As a Lifetime Fan of the Denver Broncos, I would like to thank the 2011 Denver Broncos Team for their Greatest Season Ever. I could not be prouder of the TEAM that has been assembled to represent Bronco Country in their wild runaway stampede towards the high plains of NFL Playoff Pastures in what is arguably also one of the NFL's most competitive seasons on record. Don't miss the moment in history in which this TEAM now stands, ready to define itself. It is time to embrace this last Game of this magnificent Season.It is time to Beat the Chiefs It is time to lay claim to the AFC WEST TITLE. It is time to JUMP!

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Merry Christmas to all of you fine citizens of Bronco Country. May your stocking be stuffed with a Neckbeard Chia Pet.  Dumer Claus is coming to town! Dawk & Buck will get together with some old friends, have a few laughs, & then deliver some holiday punch to their former team mates. It's so much better to give than receive. Just like us, all they want for Christmas is a playoff berth. With the AFC Wilcard picture being as cloudy as the scene inside a  maniacally shaken snow globe, the Broncos can, to quote Dawkins, " Just Taaake It!", or they can receive the gift from someone else, or they can just go home empty handed. I think we all know what our preference is in regards to this matter. Anything but the lump of coal that we have been unwrapping for the last 3 seasons. Many here have already abandoned hope. "The Broncos are bad  & don't deserve any playoffs." Not all together true. They have also had their good moments. That's one of the maddening traits of your 2009 Denver Broncos collective persona. You better watch out. You better not pout. You better not cry. I'm telling you why.  At first they are nice, & then they begin being naughty. and so on and so forth & scoobey doobey doobey. I love everyday people. What's a fan to do? This team is so schizophrenic it has us desperately searching for methods to cope with trauma caused by all of the drama that has left me feeling quite comfortably numb, thank you. This Bronco team, at least in my mind, cannot fail. At worst, they can only achieve a deficiency.

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"Took my love, took it down. Climbed a mountain & I turned around. Then I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills, then the land slide brought it down." Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac, Landslide.

"Go West, young man!", exclaimed Horace Greely, whose namesake blesses my birthplace. I'm sure those words resound in the ears of Josh McDaniels today. Coming off of a primeval beat down of his own mentor in the most primitive & brutal sort of fashion, Coach McDaniels ascended to the highest peaks of the Rockies &, in the rarefied air up there, turned his gaze toward the setting sun, while listening to the drumbeats of war that were emanating from that direction. He savored the moment, & then began the westward journey towards the ensuing conflict. Hoofbeats of the mounted warriors he has raised up thunder behind him, awaiting his command, ready for his smallest direction, wanting more of the glory they have already tasted, stirring up a whirlwind cloud of icy permafrost dust behind them. Raw football meat & gridiron gunpowder is their daily ration. The swift moving horde craves more. They sense the urgency of the moment as they ride roughshod towards their objective. The reckoning is now. Give no quarter, & take no prisoners. Complete & total victory is at hand, long before most of the combatants even realized the end game was so near! Checkmate looms over the setting sun's horizon. A rare chance to end a battle, a preemptive strike, before it even has a chance to start. Is it fear this team now smells in the distance?

The Broncos have left behind them a trail of smoldering ruins. Trampled opponents whom may or may not recover from their brief encounters with this latest edition of destiny's child. That's right, I said it. This is a team of destiny. Earmarked for greatness. Without a doubt, this team is not looking back on their conquests & reflecting on the havoc they have wrought. That is the realm inhabited by fans such as myself, who can only witness & testify of the greatness they have seen. When the pawns of Cleveland & Oakland were taken effortlessly, no one took heed. Once the knights, bishops, & rooks of Dallas, Cincy, & New England had fallen, a sudden realization has occurred that the queen is in dire jeopardy. San Diego's rule over the West is going to be challenged in the most blatant & confrontational form imaginable. Their supremacy will be fiercely contested in their own house much sooner than they thought possible. The siege of their stronghold is already under progress. May it fall quicky & decisively. The previously feared gauntlet may become a welcome "hit me with your best shot" tour de force. A forge upon which this team can hone it's weapons to a precision razor sharpness for an eminent playoff run through the same foes they have previously battled. No small advantage for a field general such as the Broncos have. The magnitude of the Monday Night showdown with the Chargers will not strike the casual national observers until game time when the MNF crew will clue them in to the significance of the game and it's implications for the rest of the season. The Broncos know it, the Chargers know it, & we know it. On Monday night may a national TV audience also realize that the West was won in such overwhelming fashion, hardly a salvo was ever fired by the Charger canon.

"It's over", sighed the first born child, my 9 year old son, as we watched Cedric Benson crash into the end zone from the 1" yard line this past Sunday. We had been cheering wildly all afternoon while watching the Broncos & Bengals wage a tight defensive battle in the 2009 season opener. The way he said it struck a chord deep within me, that resonated with the sick feeling of a bad memory, from a time in  life when I was the same age as my boy. The residue of some unresolved bitterness left over from the Lou Saban era, I guess.( My Daddy used to chide me when I was young, because I cried when the Broncos lost, which was quite often). As the resonance ebbed  & dampened from the gong that had been banged in my soul, I realized that we both had experienced the identical feeling at right around the same point in our lives. This startled me. That little voice in my core spoke & prompted me to full attention, priming my senses, peaking my awareness for a palpable "something" that was about to happen. As a fan, I knew I was experiencing a moment of self actualization. "Let's go outside & play",said my disappointed younger son of 8 years to his big brother. "Daddy, would you play some catch with us?" As the Bengals special teams unit lined up to kick the extra point, I decided that I couldn't let a perfectly good crisis go to waste & allow what seemed to be a perfect teachable moment to pass. "There's time for catch after the game. Sit down, boys! It ain't over till it's over."    

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Welcome to Week# 1 of the 2009 NFL Regular Season. The schedule includes 7 Divisional match-ups, 7 Intra- Conference  contests, & 2 Inter-Conference games. Todd's Odds does not have a crystal ball or magic formulas. Picks are made using best current information available. Betting lines are from MGM Mirage in Las Vegas & are current as of 9/10/09. Injury Reports are included where there is an impact on the spread. I mix in a little jock talk with the numbers just to keep it real. Please enjoy, & remember, if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right. Let the Games begin!

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Happy Belated Father's Day to all MHR Daddies!. My Fathers Day found me with no Daddies alive in my life to share the day with. I was only able to commune with their memories.Luckily, I feel I can share my story with ya'll.(Sorry, I live in Texas now, that's just the way we all talk down here!) But ya'll are family to me. You see, I was such a fortunate boy, in that I had two wonderful Fathers while growing up. It is so natural for me to be a Denver Bronco fan. I was the son of a real life bronco buster growing up on the Western Slopes of Colorado. What other team could I ever be a fan of? My natural father died breaking the broncos he loved when I was 8 years old. My poor Mom, who had always been a cook on all of the ranches my Daddy broke horses on, was devastated. Who could possibly want a women with 3 wild & ornery boys?. Answer, a world class athlete from Spain, who had been a professional Jai Alai player, who had been hit, where it counts, by a rock hard "peleton" traveling at 160 MPH. The only thing a man longing  to be a Father, who can't have any sons or daughters of his own, is looking for, is a women who already has some kids! Life has been so kind to me. Life, or fate, if you wish, will be kind to our Broncos as well. In my view, training horses, at least the way my Daddy showed me, & being a Professional Football Coach, are life endeavors that share some common ground. Josh McDaniels is not a Bronco Whisperer. (Sorry if the healine may have mislead you, it was done purposely only to arouse your curiosity, if only for the author's sake of drawing you near.) However, in his short & tumultous tunure as the Broncos Coach, his actions have spoken volumes. Horses, at least the way my Natural Father showed me, don't respond to words, but rather, sounds & actions. If you care to entertain the possibilities & probabilities, I'd like to further share some of the similarities & correlations between the two with you.

Ride'm In. My Daddy would receive consignements of lots numbering in between 40-50 head of wild & untrained  mixed thorobreds, quarterhorses, & mustangs between 1-2 years of age. (The team.) They were all let out to the big & well watered lower south 40  acre pasture. His job was, to within 8 weeks, yield as many highly trained cutting horses as he could possibly provide for his various clients. (Offseason, FA, Draft, & OTA's). It was tough work, & we were always very poor, because he had to pay for them before he could sell them, & there was no guarantee that any of them would work out. The time in between the buy & sell were tough. It was all a gamble predicated upon his belief in himself that he could get the job done. (Josh McDaniels). 

Turn'em out. To work within such a contracted  time frame, my Daddy had to make some hard & fast decisions & judgements about the herd. It was incumbent upon him to quickly determine which ones he could & could not work with. If he could get a rope on them & get them to the big corral, well, that was a start. If they were too wild to even get a rope on,(untrainable), he would have to cut them loose.( All of the players that Josh has released). More often than not, there was a dominant horse in the herd that had to be cut out because he was trying to lead the herd away from the big corral. (Cutler, maybe BMarsh). Sometimes, he would quickly identify these horses & immediately sell them to various Rodeo circuits just to keep beans & cornbread on the dinner table. (Draft picks.)

Head'em up. Once Daddy had gathered all of the horses he thought he could work with in the big corral, he began to individually take one horse at a time to the round corral, ( picture Josh on the field breaking down in drills with the defesive backs, something you would never see Shanny do, bless his heart.) The round corral was predictably in the shape of a circle, with a post in the middle.(Training Camp). Naturally, the horses were as mad as a tornado in a trailer park when he tied them to the center post, but that was OK, He just let them tire themselves out as he watched & observed from the rail. Once the horse was finally exhausted from resisting, he would cautiously but without fear approach the steed while speaking kind words in a low & quiet tone. It wasn't what he said, though, it was how he said it. Once the touch occured, it was all downhill. Next came the hackamore, then the blanket, & finally the saddle & bridle. All of the problems in between were addressed with sugar cubes & whips as he saw fit. It was a brutally tedious task as he ran through the entire herd in 2 hour increments over the course of weeks of repetitive training. However, he never tired of the regimen, because he loved what he was doing, & he was confident of his success. I don't care who you are, there is no way you can tell me that you love the Broncos more than Pat Bowlen does, & there is no coach who loves football more than Josh McDaniels.

Rawhide! The final product was always a sight to see. Horses that couldn't even be ridden 2 months ago were now equine athletes capable of herding cattle, racing, & most importantly, companionship.(Teamwork). Many horses my Daddy trained became mounts for star rodeo calf ropers & bulldoggers, as well as thorobred & quarterhose racehorses.(Pro Bowlers). Mostly they just became hard working & effective ranch horses.(Good team mates). When this Bronco Team rises to run roughshod over the AFC West for the  Division Title, you won't find anyone saying that this is a team without a "face". The face of the team, however, will not be that of any one player or players. The face of the team will be the coach that brought them all together.

Words unspoken. You can basically circular file the dialogue from all of McD's press conferences. Much like his tutor, he always reveals as little as possible. It is all artificial & monotone in a very calculated way. (Hey, the Broncos do have a face! A poker face!!) However, the actions of Josh McDaniels speak loud & clear. Many Bronco fans roundly questioned a relatively obscure transaction, when McD cut popular LS Leach & brought in Lonnie Paxson from NE for more than twice the price. Why oh why? Time & space, as well as context here, won't allow me to go into details here. If you do the research on him, you will find that he is a locker room leader whom Josh desparately needed considering the change resistant environment he was entering. The lead horse, if you will. The cast iron fortitude with which Josh met the Cutler challenge spelled out in no uncertain terms who was in charge. Probably the most deafening broadside, IMHO, was the trade up for Alphonso Smith with the Seahawks in exchange for the Broncos natural #1 next year. The trade screamed of his confidence in the team to the highest peaks of the Rockies. Maybe you have detected the messages in some of McDaniels' non verbal communications as well. I'm sure more research on my part could uncover further unspoken words. All I know is, he has my attention,  I am listening, & I'm not even one of his players. Just a huge Bronco Fan! Once again, I hope your Father's Day was the best!

This is a media research project in reference to TSG's "Objectivity vs. Kool-Aid" bombshell. His article made some stunning & compelling statements that generated responses from across the whole spectrum of the MHR fanbase. Despite all of the great dialogue & debate that ensued, I felt the greatest impact of the post was that it collectively forced the entire MHR membership to look in the Mirror. Who are we? Are the outsiders looking in correct in their assessments? Are we really just a bunch of Kool-Aid swilling optimists who are so out of touch with reality that we can't even tolerate the least bit of criticism of our Team, even from within? Let's try to find out.

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Curious how a link I saw at this site this morning in regards to Adam Schefter ranking the Broncos #29 in Football Organizations among NFL teams disappeared.Help me out here, fans. Too many mushrooms in my Kool Aid? However, I know I am not hallucinating, because one quote from Schefter struck my heart with a dart. To the best of my recollection, he stated that, " Josh McDaniels has ruined this team.", relating to what has transpired in Dove Valley since his installment as HC. As I recall, Schefter went on to support his assertion by alluding to the "C.....r" situation, the darft, FA, & any other thread of an issue he could grasp on to support his hypothesis. Never reserved about "piling on", he summarized his observations by concluding that  BroncoNation is in seige over an epidemic of "Poor Morale". I am so immune to the MSM. A bunch of talking heads connected to stuffed shirts who regurgitate the things that unnamed sources utter in obscure darkness. I f they say, "Go North!", I go South in a hurry. 

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I am not into fantasy football. I have a hard enough time dealing with the reality of football. Nevertheless, the popularity of the fantasy game has exploded & added  entire new dimensions as to how fans watch, react, & relate to the game. As a case in point, I recall last year that many fantasy players & pundits would never pick a Bronco RB due to Shanahan's unpredictability in regards to who would start from week to week, & how many carries they would get, not to mention the plague of injuries at the position in 2008. Even so, as a Bronco fan, I was actually pleasantly surprised at the run production in spite of all the adversity. If fantasy players thought 2008 was hard to peg, just wait till this season starts. Shanny's upredictability has been supplanted by McDaniels myriad of innovative schemes. Many detailed & informative posts at this site have addressed everything from the "Amoeba" offense to "Patriot Games", to the "Magic 3"  TE offense. One epic post here even likened Bronco fans to blind men touching certain parts of an elephant to describe what an elephant was like. " An elephant is like a tree"said one." An elephant is like a vine", said the other. Grasshopper, the meaning of the proverb is this: the elephant is the Denver offense, & the blind men are the 13 defensive coordinators who will be attempting to devise a game plan to stop the elephant. Clearly, one advantage the Broncos have going forward is a complete & total element of surprise. No game tapes for opponents to analyze, no tendencies to exploit. I don't look for McDaniels to give up this advantage throughout the season. The Bronco offense has the capability of being whatever he wants it to be. All he wants them to do is win, & he doesn't care how. The elephant cameleon will change color 16 times during the course of the year. Good news for Bronco Fans, bad news for fantasy players.Stats are for losers.

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