without looking at anybody else's first.

1. We stole one - not that the Broncs didn't deserve to win, they most certainly did. It was just that most people didn't expect them to win and I have to admit that I didn't think it was in the cards with four minutes left to play. There's a world of difference between being 2-2 versus 1-3. Nicely done - more below.
2. What does it take to get fired as a special teams coach? Sure, there was some redemption with the muff recovery at the end, but there's simply no excuse for giving up a kick-off return for touchdown and having it nearly cost you the game. I for one am sick of holding my breath for every kick-off praying that Prater generates a touchback. This has been going on how long now? McD has shipped out plenty of others that didn't produce; how about the coaching staff?
   
3. Very nice game from Orton. The interception was perhaps not the best decision into traffic, but in the end it didn't matter. What did matter was that in the face of no running game, he was presented the challenge of generating a touchdown for the win with three plus minutes left and did just that. This is a huge step in both his and the team's development.
4. How about that D. Thomas as kick returner - I really liked this development.
5. I'm going to keep railing on this until I get my way (I know, tilting at windmills) but Beadles has got to start at left guard and Daniels needs to take a seat. To Daniels credit, he had a nice downfield block on one of Royal's flanker screens in the second quarter, but otherwise, I'm not impressed and Beadles has so much more upside potential.
6. The running game actually regressed - and we still won. That said, I'm happier seeing Buck in there than I am seeing Maroney. Please heal up fast Mr. Moreno!
7. A very nice game from the defense and this makes two weeks in a row. They held a dangerous runner pretty much in check. And while I'd still like to see more consistent and inventive blitz packages, Wink called on Dawkins at just the right time, a number of times yesterday. There's still much work to be done in generating pressure and Cox will continue to learn in a trial by fire fashion, but the inside backer position has looked a little better these last couple of weeks and outside backers are semi-consistently setting the edge.
8. We got some breaks this week, which was a nice change from last week where I didn't think we got any. There were a few too many penalties - I'm looking at you Mr Clady - but the team did a nice job of remaining disciplined in the face of one of the cheapest teams in the league.
9. On a side note, both Hillis and Torain had nice games yesterday - I wish we hadn't given up on at least one of them.
10. Now we'll see where we are on a team maturity level. They need to forget this one and put their desperation faces back on again. The NFL's a grind - time to get even healthier and take their A game to Baltimore to face a very tough Ravens squad.   

Hi All - I have a good friend in the Denver area who's had season tickets for the last three decades or so. Problem is, he's not a fan of the current head coach and has a pretty negative attitude on the team. He put his season tickets up on E-bay, but I managed to talk him into selling to me as I can't stand the thought of them falling into "enemy hands". The problem with this scenario is that I live in Houston. I'm planning to get up there for a game or two toward the end of the season and had hoped to make it up at least once this fall, but medical issues have prevented my making any travel commitments. I therefore have a couple of tickets for sale for multiple games (the Oakland game is spoken for and I'm hedging on the last two games). The seats are located top deck east side on about the south 10 yard line - it's a great view and warm during those cold games (you'll want sunglasses, but you're not looking right into it). If you're a real Bronco fan and interested in a pair of tickets for a game or more, please contact me at: sscherer1@me.com.

Go Broncs!

I just wanted to follow up a bit with some observations on the Broncs at Jags game. I fully intended to post this sunday evening, but life got in the way.

1. First, as others have opined, the game was lost primarily due to the kicking game and secondarily due to too many mistakes - and the two are very linked. You can't keep giving the other team a short field to work with and expect to put them away. And by the same token, in the first half, the Broncs were constantly starting at the 20 or worse. That's a long way to go and remain mistake free. Which brings us to the second issue: From Beadles' holding penalty to Buck's fumble to McFacemask to unnecessary timeouts to lack of kickoff coverage lane discipline - they're all a sign of lack of mental discipline. Holding's going to get called, especially against rookies, and backs are going to fumble - it's a rough game. But there's no excuse for leaving your coverage lane or not knowing your assignment or getting two face mask penalties on the same drive when in the first instance, you had a lot of teammates around and the second (I disagree with Mr. Bena here - I think this one was the most egregious) you were falling to the ground with MJD in a virtual bear-hug anyway.
   
2. Mental discipline may or may not be on the coaches but play-calling most certainly is. Just my opinion, but I thought McD started the game with some pretty intriguing play calls and formations. However, once we got past the middle of the second quarter, I though the level of that intrigue fell off. Branded as an innovator, McD needs to raise the bar a little. I don't know how much of the "choosing the receiver" falls to Orton and how much is predetermined based on formations chosen, etc., but I thought the targeting of Lloyd in the second half was excessive based on the success we had throwing the Eddie in the first half - and whatever happened to Gaffney and even Graham for that matter? I would think any of those guys might have been a better choice on the "he missed getting that foot inside the line by this much" fourth down play. And on the other side of the ball, I didn't really see much much in the way of creative stunts and blitzes out of Wink, particularly as it seemed that Garrard had a lot of time to throw and those long throws were hurting us. Back when he was an offensive coordinator, Shanahan used to run plays in the first half just to set up a surprise variant on those plays in the fourth quarter - I'd really like to see a bit of this. I know, it's very easy from this perspective to second guess, but still . . .
3. I thought the receivers had a pretty good day on sunday and while everyone's talked up the fact that Orton stepped up his game after the team traded for BQ and drafted Tebow, no one's acknowledged that the team traded away BM and then drafted two receivers in the first three rounds, but Lloyd, Gaffney and Royal didn't beef (as far as we know). While it's only been a week and the jury's still out, I would contend that like Orton, these guys went about raising their game.

Here's hoping we see less mistakes, better kick coverage, more play calling innovation and some worthy Bronco football on sunday as I believe it amounts to a must-win game if we're going to have a play-off year.

Go Broncs!

A few thoughts and observations from the 5th deck at Mile High:

1. Kyle Orton played one hell of a game! He out Bradied Brady

2. The two second half drives for touchdowns were things of beauty. The first to get within a TD was 90 yards - the second to tie it was 98 yards - very impressive stuff. The offense finally found some groove today

3. How about that Eddie Royal - all he did was make tough catch after tough catch.

4. Maybe I missed it, but Peyton Hillis is still missing.

5. The second half that the defense put together was a thing of beauty. They go 3-and-out and we run into the punter. They go 3-and-out again and we get nailed for encroachment. so, they simply did all they knew how to do - yep, 3-and-out again. Sweet!

6. This team's ability to make adjustments at halftime is uncanny and has to represent at least major theme this year.

7. For whatever reason, Prater's kick-offs just didn't have the usual distance today - maybe it was the socks.

8. While the "wildcat" or whatever you want to call it seemed i bit gimmicky and didn't really produce any barn-burner plays, it gave the Pats just one more thing to think about. NE had take a number of timeouts this afternoon while on defense because the Bronco offense had 'em spinnin'. One of these days the lightbulb is going to go on for Moreno. Don't get me wrong, he runs hard and gets his yards, but he's not yet hitting the seams.

9. I don't know whether you could see it on television, but the cat and mouse game being played by both sides with respect to situational substitutions was very intriguing. The Denver D had a pod of players stationed about 10-15 yards inbounds from the sideline and would shuttle combinations of players (or fake it occasionally) in and out of the defense in response to various Patriot offensive personnel groupings. The head games were extraordinary today.

10. McDaniels penchant for attention to detail seems to have rubbed off on the organization. Not only were the cheerleaders decked out in period garb, but the flyover at the end of national anthem was done with old time propeller driven bombers and the video screens were in black-n-white with that rounded corner, old Philco TV look - very impressive. A very fun day!

I've been meaning to make this post - or at least a variant of it for six to seven months now, but I work a lot of hours and I don't have the time to contribute as much as I'd like. I enjoy the site and the generally intelligent discourse here. I signed up on the day that the news broke of Shanahan's firing - I happened to see it at NFP and the shock prompted me to register at a blog site for the first time in my life. I was a little surprised at the McDaniels hire as I thought the biggest hole was on defense, but was also somewhat intrigued as I remember the enthusiasm and imagination that Mike Shanahan brought, first as a very young QB coach from Florida and eventually the only head coach to help bring not just one, but back-to back Super Bowls to the franchise I'd been following this team since I was seven years old listening to Bob Martin do the play-by-play on KOA and trying to win each week's "Pigskin Playback" at game's end - games featuring the likes of Mickey Slaughter and John McCormick and Pete Like, Cookie Gilcrest, Bob Saputo and Billy Van Heusen. And then we signed Floyd Little and the franchise really sort of took that first step of legitimacy. It was at about this time that I, along with some neighborhood buddies got a job with the stadium concession franchise selling Pepsi's at the old Mile High. It was the only way any of us would ever get to see a game live and we were smart enough to work the east stands, where the crowd sat in the sun and Pepsi sales were brisk enough that by the middle of the third quarter or so, we felt we'd made enough money to pull up an empty seat or even an aisle to watch the rest of the game.

Finally, my senior year of college (more on that below), Red Miller came in and took John Ralston's and Fred Gherke's eyes for talent and led the Broncos to their first Super Bowl - another step on the legitimacy ladder. I left the country to work for the next six years, but returned just in time remember sitting in the sparsely furnished living room of a duplex in Houston, by myself, as a graduate student and watching "The Drive" and thinking this Elway guy might just be as good as everyone expected him to be. This was followed however by my hosting a couple of Super Bowl parties where I worked really hard to outfit my humble digs with multiple TVs linked to long cable runs with splitters and the requisite munchies and beverage - only to be left the object of pity or ridicule depending on the class of my guests. Luckily, I learned my lesson and wasn't even in town for that debacle in New Orleans. Of course, deliverance finally came one late January afternoon or early evening against the favored Packers in San Diego. The five guys I watched the game with didn't quite know what to make of my leap to the ceiling at the final gun and the tears streaming down my face - you had to have earned the stripes to understand the emotion of that moment.

This all brings me back to the firing of the "Coach for Life", the hiring of the incredibly young Josh McDaniels and then the Cutler fiasco. You see, I was pretty intrigued with the potential of the guy. He had, at least in some ways, the mobility and arm to be something really special - if he'd just grow up a bit. I was bothered by the combination of the way he carried himself and his naive arrogance, but figured he might eventually "get it". He just didn't have Elway's fire - that weird look that John would get when the game was on the line and he knew he had a better than even chance of pulling it out at the end - never mind what led to those 4th quarter predicaments in the first place. Man, he was fun to watch because he was the embodiment of the combination of "you never know what might happen" and "nobody else alive could possibly have pulled THAT throw off". Cutler was also fun to watch and I for one was pretty depressed and distressed about the announcement that Pat Bowlen wasn't getting his calls returned and we were actually shopping the guy. I mean, what the hell was going on with this once proud, and stable franchise? It seemed the Baltimore/Elway karma had finally come full circle.

At about this same time, my alma mater, Colorado College, announced that due to financial challenges, they were dropping the football program. I arrived there in 1974, a few years after a little known defensive end named Ed Smith graduated and ended up playing for the Broncos. We were a Division III team with no scholarship money, but I was recruited to play in the defensive backfield and had the time of my life. We generally played a couple of Division II schools each year and as we were relatively small and quick compared to our opponents, we ran the single wing and prospered. We were low budget and generally flew to just one away game per year. The rest of the games were against teams from Nebraska and Kansas and we traveled by bus. We'd play night games out there and then Mel, our driver, would work the CB and get us back to Colorado Springs before sun up. In 1975, we were ranked #7 in the nation and went to the NCAA playoffs only to lose to Millsap's College 28-21 in a see-saw contest. My football career ended about halfway through my senior year playing Chadron State in Chadron, Nebraska when a freak accident broke my fibula and tore all my ankle ligaments.

Colorado College has been playing football since the 1800's and boasts the Hall-of-Famer Dutch Clark and NFL Films guru, Steve Sabot, among its football alumni. Washburn Field, the football stadium on campus, is situated such that the home crowd is taking in the game as Pike's Peak stares down from the opposite side of the field with the changing leaves and autumn air contributing to a college football atmosphere unrivaled almost anywhere. It's also the oldest college football field west of the Mississippi River. But the current school administration, without a peep of warning, flushed this legacy down the toilet. There was no talk of financial challenge at the reunion I attended last fall. There was never an appeal to football alumni or otherwise in an effort to preserve the program. The announcement was made so late, that almost no one from the current team was given a chance to arrange a transfer. While I acknowledge that a college education hardly requires football and that the financial challenges over the past year have been extreme, to say that the situation has been mismanaged, would be one of life's major understatements. In fact, there are at least three Division III schools introducing football programs this year.

So, this combination of pro and college football upheaval left your humble author in a very depressed state. But regarding the Broncos, and the loss of Cutler (who by this time I was viewing as mentally ill), I finally woke up to or "re-realized" what makes football the ultimate game in my eyes - it's the ultimate TEAM game. Perhaps the loss of one guy - one who could be pretty fun to watch, might in fact, be traded for a team - so far, so good. And at the same time, some energetic CC alumni have now established The Washburn Foundation - aimed at re-establishing the proud football program at CC - for those that want to learn more about CC's football history and possibly support quality small college football, go to www.washburnfoundation.org.

About five or six years ago, some friends in Denver and others spread across the country, conspired to meet at Mile High each year to take in a game. I'm coming up to "Mecca" this weekend to continue the pilgrimage, that tradition and catch the game as well as lend some support to the CC football effort. It's a throwback weekend - and while I'm all for throwback, I sure wish we weren't throwing that far back - those socks are going to be tough to overcome. For all you folks that wish it, I'll be channeling your energy inside that stadium as you're gathered around your TV or trying to watch an Internet feed or listen to the radio - believe me, I know exactly what each of those is like. For those that have managed to stay with me all the way through this post - thanks! It's been a hell of a ride thus far - let's roll!  Go Broncs!

You can't generate better theatre than that! The combination of Dick Nolan and Brandon Marshall -all I can say is WOW! The job that the whole team did of keeping an eye on the ultimate prize. WOW! For doing all it takes to win on a day that the O didn't play their best game - WOW! The calls didn't go our way and - WOW . . .  it didn't matter - WOW! It doesn't get much than this - ENJOY!

Go Broncs!

The National Football Post has an interesting article this afternoon from Andrew Brandt regarding the recent release of J.J. Arrington and the way his contract was structured. It sounds as if the front office did this one right in terms of limiting the team's financial exposure, both with regards to the signing bonus and also the possibility of a follow-up injury settlement. As one poster put it, "If Shanahan was running things we’d likely be on the hook for the full 1.8M. Nice one." There's also the full medical description of Arrington's diagnosis for BroncoBear, Ponderosa and any other M.D.s to ponder. I'm not sure what Brandt is referring to regarding the league office having held up this contract. In the meantime, all the best to J.J. - go get well young man! Go Broncs!

Check out the link:

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/2009/05/arringtons-knee-the-waiver/

National Football Post's Michael Lombardi has some new opinions on the team's FA signings to date - I think I mostly agree. Personally, I like the Simms, Goodman, Dawkins signings, but am less than enthusiastic about the Gaffney, Paxton and Jordan choices. I don't know that Buckhalter will bring us much as I think Arrington can more than fill the Bell/Young change of pace and return man role. Check it out:

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/2009/03/notes-from-lombardi-broncos-breakdown/

According to the National Football Post, Jeremy Bates is headed to USC as an assistant coach - I would assume as offensive coordinator. While I wish him luck, I would be curious as what you folks think regarding what this means for Cutler's development, and who we might tap as our OC. At least he's not going to another NFL franchise . . . yet. It would also seem to potentially be the end of the zone blocking scheme unless Turner has more influence than I'm currently assigning him.

National Football Post is reporting that Shanahan has been fired. I don't really know what to add to get to the 75 word minimum except to say that I'm more than a little shocked. I've been following this team since the days of Mickey Slaughter, John McCormick (sp?), etc. and this has to rank right up there with signing Elway . . . if true. Anyone care to speculate on just who might be candidates - I don't think Cowher is an option.