Last time, I cooked up some offensive-related avatars for Broncoholics. This time I wanted to make some defensive ones. I only had time and energy to cook up a couple, but who knows what I might do in the future...

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Someone mentioned something about making avatars, and it sounded like a pretty good idea to me. I figured, "Hey, it would be fun to spend a little time photo shopping." So here's a small first batch of pics that can be made into avatars (maybe). Feel free to use them. I'm including descriptions only to get the word count rounded out.

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Power rankings aren't worth a whole lot if you can't at least get a laugh out of it. But what if the laughs were intentional? Orange Rush tries to explore this question with his second annual batch of food power rankings.

(If the Redskins beat the Cowboys on Monday Night Football, I'll probably switch their rankings. Try not to get too hung up on the ranks, though, and enjoy yourself a little.)

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Yesterday afternoon, a Bronco player who wishes to stay anonymous came by my house selling Girl Scout Cookies, and I took the opportunity to ask him about Josh McDaniels. Here's what he had to say:

" That guy? Screw him. After a loss, he made us wear dresses when we watched video tape of the game. He said, 'If you're going to play like little girls, you're going to watch film like little girls.' I mean, ego? McDaniels' ego is huge. The dude slapped me in the face in practice. He said, 'I'm Josh McDaniels, bitch.' Who does he think he is? I'm glad he's gone so I can play Backgammon during practice again like Shannahan used to let us do."

I also chanced to meet a Broncos position coach in the grocery store only hours later, and here's what he had to say:

"If a guy likes to dress up as Moussilini for coaches' meetings, I think that's a bit of a clue, okay. If you forgot to call him 'Your Highness' any time you addressed him, you had to do a hundred push-ups while he sat on your back. If you had a bad game, he would wipe his boogers on your face during team meetings. How are you supposed to do your job when you have that to look forward to every day you come in to work?"

The point? I've seen a number of "anonymous sources" lately on the internet elaborating on McDaniels' character. If you're not a reputable paper where the Chief Editor actually makes sure a writer's anonymous source exists before the writer publishes an article quoting said source, I don't want to hear it. There's nothing to keep these people from making stuff up for attention. And to make matters worse, you've got other sites quoting the anonymous source from the first site, and I'd bet money that the author of the second article didn't check out the anonymous source. This is worse than quoting pure rumor as truth (as is often done) because it's presented with the trappings of pure, incontrovertible proof.

So please, let's take these anonymous sources with a grain of salt.

Tonight, the Michael Vick and the Philadelphia Eagles travel to Washington, D.C., to take on Donavan McNabb and the Washington Redskins in Fed Ex Field. This is a bit of an Ouroboros game, as it were. McNabb beat Vick with the Eagles to go to the Superbowl when Vick was playing with the Falcons. McNabb was sent to the Redskins in the offseason, however, and now, through a winding series of events, Vick starts for the Eagles. When the two teams met earlier this year, Vick was knocked out of the game early with a rib injury trying to dive into the endzone on a running play that would be called back by a penalty anyway. The Redskins had a lead at the time, and while they didn't score any more points in the game, it was enough to beat the Eagles, as Kevin Kolb was unable to lead his team to a victory. Today is a 2010 rematch, and could be considered another rematch of that Conference championship game. What will happen tonight? We'll see. In the meantime, this thread is open for all our discussion.

I feel like a fun way to celebrate a great Broncos victory would be to do a little photoshop of the infamous Haley fingerpoint. And, hey, why not let everyone join in? Alternatively, if you don't have photoshop skillz, you might find it fun to run some captions. I would have done this as a fanshot, but it's at least partially my original material (see my 1st photoshop below), and I couldn't really see how to do it right that way. So here's the fanpost, on which I now struggle to get my 75 words. I do hope you enjoy, and please let's try to keep this somewhat clean and PG rated, eh? No genitals of any sort, please. Thanks.

via img254.imageshack.us

More to come!

Tonight the Houston Texans travel to Indianapolis to face the Indianapolis Colts. Earlier this year, the Texans managed a rare win over the Colts in a game that featured a huge ground game by Arian Foster and a number of turnovers from the Colts. As in the previous matchup, we could reasonably expect Peyton Manning to throw for a lot of yards, which should please you if you're counting on him to win your fantasy game. For many, their opinion of the Houston Texans will hinge on this game. The Texans are a team that has historically folded, and obviously they have yet to make the postseason. The AFC South looks strong this year, so the Texans can really use a good divisional record. And any time you can beat the Colts, it is huge for your confidence moving forward. For the Colts, a win would be positive progress on the postseason and continuing their habitual dominance of the conference.

This open thread is now open for all our discussions. Enjoy.

Yesterday, we lost a game to a bad team in terrible fashion. It happens. Why did it happen? The temptation to speculate, extrapolate, and call for changes is incredibly strong. And yet, we must resist that temptation. The worst thing about the Denver Broncos right now is not that they lost so badly to the Raiders yesterday, but that we're 2-5 in danger of having our season prematurely terminated. For all the improvement of some teams in the AFC West, however, it is not so strong that a season is over at 2-5. I don't believe we'll make the playoffs, but what I'm saying is that when it comes to the state of the organization, what you should be looking at is the seasons, not one game.

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Starting this week, I'm going to try something new with this column. I'm going to keep the column focused on the Broncos, and I am only going to feature the games that have relevance for the Broncos. I think this will get more at what I was thinking of in the first place when I came up with the title for the column. The rest of the games will be in short form after the main feature.

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There's a certain fascination with taking a look at where sportswriters have ranked the NFL teams each week, but their attachment to their own opinions can be comical. Most power rankings end up being overblown affairs full of vanity, as writers tease teams with the prospect of a higer ranking if they can just defeat one more opponent. I think it is much more amusing to just decide which food a team is. Hey, if you beat cotton candy, you might just rise to become a chili dog. Browse past the jump to see where the teams rank this week on the culinary food chain.

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Tonight, Vince Young and his Tennessee Titans travel to Jacksonville to take on the Jacksonville Jaguars and David Garrard. Both are 3-2 in a 4-way tie for 1st place in the AFC South. The winner will be tied with the Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts for 1st place, while the loser will be by themselves holding a 1 game deficit in last place. The division seems to be highly competitive, although all teams appear to have questions as they head towards the 2nd half of the season. Both Young and Garrard have had questions regarding their careers at some point, while at other points playing like franchise quarterbacks. In terms of the quarterback position, they may be the weakest 2 links in a QB-rich AFC South that includes The Great One, Peyton Manning (who's almost as good as Elway, right?). The Broncos have faced both teams, losing to the Jaguars in week 1 and squeaking by the Titans in week 4. In terms of the AFC West, the Chargers dominated the Jaguars and have yet to play the Titans, the Raiders were smashed by the Titans in week 1 and have yet to face the Jaguars, and the Chiefs have yet to face either team. This thread is here for everyone to discuss the game and whatever else for the evening. Enjoy.

Last week, I was prescient ... when I warned of the week when you only get 6 picks right. Actually, only 5 of my picks panned out. In theory, I would have had better luck assigning teams a side of a penny and flipping it. But where would be the entertainment in that. Admit it, you enjoy watching people fail in their picks and basking in your own superior judgment. Anyway, on to week 6 picks and thoughts.

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Well, it's Tuesday night again, and I know you're drooling for another disgusting helping of my power rankings. I don't look at previous rankings in making these, as I care nothing for consistency. Consistency is something other people worry about in their rankings because they actually are crazy enough to feel that the "accuracy" of their ratings somehow affects their ego. Some teams I just rated low because I don't like 'em. They didn't do anything impressive yet, anyway, so screw 'em. And now, on with the show.

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After a rain delay, the Minnesota Vikings are playing the New York Jets tonight in New Jersey. It's only a few minutes into the game so far, but I think I've already seen my favorite play of the week, though it was unfortunately called back. Who expected to see Randy Moss get an end around ... then throw the ball to 41-year-old Brett Favre who then caught the ball at the sideline for a 1st down. It was awesome. It's too bad that you can't do this sort of thing because a QB would have to declare as an eligible receiver. Then again, why not declare Favre? Who would really have expected Favre to be out there catching a pass? Anyway, discuss away. This is your open thread for tonight's game, courtesy of... me.

Well, I had a much better week in my picks last week, so maybe my new format is working for me. Yeah, right. Every time you start to think, "I'm getting good at this," you get blasted with a week where you pick only 6 games right based off sound reasoning. Oh well. All the more reason to not take this too seriously. It's all about just having a good time and talking casually about the teams in the NFL. With that said, let's get week 5 started.

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Another week, another self-indulgent ranking of NFL teams. At least I am to entertain. In case you're new to the concept, this power ranking lists teams according to what foods they are this week. Let's see what we've got in week 5...

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Thought I'd open up a thread for discussion on the late game again. I know most of us will be over at MHR Radio in a bit, but for the time being I think it might be nice to palaver on this ongoing game. So far, it looks as bad as the Bears' last prime time game. Bears? This is not a very exciting team, despite the excitement the MSM tells us is coming from a Martz-Cutler connection. Sack, picks, and wins squeezed out against teams that play poorly. This game doesn't figure to see much offense. We'll see.

So, the Broncos are 1-2. It's not where you'd like the team to be at this point, but you have to try to look for the orange lining. For someone who's just browsing through teams only looking at their records, it would be easy to dismiss the Broncos. However, after a (slightly) more in-depth analysis -- basically an extension of the analysis I did in making my picks for this week, I see hope for this season.

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The NFL season is beginning to get earnestly underway, and now the fan has plenty of statistics to use when making picks. Unfortunately, no matter how predictive a statistic is, it cannot guarantee an outcome-at least not in NFL games. I proved this last week. Anyway, if you're new to this column, this is where I post my thoughts on the last week of football and detail my picks for this week's games. Please feel free to comment about anything you think I should include. More after the break.

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I'll tell you what, Power Rankings are sort of equal parts fascinating, pretentious, and boring. The most interesting parts to me are the explanations. Thus the inspiration for the debut of my "If They Were Food" NFL Power Rankings. Read on and hopefully you'll be mildly amused. Oh, and if you take this seriously then I don't know how to help you.

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Tonight the Green Bay Packers face the Chicago Bears on Soldier Field in an NFC North matchup. I didn't see a thread open, so I guess if you guys want to make some comment, go ahead. Personally, I was thinking of noting the Cutler interception. I mean, he's an elite quarterback after playing two good games this year, so he doesn't throw interceptions anymore. So that was clearly a mirage or a doppleganger or something Hum dee dum, got to make this 75 words, so... Yeah. If you want to talk about the game, go ahead.

Okay, so it seems like all I've been hearing this season (since Houston beat the Colts) is that the way to beat Manning is to keep him off the field by running the ball. I think this is a stupid an nonsensical assumption. The way to beat a team is to score more points than they do. There is no other way to beat a team. More after the jump, I guess

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Last week, I made a fanpost in which I went over my thoughts on teams in the process of making my picks for the week. It's a pretty long post, but I had a fun time writing it and rereading it, too. Even though it only got a couple comments, I figure on doing at least a few more as long as I'm enjoying it. Please feel free to comment if you have any suggestions on how to make this better, thoughts on my picks or whatnot, or just want to tell me to stop posting.

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Hello MHR nation! I decided to make a post breaking down my picks for this week, including my thoughts on each team in the matchup. I came to this decision after surfing NFL.com stats, all the stuff I was saying to myself, I figured why not just post those thoughts and see what you all think as well. Who knows, maybe we'll find some Orange Gold.

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What's the common theme in the AFC West? Poor run defense. The Chiefs are starting to look like, at least, a serious monkey wrench in this division. Run defense is the Achillles heal of the Chargers, as the Chiefs are showing tonight. Oakland is hopeless in run defense. The Broncos have some huge question marks in run defense right now. This year might hang for them on whether they can beat non-divisional opponents. The Broncos had better win some MF games and soon. If the Chiefs can go 6-0 in the division, they'll only have to win 4 other games to take the West.