: In all likelihood, Jason Campbell won’t even look Champ’s way. Most quarterbacks don’t. However, Ben Roethlisberger did, and he and Santonio Holmes found unlikely success as they burned Bailey on more than one play.

It hurts to see that happen to your team’s best player, but even Champ has his moments of mortality. He’ll probably bounce back this week and assume his usual duties of shutting down half of the field. I don’t want to be greedy, but it’s been awhile since No. 24 has had a pick-six.

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When Things Fall Apart, Kyle Orton Can’t Pick Up the Pieces

Last week following the Broncos’ loss to the Ravens, my parents and I went on a walk. It was a beautiful day in suburban Littleton and I don’t think any of us really felt like watching football anymore.

Up the street and around the corner we went, and as we walked we made our way through as much small talk as possible. How my grades were in school, how my car was running, how many trick or treaters they had on Halloween, and basically anything else that gave us an excuse to talk about something.

Eventually though, as it always does, the conversation steered back towards the Broncos and we were once again wallowing in the pain of our favorite team’s defeat.

This isn’t unusual in my family, in fact I think it may even be biological for Schaffer men. My grandpa, my dad, and now I all get heated and start brooding whenever the Broncos don’t win. No matter how good everything else in our lives may be going, it’s enough to ruin our entire day. It just does. There’s no fighting it.

On the flip side, though we may take this a little too seriously, we can almost always identify the reasons why the Broncos lost. As we were walking back down towards our house, I turned to my dad and said, “You know, I really like Kyle Orton, but he’s not a game changing quarterback. He’s a good game manager, but he doesn’t make a lot of plays.”

My dad nodded in agreement and said, “Things have to be going well around him. He can’t put the team on his back and win a game.”

Last night’s loss to the Steelers was only further proof that we are right. In fact, it was like watching a mirror image of the game against the Ravens, at least from the offensive side of the ball. The Broncos once again struggled mightily to move the ball and Orton never looked comfortable in the pocket.

It always hurts to speak negatively of your team’s quarterback, especially seeing as how Kyle Orton was enjoying the best season of his career before the past two games.

Granted, not all of the blame can be placed on Orton. The Ravens and Steelers both thoroughly overwhelmed the Broncos offensive line, disrupting their rhythm and causing Orton to make decisions quicker than he would’ve liked. The running game has been almost non-existent and the play calling has been pathetically predictable.

However, most of these issues can be derived from the limitations of Kyle Orton as a quarterback, especially the play calling. While Josh McDaniels’ offensive scheme is designed as a short passing system, you rarely see the Broncos take the shots down the field that you see constantly from Tom Brady. Either Orton can’t make those throws, or McDaniels doesn’t trust him enough to try.

The protection issues and running game struggles could both use tune-ups from the players at those positions, but they are also negatively affected by the Broncos’ lack of a downfield passing game. Opposing defenses stack the box against the run and blitz heavily because they simply aren’t afraid of getting burned deep with a pass.

Jon Gruden made a good point last night during the game when he said that a big reason Orton’s interception total is so low is because the game-plan McDaniels makes for him is one of very low risk and low reward. Orton will rarely ever try to force something down the field and the plays that are called aren’t designed for him to do so anyway.

The Broncos mostly got away with this earlier in their season, but Baltimore and Pittsburgh each had two weeks to prepare for them and then successfully blew up the offense’s conservative approach. They took away the things that had worked well for Orton and dared him to beat them with his arm. When the moment of truth was at hand, he came up short every time.

Does this suddenly mean that the offense is bad and that Orton’s early season play was a fluke? Not at all. The Broncos have enough talent to beat all the bad teams on their schedule and they should be able to at least compete in some of those harder games, given that they make a few adjustments.

Unfortunately, good teams need to do more than just handle the teams they are supposed to beat. They need to rise to the occasion and win big games against teams that are equally as good, and to do that they need their best players to come through for them. Credit Bill Belichick and McDaniels all you want, but the Patriots have been so good for so long because Tom Brady thrives in situations like that.

With half of their season over, the Broncos have a good idea of what they have at quarterback in Kyle Orton. To survive their schedule with a spot in the playoffs still intact, it may be time to start asking him to stretch himself beyond his limitations. The Broncos’ season, and Orton’s future with them, may depend on it.

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Denver Broncos’ 4-0 Start Refuels the Orange Crush Fever

It’s funny how some things in life can be completely invisible to some people and have complete control over others.

Take football for instance. I myself cannot live without the Broncos. Believe me, I’ve tried. It wasn’t pretty. When the season starts, this obsession of mine borders on insanity. Put me in a room with Jessica Alba and I guarantee you my mind will flip to the Broncos at least once.

Thankfully, not everyone is as crazy about this as I am. Just last week one of my roommates tried to hook me up with this girl he knew and we wound up talking about our favorite things. Of course she found out about my man crush on the Broncos, but what about her favorite team?

Her: Okay now you try and guess mine.

Me: I have no clue, but if you say the Raiders I’m going to be mad.

Her: I don’t have a favorite, it was a trick question!

To my credit, I took this girl out last night and things were all good, so this momentary lapse in her character wasn’t enough to drive me away. That $46 I spent on dinner and a movie does hurt though.

Still, it amazes me how much different people’s interests can be. I pour my guts out over the Broncos, and she probably doesn’t even know how many games they’ve played this season. Or if they won. Or if there is more to life than shoes and the Fray.

It’s these little differences that shape our character and make us who we are. This is also why some people had a pretty normal Sunday afternoon while I came pretty close to stripping down naked and running down my sister’s street in celebration. All for the Broncos (they should pay me for this kind of devotion).

The Broncos nail biting 17-10 win over the Cowboys on Sunday sums up the most miraculous 4-0 start in franchise history. You can make a case for the 1977 team led by the Orange Crush if you want, but everyone knew that the Broncos had a pretty good team going into that season. Not so this year.

Humor yourself and go back through the predictions for the 2009 NFL Season. Try and find a major sports outlet anywhere that had the Broncos winning more than seven games. Some had them winning fewer than five, even as few as three (if I ever meet John Clayton I’m never going to let him live that down).

The fact is that no one believed in this team, for various reasons. The defense was still in shambles. Kyle Orton would flop under the shadow of Jay Cutler. Brandon Marshall would never stop crying. Josh McDaniels had no idea how to run a team.

I heard all the reasons that the Broncos were going to suck in ’09. For a while there, I even bought into some of them. The way that this team looked, I was ready for the most depressing season of my life. It turns out, I’m still waiting for it to begin.

Never have I been so confused on how to feel about a 4-0 start. My brain tells me not to get too excited about the season when all I want to do is reserve the Broncos a spot in the Super Bowl. I feel like there’s no way they could be this good, but how could they only give up 26 points in four games if they weren’t for real?

The schedule is brutal, I know, but my belief is that a team that’s playing that good on defense can only be defeated if the other team’s D is even tougher.

New England is tough, but they’ve given up 10 or more points to everyone they’ve played. San Diego just got burned on national television by the Steelers. Baltimore has held only Cleveland to less than 20 points and Pittsburgh isn’t the same without Troy Polamalu (though he may be back by the November 9 matchup).

I don’t have the balls to predict that the Broncos will be 8-0 after those games, but I don’t think it’s impossible anymore either. To go 10-6 and have a solid shot at the playoffs, they would just have to split their remaining 12 games.

Good sports columnists maintain objective opinions, so don’t judge me when I say screw having an objective opinion. Right now it’s too much fun to be a Bronco fan, for no other reason than after everything we went through this offseason, I think we deserve it.

During my date, I noticed a commercial for the Broncos on one of the TVs at the restaurant and commented on it. She rolled her eyes and laughed and reminded me of her dislike for football.

I’m really starting to miss that $46.

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Promising Broncos’ Keep On Truckin’, and Runnin’, Through Opponents

One of the golden rules in the NFL is that teams who take care of the ball on offense and create turnovers on defense will usually find a way to win the game. That’s a rule that the Broncos haven’t followed for a while now, and it may have very well cost them a playoff berth each of the past three seasons.

Actually, there’s a lot of reasons why they missed the playoffs each of the last three years, but that was the one that sounded the best in an opening sentence. Don’t judge me.

Often times an opening sentence is followed by a thesis statement, and whether you have any clue what a thesis statement is or not, just know that I believe that this year’s Broncos are for real. And yes, so far they are strictly adhering to the golden rule I mentioned before.

Through three games, the Denver defense has given up just 16 points. Kyle Orton has yet to throw an interception. The running game has its swagger back thanks to the two-headed monster of Knowshon Moreno and Correll Buckhalter.

The best part? Josh McDaniels has yet to wear a hoodie with the sleeves cut off on the sideline. Yes, that annoys me that much.

One of the things that stands out to me the most about Denver so far is that there are no glaring issues on the team. Kyle Orton isn’t a superstar, but he’s a proven winner. The offense isn’t fancy, but they are efficient and nearly mistake free.

If there was a coordinator of the year award, Mike Nolan would be the early favorite. He’s taken the worst Broncos’ defense in over 30 years and transformed them into a physical unit that, *gasp*, can actually stop the run and force three-and-outs. 

Some of the so-called “experts” will argue that the Broncos haven’t played anybody yet, so their good start is meaningless; but aren’t good teams kind of supposed to manhandle bad teams? Just last year this team gave up 31 points to the Browns and 45 combined points to the Raiders.

Not only that, but they held the same Bengals offense that put up 31 points on the Packers and 23 points on the Steelers to only a mere 7 points.

Progress is progress. 3-0 is 3-0.

If you’re surprised or pissed off at the lack of recognition the Broncos are getting outside of Colorado, don’t be. The reality check is that no one will really believe in them unless they take down some of the media’s darling teams. They’ll get their first chance next week against Dallas. 

And while it is still early, I feel that it is time for me to eat my words. While they may regress as the season goes on, the Broncos’ defense is not nearly as dreadful as I predicted them to be. This is why Josh McDaniels gets paid to make these decisions and I have to pay to go to school.

I’m sorry, Broncos fans. I admit that I was wrong and I hope that I can be forgiven. If they keep playing how they’re playing, I won’t be the last one to say that.

Now, it’s John Clayton’s turn.

 

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Denver Broncos: Despite Last Minute Touchdown, New Look “D” Debuts Well

It wasn’t much more than a month ago that I predicted that the Broncos’ defensive line didn’t have the talent needed for the transition they were making to the 3-4. In fact, I basically expected them to be a bust right from the start.

Okay. So it’s going to take more than one game to change my prediction, or at least to make me admit I was wrong, but even I’m not stubborn enough to see that the defense couldn’t have played much better than they did on Sunday. 

In the first game of the Josh McDaniels era, Denver struggled to move the ball against the athletic Cincinnati defense. Other than Brandon Stokley’s history making 87 yard touchdown reception in the final seconds, the Kyle Orton-led offense scored only six points through four quarters.

So it’s a very good thing that the Broncos’ defense was there to pick up the slack.

Wait a minute, scratch that. The Broncos’ DEFENSE picked up the slack? Let’s put that in perspective for a moment.

Last year, the offense had to play out of their mind every week just to give the Broncos a chance. In four of their eight victories, the Broncos had to score more than 20 points to make up for the defense’s embarrassing inefficiencies. Only twice did the Denver “D” hold opponents to less than 15 points (14 and 13).

The Broncos didn’t win a game where they scored 10 points or less. In fact, they were blown out in all three games that they failed to reach more than 10 points, courtesy of the Pats, Raiders, and Panthers. Yes, that’s right, the god damn Raiders.

If last year’s team only scored six points in a game, they would have had absolutely no chance to win. That was just the depressing reality that the Broncos had reached under Mike Shannahan.

Under Josh McDaniels, the man behind the Patriots’ record-setting offense, everyone knew things would be different this year. But to win a game in which the offense can only put up six points? That’s just ridiculous.

The defense held a mostly healthy Carson Palmer to just 247 yards passing and picked him off twice. Ochocinco caught five balls for 89 yards, but never scored a touchdown. Cedric Benson carried 21 times for 76 yards, but take away his 20 yard run and he carried 20 times for only 56 yards, an average of 2.8 yards per carry.

And just take a look at the result of the Bengals’ nine series’ before the touchdown: punt, turnover on downs, interception, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt.

Thanks to the strong play of the front three, the linebackers roamed free for much of the game, stifling the Bengals’ running game and sacking Palmer three times. Brian Dawkins had seven solo tackles and was involved in almost every play.

Bottom line; not only does this unit appear to be light years ahead of the one from last season, but it kept the Broncos in a position to win the game. That in itself is the most promising sign to come out of Dove Valley in quite some time.

Still, it’s too early to get overexcited. Even if the defense can play this well against Cleveland, and after the way Brady Quinn played last week, there’s no reason to think they can’t; the real test will be whether or not the Broncos “D” can survive the season.

Or maybe it’s the offense we should all be worried about now.

Really I just don’t know anymore.

 

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Kyle Orton’s Struggles Are All Part of the Process

Truth be told, I got an email last week from B/R asking me to write a preview of all the top matchups that the Broncos are facing this season. Not only am I positive that someone has already written something like that before, but frankly, I just don’t care to write that article. Sorry, Bleacher Report.

Don’t get me wrong, in a few weeks, those matchups will be all that I can think about. I’ll have several alcohol-induced nightmares over the possible thrashings that the Broncos could face and then I’ll be able to write a column about it. Trust me, it’ll be good. 

The truth is, now that we know that Knoshown Moreno’s knee injury isn’t all that serious it’s hard to focus on anything Bronco related right now other than Kyle Orton.

Go on any major sports website that has run a story about Orton and here’s an idea of what you will see in the reader comment section.

“Cut Orton!”

“Orton Sucks!”

“Orton Hears A Boo!”

Yep. I’ve seen them all. By the way, kudos to the guy who first thought up the “Orton Hears A Boo!” one.

The point is, Orton’s first live snaps as the Broncos’ new quarterback didn’t go exactly the way we had all hoped. Now a lot of so called “fans” are already calling for his head.

Get real, Broncos country. It was a dreadful performance by the new starting quarterback, but that game is over. It’s done with. Move on.

John Elway lined up behind the guard thinking he was the center in his first game. Jay Cutler threw a horrible interception that the Seahawks ran back for a touchdown in his.

Orton will never be Elway. He will never throw the ball as hard as Cutler. What he will do is be thoroughly inconsistent as he slowly becomes accustomed to all the changes he is dealing with, which is a lot like how Elway and Cutler started out. 

Doesn’t sound very reassuring does it? Elway is the one of the best, if not the best, of all time. Cutler was a Pro Bowl quarterback. After those interceptions Orton threw on Friday night, reassurance that he’s going to get better and get better fast is all we want to hear.

The truth is, for Orton, success as a Bronco is not a guarantee. Frustration is.

Allow me to explain. If Kyle is frustrating in the way that Brian Griese was, Broncos fans will do everything they can to run him out of town before the season ends. However, if he is frustrating in the mold of Jake Plummer, then maybe an AFC Championship is on the horizon.

I’m not going to bother to predict how Orton’s season will go. Someone else has already written that article too. What I will do is pull a Ben Stiller and hit you with some knowledge (sorry, I just watched Dodgeball)

Orton is going to make a fair share of mistakes in the early going. At times he’ll flash the brilliance that seems to reside within all quarterbacks in Josh McDaniels’ system, and at other times his play will be as ugly as his haircut.

There will be interceptions. There will be poor decisions. There will be Brandon Marshall fumbling when he tries to break too many tackles (too soon?).

The key to being a Broncos fan this season is shaking off the frustration that you will feel. Take a deep breath and let the full picture come together before you react to the situation.

Or maybe that’s the key to being Kyle Orton. Your guess is as good as mine.

Almost.

Denver’s Patchwork Defensive Line Could Kill The Season

Two years ago, Mike Shannahan hired Jim Bates to apply his two-gap 4-3 defense. The Broncos drafted linemen Jarvis Moss, Tim Crowder, and Marcus Thomas and signed free agents Sam Adams and Simeon Rice.

Unfortunately the changes didn’t live up to the hype, as Denver finished 30th in rushing defense and 19th in overall defense.

Last year, Shannahan fired Bates in favor of Bob Slowik and a more conventional 4-3 defense. The Broncos then acquired defensive tackle Dewayne Robertson in a trade with the Jets and placed linemen Kenny Peterson and Nic Clemons on the main roster. Once again the unit fell apart and Denver finished 27th in rushing defense and 29th in overall defense.

See a pattern yet?

If there is one major factor that led to Shanny’s exit from LoDo, it was that he was a very poor talent evaluator of defensive linemen, especially with players from the draft.

His inability to put together a quality front four took all the potential his past two Broncos’ teams had and squashed it before the season could even begin.

One of the general concepts in football is if your team can stop the run, your chances of success go way up. As much of a boring cliche as that may be, there is truth to it; out of the teams that ranked in the top 10 in defending the run last year, 7 of them made the playoffs. So what does all of this mean for the Broncos this year?

Trouble. Truckloads of it.

The new d-line put together by Josh McDaniels is terrifying, in a bad way. None of the players on the roster have much if any starting experience in a 3-4 scheme (the system that will be used this year by defensive coordinator Mike Nolan) and many of them have been career backups.

Last month during team mini-camps, Ronnie Fields, Ryan McBean, and Kenny Peterson were taking snaps with the first team defense. A root canal without painkillers may hurt less than for those three to be the starters come September.

Marcus Thomas, the 2007 4th round pick with “1st round potential” is also still on the roster and has yet to make an impact that is non-marijuana related. Moss and Crowder have been banished to linebacker in the hope that they might actually show up and play some football.

The rookie d-lineman, led by Chris Baker, Rulon Davis, Carlton Powell, and Everette Pedescleaux (say that three times fast), have fans hoping for a gem. The problem with gems is that you have to pull them out of a pile of rocks and look closely before you can decide if you have one or not.

There is no doubt that many of the guys I mentioned have the potential to be good players, but the Broncos can’t keep placing all their hopes on potential. They need solid contributions from players who will be good, not from ones who could be.

To be fair, it was slim pickings this offseason for d-linemen whose abilities fit the 3-4 system. The asking price for high commodities such as Albert Haynesworth and B.J. Raji was far too high and undeserving.

Guys like Igor Olshansky, Grady Jackson, and Chris Canty were available though, and would’ve brought more proven resumes to Denver’s defensive reboot than the ones McDaniels recruited.

I may sound like a pessimist, but I have viewed this subject from each perspective. Sayre’s excellent training camp preview shined a much more positive light on how these players could turn out, and in a perfect world that’s exactly what would happen.

Unfortunately, these days Dove Valley is anything but a perfect world. The dark clouds that formed at the end of the Mike Shannahan era are not to be parted easily. If anything, the Broncos will win less games before they win more, struggle mightily before they succeed. Before that shift to sunnier skies can proceed, the defense must improve.

Someday we may all have a good laugh over how much I underestimated these players, but I don’t believe that will be this season. It won’t be next season or any season after until the talent at Denver’s defensive line finally gets the upgrade it so sorely needs.

However, I would love to be proven wrong.

The Internal Confessions of a Frustrated Broncos Fan

I should be doing anything but writing this column right now.

I have two finals tomorrow that will greatly determine my grades in those respective classes, not to mention a final paper due on Wednesday that I have barely even started. It doesn’t matter, because to this point, the only thing that I feel motivated about is the soap opera that dominated the Denver Broncos’ offseason and the repercussions that have followed.

If you follow this team like I do, you know what I’m talking about. I shouldn’t have to tell you. Hell, you can be a fly on the wall for all I care. You know about the epic tantrum that went down between Josh McDaniels and Jay Cutler, and you also know how much different the Broncos will be this season and every season that follows because of it.

To this day, I don’t understand why Mike Shanahan just had to have Jay Cutler in the draft back 2006. Jake Plummer was the perfect quarterback for Shanahan’s run based offense, and he was coming off the best season of his career. Yet, it was mostly his fault that Denver fell apart in that AFC Championship game against Pittsburgh? The same Pittsburgh team that stifled Peyton Manning in the previous round? Give me a break.

Following that game, everything changed for the Broncos. They traded up to nab Cutler and Jake Plummer officially had 7 starts left in his football career. Trevor Pryce walked away in free agency and Al Wilson played his final game for Denver the same day Cutler played his first. Anyway you look at it, the kid from Santa Clause changed this franchise, sometimes for better but mostly for worse. Maybe Mike Shanahan thought he saw the next John Elway when he watched film of Jay Cutler from Vanderbilt. Apparently Cutler felt the same way when he said that he thought his arm was even stronger than Elway’s. For all that is right in the world, why would a young quarterback who has never even been to the playoffs compare himself to the most iconic sports figure in Colorado history?

Of course, this is all old news. Which brings me back to McJaygate. I still have a hard time picking a side. McDaniels should never have tried to trade his best player for a one-hit wonder in Matt Cassel who no doubt benefited from all the talent around him in New England. I don’t care how familiar you are with a player, you never trade talent for good system players. At the same time, how does Jay figure that it’s ok or professional to throw the kind of fit that he did? Say all you want about Denver’s terrible defense (and it has been beyond terrible) but Cutler has never shown the fire that it takes to be a winning NFL quarterback. Elway had it. Craig Morton had it. Even Plummer showed flashes of it at times. Cutler has never been short on talent, but talent only takes a player so far. Fellow ’06 quarterback draftees Matt Leinart and Vince Young can attest to that.

Here’s the catch though; once Josh exiled Jay out of the AFC by sending him to Chicago, I had moved past this. After seeing the bevy of draft picks that the Bears surrendered for the spineless talent that is Jay Cutler, I was ecstatic. Here, finally, was my team’s chance to regain prominence after suffering through the final years that became the lost visions of Mike Shanahan. Kyle Orton might suck, I thought, but McDaniels’ talents at grooming quarterbacks are supposedly just as good as Shanahan’s talents at grooming running backs. It’s all about the system, so this didn’t bother me that much. Not nearly as much as Cutler’s errant passes at the goal line that turned into interceptions did.

Then came draft day. I wasn’t quite a kid on Christmas morning, but believe me my heart was pumping. School and girls be damned, the draft was the only thing I thought of all week. We had five picks in the first three rounds. We were going to rebuild our team. We were going to be relevant again for the first since Elway left the building and Terrell Davis’ legs went with him. Everything good in Broncos Country would be restored. Right?

Maybe that will still happen, but certainly not the way I or any other person with half a football brain hoped it would. The Broncos effectively passed on Brian Orakpo, Rey Maualuga, James Laurinaitis, Everette Brown, Brian Cushing, and others for Knowshon Moreno, Robert Ayers, and Alphonso Smith. Ayers being the only defensive lineman McDaniels drafted and Smith being one of three defensive backs that he took instead. Am I crazy here? Were the Broncos not one of the worst teams at defending the run last year? Not only did McDaniels pass on all those players, but he traded the team’s first round pick in next year’s draft for a cornerback who likely won’t even start for a year or two.

Don’t get me wrong. Just because I think Denver didn’t need Moreno and shouldn’t have traded up for Smith doesn’t mean I think they are scrubs. These are all good players coming out of college (Smith would’ve been a first rounder if he was taller than 5’9) and they should all contribute to the Broncos this year in some capacity.

Still, by erasing the face of the franchise, McDaniels rattled the Denver fan base and has created more controversy than any other coach in history before coaching in his first game. Don’t be surprised if he gets booed at the first home game at Invesco Field. Bottom line; Josh needs to win right now to regain the full support and trust of the fan base, and I don’t see how he can do that when he didn’t look to solve his team’s biggest weakness through the draft. It’s like getting a new paint job for a broken down Mustang instead of fixing the transmission. It looks better, but the performance won’t improve at all.

To be fair, it’s only May. McDaniels and the Denver “Patriots” have a few more mini-camps, training camp, and the preseason to work out all of the kinks. Regardless, mistakes will still be made, important assignments and plays will be blown, and somewhere between now and next offseason Brandon Marshall will find another girl to get arrested with. You come to expect these things as a Broncos’ fan nowadays.

Ultimately, when looking at the Broncos’ roster and comparing it to that of San Diego, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, New England, and the other teams of the AFC elite, I can’t help but feel that it will be another long season. My only saving grace is the hope that somehow, someway, Chicago will have an equally miserable season to us. At least that way I won’t feel quite as bad about trading that damn first round draft pick.

 

Denver Could Learn a Valuable Lesson from the 1994 Broncos

This hasn’t been an offseason that Broncos fans have become accustomed to.

After 15 years under the control of the “Mastermind,” Mike Shanahan, Denver’s favorite sports team now marches to the tune of a vastly different drummer. A Patriot’s tune, to be exact.

Josh McDaniels has changed nearly everything about Broncos’ football that Shanahan so carefully installed over the years.

Shanny’s teams relied on a strong running game, a quick defense that was tough against the run and a tenacious, game-changing quarterback that could keep a defense honest when everything around him seemed to be falling apart.

While that system experienced its fair share of both success and failure, it was still a system that the Denver fan base had become very accustomed to. Perhaps that’s the biggest reason why Josh McDaniels’ changes have fans all over the Rocky Mountains calling for the new drummer’s head.

By trading Jay Cutler, the face of the franchise, and then turning around and trading the leverage that he received from the Cutler trade for a 5’9 rookie cornerback in Alphonso Smith, McDaniels isn’t exactly taking a conventional path to rebuilding this team.

There are still gaping holes on that defense and Kyle Orton, no matter how valiantly he played in Chicago, is a tremendous downgrade in talent from Cutler.

Add all this up and even some of the most loyal Broncomaniacs believe next season and the ones after it are a lost cause. Maybe those same fans could find some closure if they remembered the 1994 Denver Broncos.

The ’94 Broncos had star players John Elway, Shannon Sharpe, Steve Atwater, and Karl Mecklenburg, and an offense that ranked 10th in points and sixth in total yards.

Unfortunately, it also featured an abysmal defense that ranked 25th in points allowed and 28th in total yards allowed. Denver twice gave up more than 40 points in a single game and finished 7-9, good for fourth place in the AFC West.

Suffice to say, coach Wade Phillips was fired after the season and was replaced with a hot shot offensive guru named Mike Shanahan.

With the addition of a star running back through the draft in Terrell Davis, a few key veterans on defense and a switch to different offensive and defensive schemes, the ’95 Broncos made progress.

While their 8-8 record was only good enough for third place in the AFC West, they showed substantial improvement in their rankings. Denver’s offense finished ninth in points and third in total yards while the defense ended up at 17th in points allowed and 15th in total yards allowed.

The 2008 Denver Broncos featured an offense that gained a lot of yards and couldn’t score that much and a defense that would have given up touchdowns to varsity high school teams. Shanahan is gone, replaced by that hot shot offensive guru named Josh McDaniels.

The team thinks it found a star running back in the draft with Knowshon Moreno. Brian Dawkins, Andra Davis, and Renaldo Hill are a few key defensive veterans looking to give Denver a boost. The Broncos will now pass the ball before they run it and have dropped the 4-3 defense for McDaniels’ 3-4 scheme.

For fans of a football team that haven’t had a lot to cheer about since the ’95 Broncos reached their potential in the Super Bowl, an 8-8 season in McDaniels’ debut as head coach may be better than any Broncos fan could ever hope for.

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