In the spirit of “Intellectual Honesty” I decided to do a quick analysis of the Broncos Offensive (pun intended) drives in the Raiders game.  When I started, I was almost convinced to believe that it wasn’t as bad as I had thought.

I was wrong. It was worse.

This analysis is based on the simple fact that this is the NFL.  Every team has world class athletes and on any given Sunday, any team can beat any other.  The winner is usually the team that either makes the fewest mistakes, or the team that takes best advantage of their opportunities.  We did neither on Monday night.

Years of playing and watching football have made me believe that a failed drive can be traced to a single play.  Since I am most interested in what exactly went wrong Offensively, I went through the play by play and picked out the play on each drive that I believe was the “Drive Killer”.  The following is my opinion, if you are likely to be offended by it…don’t follow me beyond the jump.

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Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa.  Please forgive me Kyle for doubting you.  It has been said many times around here and I just didn't believe it...Kyle Orton is a good Quarterback.  No equivocation or apprehension about that statement.

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Nicely Played Coach!

Free Agency started with a BANG.  A good BANG.  Bannan, Green, Williams.  I have been complaining that the Broncos needed more talent on the DL since before FA started last year…and finally you listened.  They aren’t Julius Peppers or Albert Haynesworth, but they are good solid 3-4 Defensive Linemen who will instantly make this team better.  These pickups and a few others that I hope will be coming in the next few weeks (Center, Guard, maybe another DL) should give you the breathing room to roam the College ranks freely and pick up some future impact players without the pressure to start today.

Well Done.

You cut Casey Weigmann?  Really?  Who is now #1 on the depth chart?

You cut Andra Davis?  Really?  Who is now #1 on the depth chart?

You cut Kenny Peterson, but kept LeKevin Smith and Ryan McBean?  Really?

Um…Coach Josh… You really like walking that line between Genius and Insanity don’t you?  For now, with your early FA pickups, you have earned some leeway from me on your roster moves.   

Use that #11 on another frackin Runingback and we may have to have words…

I was wrong.

I was really wrong.

I was the epitome of wrongness.

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One Bronco Fan's attempt at humor.

If we can't laugh at ourselves, we are screwed!

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In late December, Pat Bowlen announced that he had released Mike Shannahan. At the time, I remember thinking…"Well, this will be interesting". I wasn’t particularly sad to see Shanny go, I have felt for a while that the guys weren’t getting it anymore. His message seemed to have gotten stale and it seemed that maybe it would be better for all involved if they parted ways and started over.

The days went by and we started hearing names of possible replacements. I was happy to see Cowher’s name drop out of contention, and relatively excited about some of the great defensive talent in the pool. Spagnuolo, Morris, Ryan, Frazier all seemed like up and coming defensive minds that could turn around the Defense and leave Jeremy Bates in charge of the O. Garrett and McDaniels seemed like pretty obscure choices in that they looked an awful lot like Shannahan. Offensive minded coaches from successful coastal roots. East vs west…but whos counting?

I will admit, I am one of those Bronco Fans who saw a good offense with the opportunity to be Great, with some good health and the emergence of a decent RB next year. The defense and Special teams both needed a complete overhaul. I know, it can be dicey bringing in a D-man to overhaul one side of the ball…Just ask Wade Phillips. This time though, we had Jeremy Bates already in place with Shanny’s Offensive system and great things seemed possible.

Then Bowlen hired McDaniels. It seemed strange at the time, but hey, if Pat says he is good and our 3 GM wannabes like him, I was willing to give him a shot.

Josh came in and was pretty impressive. Young, Smart, a little Cocky…all things I like to see in a coach. He let Bates go…an obvious move since there really is only room for one Offensive "mind" on a team and Bates was really the odd man out. He landed pretty successfully at USC, so I didn’t have a huge problem with that. He got rid of most of the coaches, Hired Mike Nolan as DC and is getting us ready for the 3-4. No problem, Defense has been pretty bad since the early 2000’s so I’m up for anything.

McD then started firing Bronco talent. He dumped Bly…my only problem there is that with the absolutely pitiful D-Line that we fielded last year, even Champ looked like toast on a regular basis. He dumped a bunch of D-linemen…again, not a huge loss (though IMO Engelberger has been our most consistent D-Lineman for several years).

While all this is going on…we start hearing things about "the Patriot way". Not from McD himself, but rumblings from the nether regions. Next thing we know, The Goodman’s are gone. They were good enough to help Bowlen hire the man to lead his franchise, but apparently stopped cutting the mustard once McD was in place. This left a relatively young and apparently pliable Xanders as the De-Facto GM.

Then FA started and he fired the long snapper. I admit, this is a strange position to have strong feelings about. They guy is on the field for less than 10 plays a game (hopefully). The problem is that he was a Locker Room guy. They absolutely loved him in the room and he is one of the premier long snappers in the league…but McDaniels fired him to bring in one of "his guys".

At that point, I was a little nervous. Next, the Cutler fiasco exploded. No matter what happened, no matter who you believe, it was an absolute ClusterF*&K. It was handled poorly from beginning to end by ALL involved. I’ll give him this…it takes guts to run a potential Franchise QB out of town on principle.

FA continued and McD made some good moves. Dawkins, Davis, 3 pretty good RB’s…but not a peep on the D-Line. I assumed like everyone else that he was gonna work something out in the Draft to pull some magic.

Draft day comes…and goes with a resounding Thud. Moreno is a good pick…might be a great player. The question is…will he improve your team more over a Hillis/Jordan backfield more than Orakpo or Cushing would have improved our Defense? I would argue that Moreno won’t be more than a marginal improvement, this year, on offense over what we had before, while one of the top 15 Defensive guys would be an immediate impact player.

Ayers seems like he could be a good pick. Only started one year in college and not a particularly gifted athlete, but put up some respectable numbers in a good conference. I will defer on this one.

Then comes the #37 pick. After all is said and done, I am more convinced than ever that this is a "rebuilding year". The Broncs got dealt an absolute Bear of a schedule and even a great team effort might end up only winning 8 games…yielding a top 10, possibly top 5 draft pick next year. Instead, we trade up to get another rookie CB. I understand that they rated him as first round talent…but is he top 10 talent? Is he top 5 talent? Time will tell on that one, but we once again bet a pretty sizeable farm on an untested second round talent.

In the end, we have a bunch of "character guys" and "team players" that may or may not be able to play. We will know as the year progresses.

One thing has become clear…This is McDaniels’ team. If they succeed, he deserves all of the credit. If they fail…that’s on him too. Josh McDaniels rolled into town and spat in the face of conventional wisdom. Let’s hope he is as good as he thinks he is.

History can provide a picture of competing scenarios.

In 1994, Denver hired Mike Shannahan. Shannahan was an offensive Guru trained under Bill Walsh’s Offensive regime. He brought the West Coast offense and drove Denver to back to back Superbowl wins within 5 years.

In 2002, the Washington Redskins hired Steve Spurrrier. Spurrier made his bones at the University of Florida where he had gone to 12 straight post season appearances. He was thought to be an offensive genius that would revolutionize the NFL with his Fun and Gun system. Spurrier resigned less than 2 years later in disgrace after going 12-20.

For the sake of my Broncos, I really hope that McD is a Shannahan. I question his actions and keep his feet to the fire because I am afraid that he could be a Spurrier. That is why I continue to call him out and won’t give him the benefit of the doubt. McDaniels has already reshaped the Denver Broncos in ways that could make them unrecognizeable. If he fails, as many first time coaches have before him (including his mentor Belicheck)…we won’t be starting from where we were on December 28, 2008. We will be starting from ground zero.