SB Nation User Blog: Colinski

Is it worth seeing again?

Colinski — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:40:27 -0000

For the third week in a row, NFL channel will be replaying the Broncos game.

On NFL Replay
NFL Replay will re-air the Denver Broncos' 34-23 win over the San Diego Chargers on Wednesday, Oct. 21 at 9:30 p.m. ET.

I don't have a lot more to say here but I wanted to post this in a place where people are likely to see it, which isn't the case for Fan Shots.

On NFL Replay
NFL Replay will re-air the Denver Broncos' 34-23 win over the San Diego Chargers on Wednesday, Oct. 21 at 9:30 p.m. ET.

I've found that a second viewing allows you to look for some of the things you missed in the original. I usually follow the ball initially, but the second time around allows me to concentrate on other things.

On NFL Replay NFL Replay will re-air the Denver Broncos' 20-17 overtime win over the New England...

Colinski — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:34:39 -0000

On NFL Replay
NFL Replay will re-air the Denver Broncos' 20-17 overtime win over the New England Patriots on Wednesday, Oct. 14 at 9:30 p.m. ET.

http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2009101110/2009/REG5/patriots@broncos

NFL REPLAY of Broncos V. Cowboys (Tue. 6:00PM MDT/ 8:00PM EDT)

Colinski — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 04:16:33 -0000

NFL REPLAY of Broncos V. Cowboys (Tue. 6:00PM MDT/ 8:00PM EDT)

" Broncos 17, Cowboys 10, Tuesday, Oct. 6 at 8 p.m. ET

REPLAY: Chicago V. Denver -- Monday, Sept. 1 @ 4:00PM EDT

Colinski — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 06:42:02 -0000

REPLAY: Chicago V. Denver -- Monday, Sept. 1 @ 4:00PM EDT

That's coming up this afternoon, at 2:00 for us mountain dwellers.

REPLAY of Seattle game

Colinski — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 06:38:30 -0000

Replay of Seattle V. Denver game on NFL Channel at 4:00 AM EDT/ 2:00 AM MDT, Monday, August 24.

There isn't much to say but I'll fill some space here to meet the minimum requirement.

I find watching the game a second time to be particularly useful for analyzing team and individual performance. The Seattle game may not be the game you want to watch a second time but it's surprising how many little things you can notice the second time around. Having foreknowledge of the results allows you to pay attention to details that would normally overlook if you're watching the ball during the initial viewing.

signed speedster RB Marcus Thigpen

Colinski — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:03:37 -0000

The Broncos added another RB to bolster depth at a position that's been thin because of the waiver of Torain and the injury to Moreno in the opening game.

Marcus Thigpen

I wanted to post something on Thigpen because I think he's an interesting talent. I won't attempt to research him at this time but I recall reading about him in my pre-draft analysis. Please add any information you may have on him since this is quick, informal post.

Thigpen belongs on my list of darkhorse roster surprises.

Here's why he could make roster:

Speed, speed, speed. The one thing we lack at RB is a speed back and he could give that to us.
Return ability; he was one top the top return specialists in the draft and there a signs that they're still looking for a returner. My recollection is that he had a number of returns for touchdowns in the junior year but came back to earth in his senior year.
A good third down back like Arrington, whose position we never quite filled after he was released.
Receiving ability. Indiana tried to convert him into a WR and he has quite a few receptions for his career.

The bottom line is he fits our needs in a number of ways, and he'd also be a very good choice for the practice squad, too. (BTW - those of you who liked the idea of Alridge will like this guy)

Surveying the Defense

Colinski — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 02:25:31 -0000

Much of the MSM’s attitude towards the Broncos was infected during the Cutlergate issue so there’s been monkey pile of proffered opinions that contain little serious analysis. We can lump much of this in the Group Think pile, and ignore it — for the most part.

There are some kernels of truth, or logic, contained therein, so I wanted to address what has merit.

[note: this originally appeared as comment to another post but is reposted in near-verbatim here]

BASELINE ANALYSIS

The standard line of thinkings goes: we were terrible and added little so we’re still terrible. Added to this is the adjunct: scheme changes depress performance so we’re going to suffer even more on top of this.

There’s a sort of “logical arithmetic” that underlies this analysis; you simply add the negatives and expect a poor defensive performance. What’s not readily apparent is that this is an invalid form of reasoning.

For instance — we’re replacing many of the players who were deemed to be part of the problem, but the MSM’s ‘received wisdom’ (MSM’s RW hereafter) regards this as a negative! In fact, the baseline performance level that they’re using is based on these ‘problem players’ and the depressing effects of adding new players and changing the scheme are considered further negatives, which could potentially depress performance even more!

Let me go further — in regards to the scheme change; viewing the switch to a 3-4 as a negative creates a logical conundrum. The implication is that keeping Slowik’s ‘non-scheme scheme’ would have been preferable. Moreover, since the baseline for our performance is arbitrarily set at the end of the Shanahan/Slowik era, the defensive changes we made BEFORE last season aren’t considered as part of the problem, but rather, they’re considered in the positive. Any scheme changes we make this year are being added to the baseline established last year, which is itself considered a proxy for our talent level on defense. Another way of looking at the situation — however — is that removing a negative (i.e., Slowik’s scheme) is like adding a positive. In other words, getting rid of Slowik’s scheme eliminates a depressing influence on our team’s defensive performance, one that LED to that historically bad defensive performance. We actually would have been better on defense without the ill-considered Slowik scheme and the rag tag group of veteran castoffs we’d accumulated.

REGRESSION TO THE MEAN

Defensive units often respond quickly to ‘positive’ changes so the turn-around from bad to good (or at least decent) can be quick. Mired in the statistical analysis (or inextricably intertwined) is the fact that bad things happen for a reason. Dysfunctional teams tend repeat their mistakes, as coaches are hired and fired and schemes are changed, all of which is disruptive and fails to adequately address the problem — typically.

The myriad organizational problems that dysfunctional organizations suffer from accompany (statistically) the scheme changes and personnel changes that appear in data. Therefore, much of quantitative analysis done on scheme change, etc., is a record of what bad teams do, and these ‘bad’ examples are lumped in with the more rare ‘good’ examples, because they’re categorized together since they share a common trait. Yes, indeed, most rebuilding efforts are unsuccessful, because the category of “rebuilding teams” is dominated by teams that failed and thus needed to be rebuilt.

SEEING THROUGH THE LENS OF TEAM BUILDING

It’s often better to see the rebuilding process in the same way as one would look at any other type of organization. Rather than focus on the ‘bottom line’ that’s an end-product, look instead to all the little things. Dysfunctional organizations aren’t produced overnight, moreover, organizational problems often breed other problems, so the many ‘culture changing’ little steps that are introduced by a new management may appear insignificant initially but they usually contribute to the bottom line eventually.

The point is to NOT worry about the bottom line of wins/losses but instead focus on process. Wins & losses are what is produced after you do everything else that goes into playing football.

The MSM’s RW is that — once again! — changing the Bronco’s culture, and certain aspects of the offense, too, was a big mistake. There’s an "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’ maxim being employed here, and there’s also considerable resistance in the fan-base to change. But just look at what the MSM’s RW is saying here. What they’re saying is that there weren’t any problems with team’s culture and organization so you shouldn’t fix anything. Actually, Shanahan was a marvelous game coach and a poor general manager. Many of us here believe that THAT WAS the problem! All one has to do is look at the How the Broncos were Built section of the media guide to see — quite graphically — how bad we were at team building. Here’s who we have left from before 2006 — Ben Hamilton and D. J. Williams. You can also include Champ Bailey, since he was acquired in a trade for Clinton Portis, but THREE players is not a successful team building effort.

RE-EVALUATING

Much of what we’ve come to believe represents a distorted picture of the Broncos. This is even more true when it comes to the MSM’s RW. I, too, believed many of the things I’ve mentioned, such as keeping things the same, but I didn’t cling to those beliefs after I had the chance to analyze the new staff’s moves. What’s apparent about much of the MSM’s RW is how little thought went into it. And this isn’t surprising considering how few credible print journalists there are nowadays and the media’s tendency to use conflict to draw interest.

Approximately one year ago today, I commented in a post here at MHR about the Broncos’ failure to successfully engage in a team building effort. What may not have been apparent to many people is how that failure at team building would eventually translate into on-the-field results. The strange thing at this point is that much of the recent success (a half full glass terminological phrasing) is due to the fact that our draft drought has ended and we’ve been acquiring talent over the course of the last 3 years. We’ve acquired enormous amounts of talent recently and this is part of the story behind why we’ve been so good/bad. The MSM’s usual narrative is that our talent level is the problem, and so the solution MUST BE the infusion of more talent. Failing to add a generous portion of (usually young) talent is likened to completely misunderstanding the team building process.

However, I would say that it’s the MSM that’s missed the boat here. Team building is first and foremost a careful process. You don’t engage in a willy nilly process of collecting whatever talent is available and throw them together and then hope that somehow a team is formed, yet most of the MSM’s RW explicitly says that we should do exactly that. Furthermore, there’s a limit to how much young talent you can bring in, since many young players of an equal talent/experiential level don’t equate to a single competent veteran. Again, the MSM’s RW is that the high number of merely competent (but high character) veterans we brought in were an insufficient solution — thus missing the point. As I pointed out earlier, we DON’T HAVE ANY VETERANS! Not unless you’re speaking of Champ, DJ and Hamilton, or any of the other vets acquired in recent times, so acquiring high character, low cost vets was the only good solution to the problem. We could have overspent on a single player, such as Haynesworth, but we added to a greater number of positions instead.

Even though I could go on (and on) I want to wrap this up. Much of the negative coverage of the Bronco’s recent team building efforts has been the result of a failure to understand what wasn’t being done in terms of team building and thus misses the nature of our problems. We’re both younger and more talented than the MSM recognizes, and the veteran talent we shed in the offseason was part of the problem. It’s not that all of them were terrible. The problem was that there was no plan behind their acquisition, and many of them were also “street veterans” who collectively amounted to a disaster. The fact that many of the new FA vets are equally old misses the point. Nearly all of them, almost without exception, were still wanted by their original team. They may resemble the players we released as far as their superficial aspects but they’re somewhat different than the castoffs we acquired in the last two years. Finally, since we’re so young as a team we’re still behind in terms of development. Much of this younger talent will need to learn through more playing time, but the most obvious fact about this is that we will almost certainly improve and continue to improve as time goes by.

Live press conference at 4;30 MDT w/ McDaniels

Colinski — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:52:10 -0000

Live press conference at 4;30 MDT w/ McDaniels

Monday, July 27, 2009

Also see here: http://www.denverbroncos.com/page.php?id=334&storyID=7557

Redskins nab Jarmon in supplemental draft

Colinski — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:46:31 -0000

There's been no news yet as to whether Denver made a bid but the price for Jarmon was relatively high -- a 3rd round pick.

Jarmon was projected as a DE34 so we should have had some interest. The question is how much? The third round pick it would have cost us to claim him was a little steep -- although not by much. In an earlier fanpost on this subject, I advocated that we bid a 4th and even suggested that we might want to bid as a high as a 3rd.

I'm happy we didn't, and the real problem is that Jarmon wasn't better than many of the DEs already on our roster, so selecting him wouldn't have made us better this year and would have cost a fairly high pick.

Here's the report.

Poll

How much would you have bid for DE Jeremy Jarmon?

3rd round pick

3 votes

4th round pick

18 votes

5th round pick

24 votes

other -- explain in writing

3 votes

48 votes | Poll has closed

REBUILDING -- a developmental perspective

Colinski — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:57:26 -0000

There are many ways to categorize things. A book by George Lakoff, Women, Fire and Dangerous Things; what categories reveal about the mind, comes to mind when thinking about how we see the world. And it should be noted that I, like other males, tend to remember the title of that book as Women, Fire and [OTHER] Dangerous Things, which says something about my attitudes -- I guess.

What's this about?

Broncobear wrote an exemplary topic HERE which breaks down the Broncos into neat categories but there's another way of looking at the team. That is -- age.

I wish I could say that I had an elaborate entry complete with graphs and pictures but I don't. This is a subject that I had to post because I couldn't find another topic to attach it to.

We know that players develop over time, and the dreaded "upside" that we often talk about is often simply a function of age -- young players become better once they're given experience. So the question of how well we'll perform this season could be re-categorized into one that simply looks at age.

The first thing that one notices about the Broncos is that they're now very young.

OFFENSE

QB - Brandstater (1st yr.)

RB - Moreno (1s yr.), Torain (2nd yr.)

FB - Hillis (2nd yr.)

WR - Royal (2nd yr.), McKinley (1st yr.)

TE - Quinn (1st yr.)

LT - Clady (2nd yr.), Polumbus (2nd yr.)

LG - Lichtensteiger (2nd yr.)

OC - Schlueter (1st yr.)

RG - Olsen (1st yr.)

RT - Harris (3rd yr. - first yr. was lost)

DEFENSE (note: I'm guessing on positions and who will make the team for the defense, which doesn't change the point of this topic)

LDE - Powell (2nd yr. -- lost first year), (?) - McBean, (3rd yr. -- yet to play in regular season)

NT - Thomas (3rd yr.). (?) - Baker (1st yr.)

RDE - (?) - Jones (1st yr.), (?) - Pedescleaux (1st yr.)

LOLB - Crowder (3rd yr.)

LILB - Larsen (2nd yr.)

RILB - Woodyard (2nd yr.)

ROLB - Ayers (1st yr.), Moss (3rd yr.)

CB - Williams (2nd yr.)

CB - Smith (1st yr.)

SS - Barrett (2nd yr.)

FS - McBath (1st yr.), Bruton (1st yr.)

This is a graphic way of demonstrating that we could field a team composed of young players if we wanted to. It wouldn't necessarily be a good idea but we're not going to be forced field an inexperienced team because we do have some veterans. Here they are:

OFFENSE

QB - Orton, Simms

RB - Buckhalter, Jordan

FB - ? -- (roster space limits this position)

WR - Marshall (4th yr), Stokley, Gaffney, (?) - Lloyd

TE - Graham, Scheffler (4th yr.)

LT - ?

LG - Hamilton

OC - Wiegmann

RG - Kuper (4th yr.)

RT - ? - Gorin

DEFENSE

LDE - (?) - Clemons

NT - Fields

RDE - Peterson

LOLB - Reid

LILB - Davis

RILB - D.J. Williams

ROLB - Dumervil (4th yr.)

CB - Bailey

CB - Goodman

SS - Dawkins

FS - Hill

It wouldn't be good if we had to field an extremely young team but there's a number of veterans who will be the starters.

I won't attempt to over-explain the developmental thesis but the basic idea is that teams that MUST rely on rookies and younger (as in lacking experience) players don't do well, but that's all depends on 'how much' they have to rely on those younger players. Teams can be young in terms of depth as long as they don't have to rely on too many rookies in key positions. The real question here is -- do we have enough quality veterans in key positions to carry us?

Curiously, many of the 'older younger' players are on defense and there's still room for them to develop and deliver on their upside. And this could be a good thing. We know that DLs take longer to develop so the fact that we have many slightly older young players could mean that they're ready to break out.

A sub-topic to this post could be summed up as: Are Thomas, Moss and Crowder ready to break out? Although many people feel that some of the aforementioned are busts, it's tough to measure success and particularly tough when DLs have undergone a rough developmental experience such as Bates' Run Contain and Slowik's scheme of last year. In particular, it's very hard to believe -- for instance -- that we simply blundered when selecting Crowder, and this could also be said of Moss, even though many believe that we should have waited to pick him.

I'm not down on traditional categories such as: will we have a pass rush?, etc., but an easier way to look at the situation is through age/experience. The defense's performance in 2007 & 2008 suffered from coaching, scheme changes and a lack of talent. Sometimes a weakest link logic applies and it's hard to point out where the problem is, and everyone looks bad as a result. That's also the saving grace since a number of incremental improvements can yield a major improvement in team success, and especially for defenses.

I won't try to predict but young teams often do have growing pains, but that also assumes that we'll be fielding a team of young starters -- which we will not. The bright side of the story is that we have an enormous nucleus of young talent that will be able to play together and grow. Unlike many fans who see our draft in terms of their own expectations, I see the largest accumulation of young talent in Bronco history.

You can question my Kool-aid drinking tendencies but the proof is in the roster above -- which is why I wanted to present it in graphic form to make my point. We already began the rebuilding project in 2006, even though many of us may not have realized it, and even the Cutler trade helped in terms of bringing more (although not necessarily qualitatively better) talent into the fold. This is a young and very talented team that should get better as they gain experience.