The Denver Broncos Must Face Their New Reality

Times are changing in the Rocky Mountains. The Balloon Boy scandal is about to go away. Bill Ritter won’t run for re-election as Governor of Denver. Last but not least, Mike Shanahan will be coaching a team other than the Broncos.

And with that, the last page of the Shanahan Era in Denver has finally been turned, while the next chapter of the Josh McDaniels Saga has yet to unfold. I am uncertain. I am wary. I am scared to death.

It hasn’t been easy being a Broncos fan over the past four years. The team has seemingly lost their identity as one of the competitive teams of the league and become the annual whipping boy for the Chargers.

This was true in Shanahan’s final three seasons with the team, and nothing that McDaniels tried this year did anything to change that.

The Broncos are stuck, as one may say, in football purgatory. Not getting worse, but never improving either. This year’s team teased all of us with their euphoric 6-0 start, only to succumb to their greatest collapse to date, going 2-8 in their final 10 games.

I wish that I could tell you why this happened, why this keeps happening. The success that the Chargers have enjoyed this decade makes it even worse. San Diego has won five of the last six AFC West titles. Oakland won the first three this decade.

The Broncos? 1-1, which is 1 division title and 1 playoff win. They have 0 playoff appearances since 2005 with a 32-32 record over that time span.

We can all agree that 2005 featured the last truly great Broncos team. I remember every game from that season. Every touchdown. Every score. Every key play and every hurtful loss. And you know what? I can’t say the same about 2006-2008.

Know why? I blocked it out because I believed those seasons to be a fluke, that this was still a playoff team that was missing just one or two key players.

At this point, its obvious that I’ve been lying to myself all this time because I was hurt by the truth. And the truth is that the Denver Broncos in 2010 are not a great team. They are not a competitive team.

Simply put, they are average and irrelevant in today’s NFL. Not only that, but with the Avalanche enjoying a surprisingly successful season, the Broncos are the worst of the 4 major sports teams in Colorado.

Ten years ago, the Rockies and Nuggets could barely get fans to attend their games. Now they put on a better show than the Broncos ever can.

What’s even more frustrating is that nearly every good player on this team has a down side. Brandon Marshall, fresh off another 100-catch season, is good as gone. Champ Bailey is in the final year of his contract and may not be back in 2011.

Brian Dawkins played too much and wore down at the end of the year. Even Elvis Dumervil struggled when teams ran the ball at him more often.

I don’t write this for the sole purpose of being a pessimist and I do not withdraw myself as a Broncos fan. I could never do that.

For now, what I’m saying is that the Broncos of the present are bogged down in their own mediocrity and the Broncos of the future are completely unpredictable.

There. I feel better. Now the bright side to this column (didn’t think there was one did you?). The moves that the Broncos will do, should do, and probably won’t be able to do this offseason.

 

First things first; it’s time to completely cut ties with the Shanahan regime. If McDaniels is going to do things the Patriot Way, then he needs to do them all the way.

That means almost all of the Shanahan holdovers need to go. Rick Dennison and Bobby Turner are good coaches, but their zone-blocking and cut-back running styles of coaching don’t fit with what McDaniels is trying to do on offense.

Besides, they will get plenty of interest from other coaches, including Shanahan and Gary Kubiak, and would be hard to keep.

After that, it’s time to clean house with the players. Brandon Marshall and Tony Scheffler want out almost as much as McDaniels wants to get rid of them.

Ben Hamilton is a fraction of the player he used to be and is now too light for the offensive line. Peyton Hillis, Jarvis Moss, and Marcus Thomas were seldom used and rarely effective.

However, a few of the Shanahan starters from last year, outside of Champ Bailey, Ryan Clady, and Elvis Dumervil, will be back.

Eddie Royal saw a pretty large dip in his production from 2008, but he’ll get another chance because of his potential. Brandon Stokely and Spencer Larsen are wild cards who may or may not be back.

Next on the agenda is improving at the line of scrimmage. It’s no secret that the Broncos had major issues at their offensive and defensive lines toward the end of the season.

Offensively, they need to get bigger. Clady, Harris, and Kuper (if he’s resigned), are all good fits, but I’m not so sure about Casey Wiegmann.

Hamilton was benched midseason in favor of Russ Hochstein, who outweighs Hamilton by about 20 pounds, and the same thing could happen to Casey this spring. Those two may even retire.

The Patriots’ offensive line features five starters who each weigh 300 pounds or more, so look for McDaniels to replicate that here in Denver.

As for the defense, the teams with the best 3-4 defenses are typically the ones with the best nose tackles.

Ronnie Fields was decent for the Broncos this year, but his weaknesses began to show more as the season went on. He’ll have competition for his job in camp next year, as will Ryan McBean and Kenny Peterson.

The team could also use a true run stuffer at middle linebacker. DJ makes a lot of tackles and Andra Davis is solid, but neither of them instill fear into the hearts of running backs.

When Al Wilson roamed the middle of the field, the Broncos were consistently one of the hardest teams to run against. They have yet to replace him.

Lastly, the Broncos lack the playmakers that they need to compete in today’s NFL. With Marshall on his way out, someone else will have to make up for his 100 catches, and I doubt that someone is Jabar Gaffney or Brandon Lloyd.

Correll Buckhalter was better than expected, but he’s not the long term answer at running back.

Which brings us to Knowshon Moreno. I know, he’s a rookie, and I’ve already mentioned how the Broncos had a struggling offensive line most of the season. Moreno played well early on, but he was a non-factor in the final three games.

First-round picks are expected to make plays to help their teams make the playoffs, and Moreno didn’t make enough of those plays this year. Obviously he’s not going anywhere, but he needs to become more of an impact player.

That goes for the other Broncos first-round picks too, Robert Ayers and Alphonso Smith. Ayers finally began to get after the quarterback towards the end of the season, but not so much at the beginning.

Smith was nearly invisible all year and got beaten in coverage for a costly touchdown against the Raiders in week 15. Progress must be made here, or it will put the Broncos in a tough spot.

For all you Kyle Orton haters out there, I guarantee you that he will be back next year. Unless the Broncos draft a total stud at quarterback or Tom Brandstater magically turns into Tom Brady overnight, Orton will also be starting once again.

Whether he deserves it or not is a topic for another column. Orton will be your quarterback next year Broncos fans. Don’t like it? Deal with it.

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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.

Read more Denver Broncos news on BleacherReport.com

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.

Read more Denver Broncos news on BleacherReport.com

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.

Read more Denver Broncos news on BleacherReport.com

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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Last Minute Touchdown Aside, New Look Denver “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 6 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 4 of their 8 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 3 games that they failed to reach more than ten points, courtesy of the Pats, Raiders, and Panthers. Yes, that’s right, the god damn Raiders.

If last year’s team only scored 6 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 6 points? That’s just ridiculous.

The defense held a mostly healthy Carson Palmer to just 247 years passing and picked him off twice. Ochocinco caught 5 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 3 times. Brian Dawkins had 7 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, its 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 its the offense we should all be worried about now. Really I just don’t know anymore.

 

Read more Denver Broncos news on BleacherReport.com

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.

Josh McDaniels’ Old-School Camp Approach Will Pay off Down The Line

“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'” ~ Muhammad Ali

That has always been my personal favorite sports quote. It’s one that I try, and the key word here is try, to live my life by, and you know what? Something about the Denver Broncos’ training camp thus far makes me think that Josh McDaniels likes that quote too.

For all that Mike Shannahan accomplished during his tenure as Broncos’ coach, much is made over some of his bone-headed decisions. I believe one of those decisions was his somewhat soft approach to the physical portion of training camp.

To be fair, Shanny was no slouch when it came to getting his team ready for the season. He did, however, tend to coddle his players a little too much in camp, especially his veterans and high-profile rookies.

I went to training camp each of the past three years, and let me tell you, there was no shortage of guys just standing around and watching. At times, Broncos players looked more like a herd of cattle than football players preparing for the season.

Luckily I took some pictures of those moments, because I doubt I’ll ever see the inmates behave that way again as long as McDaniels is running the asylum.

As we here in the Rocky Mountains are slowly finding out, the “Patriot Way” of doing things applies to far more than just the players and the system; it also covers the kind of mentality a team should have when they practice.

This isn’t your “No Fun League” type of training camp. In fact, you probably haven’t seen or heard of something like this in Denver since the days of the Orange Crush.

One of the biggest differences so far in this year’s camp is that players are actually allowed, and more importantly encouraged, to tackle each other in certain drills.

“We don’t do them too many times, but I think early in camp it is good to do that because you certainly do not want to go into your first game not having tackled somebody or been tackled,” McDaniels said when asked about the tackling drills. “You have got to weigh it, you are right. There are pros and cons to doing it too much, but we are going to try to hit the right mix hopefully.”

If being more physical early on means the defense might actually still be playing in December, then I’m all for it.

Seriously, how many tackles did Bronco defenders miss last season? Hundreds? Millions? Zillions?

Was it due to lack of talent on the roster, or did Shannahan simply not give his players the kind of practice they needed to be ready for games?

It’s a little bit of both, in my opinion, and if you need any indication to how much tougher camp is this year, just take a look at Jarvis Moss. No more than three days into the process and Denver’s first-round pick of two years ago already considered throwing in the towel.

The fact is even though he hasn’t panned out so far, Shannahan had no choice but to support Moss when he was coach because he traded up to draft him in the belief that he would be an impact player.

McDaniels, on the other hand, has no obligation to show that kind of bias to any of the holdovers that came from Shannahan’s mistakes, and it will be interesting to see how many of those players survive the first round of cuts.

Time will tell whether or not this roster is built for success, but it is this writer’s belief that this old-school training camp will do nothing but play to the Broncos’ advantage.

If nothing else, McDaniels will ensure that this team goes through all the motions before they even think about suiting up for a game.

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