On Gunslinging And Rookie Quarterbacks

I’d like to tell you a story, because, let’s face it, I always set up my football articles with personal stories which may or may not be relevant to my chosen football topic.  You know what, though?  It’s my platform, and I get to say what I want.  This story takes place last Wednesday, December 29th, in lovely Cleveland, Ohio.  I like the Christmas season, without actually liking the holiday itself.  The reason I like it is that a lot of my closest friends who’ve skipped town for jobs, or spouses, or whatever, come home for the holidays.

Last Wednesday, I organized a get-together at a bar called Becky’s, which is right behind my alma mater, Cleveland State University.  It was my fraternity’s key hangout when I was an undergraduate, and it’s pretty central to the Cleveland metro area, which runs east and west along Lake Erie.  I invited about 30 people on Facebook, and about 20 showed up, which is a good turnout.  It was lots of fun.  It came to pass, at around 11:30 PM, that a long-time female friend of mine, Ashley, asked me to help her with something.  She had taken her boyfriend’s truck, and she had had a couple drinks, and it occurred to her as she was getting ready to leave that there was a loaded gun in the glovebox.

She’s not such a gun person, and really, neither am I, but I was in the military, so I’ve used them before.  She was (smartly) worried that if she got pulled over after drinking any alcohol at all, and the gun was found, she’d be charged with a felony.  I was asked to unload the gun, and agreed to do so.  She, and I, and another guy went out to the parking lot, and she showed me the gun in the glovebox, a holstered .38 revolver.  I am more of a 9 millimeter guy, but whatever, I figured out how the cylinder released, and I dumped the bullets into my left hand.

As this was happening, a random vagrant-looking fellow came up behind us, and hollered something on the order of “Yo, yo, yo!”  My friend Kevin told the guy that we were in the middle of something, and he told us that that had nothing to do with him.  I told him that it did, in fact, and that we needed him to move along.  He saw the gun in my right hand, and said “Oh, you’re going to pull a gun on me, huh?”  Then he pulled his own 9 millimeter, and showed it to us.  He was about 5 feet away from me, and I instantly went on alert when I saw it.

I can honestly say that I wasn’t scared, but I’ll get back to that.  I looked at the guy, and I focused on his right hand, and I calmly explained to him what I had been doing, and why, and that we weren’t a threat to him.  I asked him again to move on, wished him a good night.  He paused for a second, and then put the gun away, and did so, and was grumbling that all he wanted was 3 dollars so he could get something to eat.  In hindsight, I wish I’d given it to him, because I respect him for being calm, and for not raising up with the gun.  If he had, I was 100% ready to charge him, and then, who knows what the outcome would have been?

First of all, on not being scared,  that was the third time I’d had a gun pulled on me, and it ended up being the third time I’d talked my way out of trouble.  I was a very scared teenager the first two times, but I got through it.  Afterward, my heart had gone a mile a minute.  In this moment, both Kevin and Ashley were calm, or at least silent, in the moment, and were upset afterward.  This time, I was perfectly calm, both before and afterward, and I’m still surprised by that.  I can only conclude that it’s because it wasn’t my first rodeo.  I’m glad to be alive, and in good health, but if the guy had raised up, I was more than ready to fight, and let it be what it would be.  You deal with the situations life gives you, the best you can.

So, now onto Quarterbacks.  Think about a rookie Quarterback, who’s never been on an NFL field, against NFL competition, and NFL schemes.  How many of these guys have you seen just look overwhelmed, especially in their first few games?  Remember Jay Cutler’s awful first start against Seattle?  Joe Flacco struggled in his debut in 2008.  Matt Stafford looked lost in his first start in 2009.  Mark Sanchez started pretty strong, but finished his rookie year with 26 interceptions. This year, how about Jimmy Clausen?  Or maybe Colt McCoy?  Even Sam Bradford had a fairly rough first start.

Very few players start out looking comfortable or efficient, because it’s pretty hard to be either thing.  Josh Freeman and Matt Ryan had about the best recent starting debuts, and Freeman completed less than 50% of his throws, while Ryan only had 13 attempts, amid a run-heavy attack.  Tim Tebow has never looked rattled, for even one moment.  From the perspective of the eye test, that’s the most impressive thing to me.  It’s frankly shocking, when you think about it.  Has he even had to burn a timeout because he was confused, or taken a delay-of-game penalty, yet?  I don’t remember anything like that, personally.  It’s almost like he’s had a gun pulled on him once or twice in the past, and he knows how to act in those situations.  Maybe big-game experience in college translates better than people think it does.

Let’s actually expand our thinking, and get statistical, and consider the first three starts of these guys against Tim Tebow’s.  We’ll compare apples-to-apples below:

The leaders in each category are in green.  A few things jump out quickly, don’t they?  First of all, Tebow sweeps the rushing stats, which is no surprise.  Some people are going to say that that is somehow negative, but they’re full of crap.  We’ll get back to that.  Just generally, it’s clear that Tebow compares just fine as a passer when stacked up against these other players, who are either good, most probably going to be good, or 2010 highly-drafted rookies.  There’s no JaMarcus Russell, Matt Leinart, Vince Young, or Brady Quinn to bring the averages down here.

Getting specific, you can also notice that Tebow has the lowest completion percentage, but the highest yard-per-attempt.  Doesn’t it seem like that shouldn’t compute?  He had 41 throws that definitionally got nothing, but he still led the way in yards-per-attempt.  Well, for one thing, he’s the only guy on this list who had a 300 yard passing day in his first three starts.  For another, check out this supplemental chart, featuring yards per completion:

That’s the real story there.  Completion percentage is a fairly worthless statistic, because it measures completions against attempts, and all completions and attempts are clearly not created equally.  It’d be a little hard to track discretely, but a better measure would be a weighted average, with weighting based upon distance the ball the travels in the air.  Yards per attempt is the best mainstream statistic available, but it can even be inflated by a lot of yards-after-catch.

In any case, when you’re averaging more than 16 yards per completion, you’re going down the field with the football, and you’re going to throw some incompletions, rookie or not.  I know what you’re thinking. How does 16.28 yards/completion stack up against the rest of the NFL?  Check out the top 10 for the 2010 season:

Tebow’s 16.28 yards per completion would lead the NFL, by far, over a full season.  His 8.04 yards per attempt would be fifth, behind Philip Rivers, Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, and Michael Vick, and just ahead of Tom Brady.  The difference between first and fifth is his 49.4% completion percentage.

I’ve seen a lot of hand-wringing among un-knowledgeable media people about Tebow’s “inaccuracy”, so let me reiterate this.  It’s a small sample, but 49.4% completion percentage is the difference between first in the NFL, and fifth, in terms of productivity on a per-attempt basis.  You’d like to to be first, but fifth is pretty good, right?  It may be a small sample, but I have a lot of reason to believe that with absolutely no improvement, Tebow could continue to put up the numbers that he’s put up over the last 3 games.  He’s always thrown a great deep ball, and that’s what has been putting up these numbers.

It’s not at all realistic, though, to expect that Tebow won’t improve.  He’s already improved his mechanics and pocket presence, a lot, and he’s well-known for being the hardest-working Bronco.  He’s going to keep hitting the screens, and improving on it, and he’s going to learn how to hit checkdowns.  Once, he does, his completion percentage will be in the low 60s, and he’ll still be super-dangerous down the field.  Safeties can’t sell out for the deep pass, because they have to watch him in the running game, and it’s only going to get worse when he improves his short passing.

On to the topic of Tebow’s running, I wish a lot of people would shut the hell up about it.  More than any player I’ve ever seen, people love to deduct points from Tebow because he has extra skills which aren’t usually seen at his position.  I’ve said that before, and it’s as true as ever, as completely asinine as it is.  Now, the narrative is that you can’t play like he plays over a long period of time.  How do you know?  There’s never been a player like him before, so nobody knows.  I think his college performance indicates that he probably can run the ball 8-10 times a game, and stay healthy enough in doing so.  He was running it an average of 12 times per game in college.  I know, I know, it’s college, but the SEC annually has (clearly) the biggest, fastest, and best defensive players in the country, and he was running a lot of straight up dive plays, which should only be run in goal-line situations in the NFL.  He missed only one start in college, and it was due to a concussion suffered on a blind-side sack, when his right tackle completely whiffed on a block, and Kentucky’s DE got a clean, full-speed shot on Tebow.  He tended to lead with his right shoulder, intelligently, and while it was banged up in his junior year, he played through it.

Something like 2 goal-line runs, 3-4 QB draws, and 4-5 scrambles per game is sustainable for a guy who is as big, tough, and strong as Tebow is.  He’ll learn to slide and go out of bounds some, but when you need him to run somebody over, he will.  Remember, this is the strongest human being ever to play the position, stronger, even, than 80% of the defensive linemen in the NFL.  Running the ball is always going to be a weapon for Tebow, and it’s one that should be embraced, not discouraged.

The running threat combines with the threat of the deep ball, and defenses are severely threatened.  They’ve been more threatened the last three weeks than they were with Kyle Orton under center, haven’t they been?  Orton was hitting throws, but good defenses were able to adjust to that, and limit it.  He struggled mightily against the blitz, so everybody started blitzing him.  Tebow is a huge threat to escape the blitz, and exploit a lot of open field, and that has to give you pause.  Wait until the pass patterns are designed to take advantage of Tebow’s mobility next season, like they were when John Elway was around.

John Bena of Mile High Report wrote a story today which posited that willingness to work with Tebow shouldn’t be a prerequisite for hiring a new coach.  I respect John, but I couldn’t disagree more.  Tebow is a transcendent talent, a great team leader, and a winner. As I write this, I’m watching Andrew Luck in the Orange Bowl, and I like Luck, but I’d rather have Tebow.  Luck is going to be a more mobile Matt Ryan, showing very comparable (excellent) accuracy and poise, and (strictly average) arm strength.  (Luck’s opponent Tyrod Taylor from Virginia Tech actually a significantly stronger arm than Luck does.)  Luck is a franchise quarterback, but Tebow is a franchise player, which is different.

Being a franchise player goes beyond what you can do on the field.  It’s how you lead, it’s how you present yourself to the public, and it’s how you become the embodiment of your team, without even necessarily trying to be that.  It’s the guy that you just KNOW is going to dominate, and make it really hard to beat his team.  There have only been three of them lately in the whole NFL, and Tebow is the fourth.  Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Ray Lewis, and Tim Tebow.  This is the guy who finally has the IT needed to fully succeed John Elway, and BE the Denver Broncos.

Everybody knows that I’ve been on the Tebow bandwagon since I first saw him play at Florida, and you know that if I’m wrong, I’ll cop to being wrong.  I’m not, though.  Given some decent help from the front office and coaching staff, Tim Tebow is going to win Super Bowls, plural, and he’s going to do it in a Denver Broncos uniform.  It’s just like Champ Bailey said; I’ve never seen a winner not win.

On a final note, let’s do our part to retire the word gunslinger, vis-a-vis characterizing quarterbacks, okay?  It’s a stupid term, and it basically minimizes gun violence, which is very serious.  It’s a lot like calling a scandal whatevergate, or a Draft room a War Room.  Gun violence, Watergate, and wars are very serious things, and they shouldn’t be equated with much less serious things, because it damages people’s perspective and understanding.  Thanks.

/dismount from soap box

In Which I Rip The Denver Post

Last week I ripped the Broncos fan base for being spoiled, and I included myself in that cohort.  We are exactly that, because in team history, it has never rebuilt.  It initially built for a long time, did well for 30 years, faded, and now needs to be rebuilt for the first time ever.  We’ve covered this, and I feel like my continually talking about the perils and stupidity of unannounced rebuilding has spread the word to others, who are also talking about it.

I believe that Monday may have been the darkest day in franchise history.  That occurred to me within minutes of learning of the firing of Josh McDaniels, and I’ve now spent over 24 hours considering whether I’m being overly hyperbolic.  As I said on Twitter Sunday, my words count in perpetuity, so I’m careful-ish of what I say.  I don’t think I am overdoing it, friends.  Let’s consider what really just happened.

The Denver Broncos entered into a full-scale reconstruction of the franchise in January, 2009.  Literally everything changed, much of it for the better.  The Broncos built a systematic approach to scouting, for the first time in memory.  They rid themselves of me-first players, and actively sought out team-first guys.  They ignored conventional wisdom, which over a long enough timeline, is always a good thing to do.  But they didn’t communicate that they were rebuilding, or ask for patience, or probably even admit to themselves what the situation really was.

Some people will tell you that enough pieces are in place to be a playoff team now.  Those people have a point, and the playoffs were possible this year, if not likely.  That case can be made, but between injuries, bad luck in games, and lapses in execution, mostly by young players, the wins haven’t been up to the maximum potential that has existed.  This happens more often than not; everything could go right, but that doesn’t mean that it will.  There are no shortcuts to setting yourself up to be good even on a mediocre day.  It’s a long process, and it never stops.  The Patriots continue to set the standard in that way.

Back to my comment on the darkness of this day.  It’s more than possible that the Denver Broncos have just entered the realm of the long-term losing franchises.  This is classic loser behavior, folks, and it gets cyclical really quickly.

If I were just an observer, and not a Broncos fan, the thing I would have respected most about the franchise before yesterday would be their history of ignoring the fans and especially the local idiot media.  You can’t come out and say that you’re ignoring them, and you have to glad-hand them now and then, but it’s all a game.  You can never, ever let them affect your decision-making, though.  Josh McDaniels got that uniquely, and it was the very best quality that he got from his mentor Bill Belichick.  When he took the job, I’d bet a lot of money that Pat Bowlen’s history of being calm and patient was the number one reason he chose the Broncos.  Here was an owner who would let him coach the way he needed to coach, right?

Woody Paige is the self-appointed Protector of the Fair City of Denver.  He sort of operates like a two-bit neighborhood mafia chief, and he imagines that everybody should kiss his ring and pay him tribute.    His buddy Gil Whiteley, a local radio idiot, and really infrequent and sparsely followed Twitter user, is like the underboss.  Both guys expect access and respect, and they don’t want to have to work very hard for it.  They deserve it, and if you don’t realize that, you’re going to feel the consequences.  Denver is their town.

Paige has long been the grand poobah in Denver sportswriting, and people inexplicably find his nonsense to be value-adding.  He loves to tell stories about how he advised Josh McDaniels, and about how the young whipper-snapper ignored his advice, which was so benevolently given.  Lose the hoodie, Josh!  Don’t hire Steve Scarnecchia!  Be nicer to the media, because you may need them to be nice to you someday!  This kid ignored all of that  benevolent advice.  He has balls, if not good sense.

Over at IAOFM today, one of the best Broncos commenters in the blogosphere, chibronx, called Mark Kiszla and Dave Krieger professional dullards.  I think that’s my new favorite word, and I’m going to forever after refer to them as Dullard Mark Kiszla and Dullard Dave Krieger.  Dullard will henceforth effectively become both of their first names, anytime I decide to inevitably later regret diving into the cesspool of their worthless writing.  Have you ever been reading the Lard over at IAOFM, and several people will comment on how bad some Dullard Mark Kiszla column is, and you look at it, even though you know you shouldn’t, like you’re rubbernecking by some minor highway accident?  A few seconds later, once you’re past it, don’t you feel like a jerk for slowing down traffic?  I know I do.

Then there’s Captain Obvious Jeff Legwold.  It seems that he’s hired to be a half-assed analyst, but he lacks the knowledge of football to do any sort of interesting analysis.  He misuses the same terms in the same ways as everybody else, but he acts like he somehow knows more than them.  Captain Obvious is a little better than his more-negative former Rocky colleague Lee Rasizer, but he writes in a really Villager-like, Very Serious Person tone.  You know, the Broncos could put it all together, and have a great game, and he’d have some Very Serious Concerns to write about.  I guess the style of most everybody who writes for other people gravitates to some existing archetype.  There’s nothing new under the sun, right?  I don’t know what my archetype is, I guess, but WTFevs…

Mike Klis is kind of a self-loathing reporter/columnist, who seems to wish he was covering baseball.  His work  never includes any insight on anything, and he’s mostly a repeater of the narrative set by Woody and the Dullards.  He’s so thoroughly uninteresting and irrelevant that I have nothing else to say about him.

Finally, Lindsay Jones is the beat reporter, and she does a solid job.  The best thing about her is that she reports, and mostly stays out of the narrative-setting business.  She knows me, and pretty clearly doesn’t like me, but that’s pretty well-earned, so I don’t mind.  (I’ve never hit her personally, per se, but I have gone after reporters in general, plenty, and you now know how I feel about her clown-ass colleagues at the DP.)  Despite her silent enmity toward me, I will now say something nice about her.  She has moderate writing talent; not as much as Woody does when he feels like writing something good once or twice a year, but far more than anybody else at Team Post.  (Which didn’t starve Monday night, thanks to Jimmy John’s, according to Lindsay.)  She also seems to work hard, and avoid grinding personal axes, and she seems to be learning some football as time goes on.  Believe it or not, Lindsay understood and told the world on Valentine’s Day of 2009 that there was a rebuilding job underway.  In any case, Lindsay is the one credit to the Denver Post Broncos staff, and in true The Way The World Works fashion, I’m sure they pay her peanuts.  With our bad luck, they’ll soon get rid of her for committing acts of quality journalism, like that VD09 piece, and not being more of a team player.

I keep getting away from the reason why Monday, December 6th, 2010 is the darkest day in team history, and I’m going to try to focus now, and get that under control.  If I had some ritalin, and I was 18 years old, and in the process of failing out of Keene State College with style and debauchery, I’d do some lines of it to get my head straight.  Since I’m 33, and doing very well in an MBA program, and I’ve been drug free for more than a decade, I’ll just have to do the other thing.

Losing teams stay losers because they have bad ownership and upper management.  The main trait that those people share is short-sightedness, and the willingness to listen to people who should be ignored, like fans and the media.  Yes, even people like me, who know what the hell I am talking about.  I know football, but not the intricacies of their business, so I should be taken as what I am; a qualified guy who is looking at things from a high level, but doesn’t, and couldn’t possibly, have the full picture, unless I was working for the team, and was given access to it.

I’m no particular fan of Ronald Reagan (despite his being a fraternity brother of mine), but he had at least one thing right.  He patted the extremist religious types on the head, listened to what they had to say, smiled, hugged them on their way out the door, wished their wives and kids the best, and ultimately ignored them when it came to making policy.  My approval of that approach, while probably biased by my desire not to have religion imposed upon me, carries to anybody who handles extremists with a deft touch.

Focus…. So, yeah, short-sighted ownership/executive management groups listen too much to external, un-knowledgeable voices, and make rash and stupid decisions based upon it.  The teams they run start doing a dance called the See-saw of the Losers.  For the Broncos, I fear that it started in about 2006, when they started canning defensive coordinators every year, and thereby helping to plant the seeds for this debacle.  Then Mike Shanahan got fired in early 2009, and Pat Bowlen and Joe Ellis hired Josh McDaniels, who was dramatically different than his predecessor.

The McDaniels era has been prematurely, recklessly, and illogically ended after less than two seasons, and the speculation is that the Broncos want to bring in somebody from the old Broncos era, like a Gary Kubiak or a Troy Calhoun.  Kubiak will go from coaching a soft, undisciplined team in Houston that doesn’t win enough, and the same thing will likely happen in Denver.  After two years, when the team is still losing during the next unannounced rebuilding process, Woody and the Dullards will be calling for a change again, and they’ll get the worst elements of the fan base all riled up again.  Then, we’ll get somebody else who’s totally different.

This is what happens with losing teams, folks.  It gets cylical, and it’s caused by the local media.  If you let them do it once, which the Broncos have now clearly done, they’ll believe that they can do it again and again, and they’ll try.  It becomes their favorite sport.  You don’t believe me?  I’m a Mets fan.  I’ve been living with it all my life in that arena. The media negativity unduly affects team operations, and lessens their ability to be effective, time after time.  Ask Doug Lee, he’ll tell you.

How about another example?  I have lived in Cleveland since January of 2002.  I now live easy walking distance from the stadium in downtown Cleveland.  The media here couldn’t wait to get Eric Mangini canned a year ago, after only ONE season.  That’s utter madness, but the only way Mangini saved his job was by going 4-0 down the stretch, and giving Randy Lerner cover to effectively de-ball his coach by hiring Mike Holmgren as team president.  That was probably a good idea, but the point is, Lerner felt like he HAD to do something, one year into a new coaching regime.  He’s the owner; he didn’t HAVE to do anything.  The word patience doesn’t have any standing here, because the media and fans know that the owner will absolutely never show any if the howling gets loud enough.

That’s what we’re facing now, y’all.  A terrible new world in which the owner doesn’t effectively own the team anymore, and Woody and the Dullards do.

For all his mastery of X’s and O’s, McDaniels never fully understood this team was a civic treasure not meant to be treated as a frat house, where the music was cranked to 11 during practices and his buddies pulled crazy pranks like making a secret videotape.

That’s from Dullard Mark Kiszla’s Tuesday column.  Do you believe that?  It’s a civic treasure, and not an asset of the guy who owns it.  We own it, not you, Pat!  And we don’t like that newfangled rock and roll music!  (Side note:  Please don’t call fraternities “frats.”  It’s disrespectful and crass, and it says more about you than it does about them.  I don’t call my country a C U Next Tuesday, and I don’t call my fraternity a frat.  Thanks.)

But McDaniels didn’t create the mess at Broncos headquarters. He threw open the doors for everybody to see there’s no authority figure to provide the franchise with perspective or a steady hand during a crisis.

Woody Paige is now the authority figure, you got it, old man?  We’re…. I mean, he is calling the shots!  If he’s on vacation, your boy Dullard is the man in charge.  I’m the deputy up in here!  Sit down and let us experts tell you how it should be done!

We built the Broncos owner the stadium he desired when the money flowed and victory parades rolled in this city.

What a self-righteous jackass Dullard is.  The stadium was built by a combination of an increase to the local Denver sales tax, some of the early proceeds of the lucrative naming rights from Invesco, and Pat Bowlen’s own cash contribution of more than $90 million.  I have news for you.  That’s a better contribution than many new stadiums get from the owners or their future revenue streams, Dullard.  Check this out:

You got that?  The Cowboys additionally got $150 million from the NFL, and the Giants and Jets got $300 million from them.  Denver residents came out just fine in their deal, from the perspective of the dollar contribution they made, relative to the rest of the NFL.  Our pal Dullard would have you believe that all of the money for the stadium came out of his personal pocket.  Give me a break, okay?  Move to Indianapolis, if you don’t like it.

I really hope I am wrong, but I don’t think I am.  This team is headed for the see-saw, and it’s because they let the media and fans push them into making a stupid move.  Joe Ellis practically admitted that it was all stupid today!  I’ll have some thoughts tomorrow-ish about getting the right people in to fix this football product.  I have some original thoughts about coaches that will surprise some of you, and not others.  For now, I’m going to bed, because it’s 1:11 AM Eastern, and I’ll try not to dwell on this too much.

Debunktion Junction Comes To Adam Schein’s County

I’m  a total multitasker, and technology has made me worse.  Twitter is one of my diversions at times, and I’d say I use it very sporadically, unlike a lot of people who use it all day.  Today, I was relaxing in my bathroom, taking care of some things, you know how it is, and I fired up the old Tweetdeck on my iPhone 4 to let my mind have something to do.  I happened across the following Tweet from my good pal Adam Schein.

There’s a link there, which we’ll get to in due course.  First, a little about Brother Schein.  He’s a radio guy, and he writes like one.  His tone is confrontational and hyperbolic, his language is basic, the concepts he presents are often oversimplified, and not much attention is paid to evidence.  It’s like reading a radio show.  I’m way too nuanced to ever be a radio guy, so I shouldn’t and don’t knock their skills in that medium, I really just choose to listen, or not.  It’s sort of like why you don’t see the GZA out freestyling on street-corners; his genius comes from somewhere different than random and basic in-the-moment emotional hollering.

Anyway, Schein works for Sirius, and I had an unexepectedly good customer service experience with them this morning, so he’s got that going for him.  I also attended the 2008 Pro Football Hall of Fame ceremony with a guy named Matt (last name intentionally withheld, because I don’t know if he wants to be publicly known).  Matt was an executive producer for Sirius Sports, and he was a really cool guy, who was from the same hometown as Schein, and took up for him, when I said that I thought Adam sucked.  (Matt from Sirius is a friend of Matt_R who used to frequent MHR, if you know him.)

On Saturday, I battled it out on Twitter with a Sirius producer named Nick Kostos, who didn’t turn out to be such a bad guy, despite thinking that his powers of wild-ass speculation were greater than the NFL’s ability to investigate the Broncos’ recent video episode.  And finally, Schein knows who I am, and has read this site.  I’ve hit a lot of MSM people for saying stupid things over the years, and usually I just get grumpy/stupid Direct Messages on Twitter like these:

Yeah… she really told me.  BOO-YAH!!!!  Schein, though, openly tweeted me once to tell me he liked this site, which, while I didn’t really believe him, I appreciated.  I mean, I slammed him violently the last time I wrote about him here.  It’s easy to think that when your readership amounts to a few thousand Broncos fans, that the MSM guys you’re hitting don’t hear the tree fall in the woods.  This experience has chastened me some, at least with Adam Schein, and has given me an idea.  I m going to operate as if he’s not a bad guy, and as if his utter wrongness is just a function of a lack of knowledge and perspective.  In other words, I’m going to try to educate him on the Denver Broncos, which I clearly know a lot better than he does.  Sounds like fun, right?

For Adam, you’ll want to start here, which dropped last night, and you’ll be aware of my general thoughts about the state of the Broncos.  Everybody else has already read it, so we’ll wait for you to catch up.  It’s only about 2,000 words, and a segment of Bronco Nation is patient, with the bulk of that segment reading me and the guys at the excellent ItsAllOverFatMan.com.

OK… now that we’re all on the same page, here we go.  I’m going to borrow the technique that they use at Kissing Suzy Kolber, and “augment” Adam’s article, like they do with Peter King.  (Like giving it a pair of 36DDs.)  Only, I’m not going to try to make Adam look bad, per se, I’m just going to try to fill in some knowledge and perspective gaps for him.  I’m super busy with my MBA program, and I’m in the middle of a paper about implications on corporate culture in mergers and acquisitions, but again, I feel like the world needs this.  Here goes…  (Here’s the clean link to Schein’s article, if you feel like you need that).

I laugh when I hear someone say Josh McDaniels deserves to be fired by the Broncos because of “Spygate II,” because “rogue” videographer Steve Scarnecchia taped the Niners walk-through in London. This is one of the funniest takes I’ve ever heard. I crack up when I hear talking heads debating whether McDaniels knew about the taping. I double over in hysterics when I see debate on whether the fine was enough.

Good morning, great people of this planet. Spygate II means very little, other than firing McDaniels with cause and saving money.

OK, first thing, Adam?  You don’t have magic powers of wild-ass speculation, and neither does your boy Kostos.  You want to think that the NFL missed something in their investigation, and your mind tells you what “really” happened.  Sorry… the only known version of the story is the one that the NFL announced, and like I told Kostos Saturday night, I’m in the evaluation of evidence business.

Also, how about we stop with the false equivalence inherent in adding -Gate to anything that’s remotely sordid.  The Watergate cover-up was one of the worst moments in the history of the United States, with key leaders, up to and including President Nixon committing clear-cut crimes.  This Broncos video episode was a self-reported incident from which no competitive advantage was gained, and which the NFL found was a one-time occurrence by one employee, without direction.  I realize you’re not Mr -Gate, Adam, but I hope you can at least agree not to use the stupid term.  When it’s used about stupid and inconsequential things, it softens the edges of Watergate, which is unfair to American history.  Kthxbye.

McDaniels deserves to be fired for sheer incompetence, for awful people skills that have caused talent to leave the building, for some of the worst personnel decisions in the past two years, for losing games at a rapid rate.

This isn’t about whether McDaniels reported Scarnecchia in a timely fashion.

This is about McDaniels single-handedly ruining one of the best franchises in the NFL.

The Josh McDaniels era (actually, let’s go with the Josh McDaniels error) has been two years of slipping on a banana peel, showing he has no clue how to run an organization. It has been an absolute comedy of errors since he walked into the building.

Hello again!  How much wrong can fit in one section?  What talent left the building due to his people skills?  Talent like this?

a. Jay Cutler – A petulant but talented jerk, who has continued to be that in Chicago, by all reports, and throws the ball to his opponents way too much, especially in the scoring area.  Outperformed individually by his replacement Kyle Orton, without any question.

b. Brandon Marshall – An immature but talented player, who is one mistake from missing a big part of a season to a suspension.  Outperformed individually by his replacement Brandon Lloyd, by an even wider margin than Orton-Cutler.

c.  Tony Scheffler – A wildly overrated clown who was heard in the locker room saying that he couldn’t wait for last season to end, while the Broncos still had a shot at making the Playoffs.  This was reported to Josh McDaniels by leaders among the players, and that’s what led to the suspension for the last game of last season.  On the field, Scheffler fumbled, dropped passes, and missed blocks frequently, and he’s done nothing very noteworthy in Detroit.

We’ll get back to this issue momentarily.

Let’s remind everyone Denver owner Pat Bowlen canned Hall of Fame coach Mike Shanahan because of a late-season collapse in 2008, the inability to beat Buffalo and San Diego in the final weeks to make the playoffs. Shanahan refused to change his defensive coordinator (remember that), and Bowlen pulled the trigger on his longtime genius.

It’s worth jogging the mental Rolodex that this was not a rebuilding or retooling situation. The expectations were for McDaniels, part of the Bill Belichick tree, to get the Broncos into the playoffs in 2009. And McDaniels has failed, and failed to epic proportions.

This is absolutely wrong.  This has been 100% a rebuilding situation, but the Broncos organization has erred by not making that clear.  The 2008 Broncos team was a very bad football team.  The defense was literally the worst I’ve ever seen.  It was absolutely hopeless in every way.  The offense moved the ball well, but committed too many turnovers, and didn’t score points when it had opportunities to do so.  Football Outsiders’ pythagorean formula said the 2008 Broncos should have been a 4-12 team, and they were probably right.  This is either bad memory, or revisionist history by Schein.  It seems more like the latter, with all due respect, and even some which may be undue.  He can show me where he ever said that either the 2009 or 2010 Broncos were playoff contenders, if he wants, but I don’t remember ever seeing or hearing it.

It all went horribly wrong right after McDaniels was hired. He ignored the fact that he employed the talented Jay Cutler and decided to inquire about obtaining Matt Cassel, a quarterback he worked with successfully in New England when Tom Brady was injured. It was a huge mistake. It showed McDaniels’ inexperience in being a head coach and executive. It showed he didn’t understand the inner workings of the media and how his inquiry would morph into a major breaking story.

As a result, Cutler never trusted McDaniels again, and it led the Broncos to trade their franchise quarterback, something they never planned on doing when the coach was hired. Go back to McDaniels’ first news conference. Read the early Bowlen commentary on what McDaniels and Cutler could do together. Players started looking sideways. Trust was broken.

Matt Cassel has produced on the field better than Cutler has, too.  And let’s remember who ordered the divestiture of Mr. Cutler.  It was Pat Bowlen himself, because he was furious at Cutler for ignoring calls and text messages.  (Petulant jerk, remember?)

This is a theory of mine, but I’m pretty sure I’m on something close to the real story.  Jay Cutler told the media that he was very upset with the firing of Shanahan, as you can see in this Rocky Mountain News article.  (Remember them?)  But it turns out that Cutler was actually told ahead of time, and didn’t squawk that much at first.  Prior to selecting a replacement for Mike Shanahan, Bowlen said that he’d keep Cutler informed, and that “he’s the man around here.”  Cutler told everybody who’d listen that he wanted the offensive staff to stay intact.  Just read those articles, and consider if you think Cutler’s comments and attitude are appropriate.

Giving Cutler any input, and allowing his petulant comments to go un-addressed were errors by Bowlen, if he wanted to hire McDaniels, because in the McDaniels way of thinking, no player should ever be bigger than the team.  A huge reason why the Belichick way works in New England is that Tom Brady accepts that he’s a player, and he never tries to insert himself into matters above his paygrade.  As he noted recently, if he were consulted in personnel matters, Deion Branch and Lawyer Milloy never would have left.

I believe that Cutler’s comments to the media probably offended and troubled McDaniels, before he even was hired.  They definitely set the stage for what could become an untenable coach-player relationship.  Knowing that he would probably face a lot of resistance from Cutler vis-a-vis the new program, and wanting to use his own offensive scheme, I’m sure that inquiring about Cassel seemed like a good move.  At the very least, it tells Cutler that he’s a player, and not “the man around here.”

Schein notes that McDaniels is part of the Belichick Tree, but that doesn’t mean that winning automatically and immediately happens.  It means that he was raised in a way of thinking that is very particular as to the concept of a team.  Schein, like the name-dropping douchebag Jay Glazer, and Miss “HILLIS HILLIS HILLIS LOL” is a player sympathizer and mouthpiece, because maintaining strong relationships with players is necessary to his job.  I get that, and have no real problem with it, but it’s instructive.  You have to take what they say with a grain of salt, because they clearly aren’t independent.

McDaniels’ relationships with Brandon Marshall and Tony Scheffler would eventually lead to these offensive weapons being traded the next offseason.

While Marshall was an off-the-field knucklehead, McDaniels never really took the time to try to make it work. And he seemingly had instant disdain for the pass-catching tight end Scheffler. And if boy wonder McDaniels thought he wasn’t a fit, then Scheffler, despite catching 49 balls in 2007 and 40 in 2008, wasn’t a fit.

McDaniels’ frosty personality and clumsy management style chased Cutler, Marshall and Scheffler. And this gets the headlines. But it represents just the tip of the iceberg for inept decisions and futility.

Here, we get some more thoughts from the players’ perspective.  Who is Schein to say that McDaniels shouldn’t be able to scheme his offense how he sees fit, or that that offense should value soft non-blocking TEs with horrible attitudes, just because they’re on the roster?

How about spending a first-round draft pick last year on Robert Ayers, who was far from a sure thing? Ayers didn’t record a sack in his rookie season and has just 1.5 this season. There were better players, non-projects, on the board.

Schein fundamentally misunderstands the Broncos’ defensive scheme, and Ayers’ role in it.  Schemes and technical football aren’t really Adam’s area of expertise, but luckily they’re mine.  The Broncos run a Fairbanks-Bullough 3-4 scheme.  In that scheme, the 3 defensive linemen are asked to play 2 gaps each, and the 2 OLBs are asked to consistently set the edge in the running game.  The 2 ILBs are kept clean to run to where the ball is, and make the bulk of the tackles.  When Ayers has played this year, he has been outstanding at that job, as good as anybody in the NFL.  As the Sam LB, that’s his number one purpose.  He’s been pretty good as a pass rusher too, despite  only having 1.5 sacks.  He’s not speed rushing, like, say, Clay Matthews, who is a Will LB in a more LeBeau-style pressure scheme.  Ayers played most of the Ravens game with a broken foot, and the Ravens ran the ball well in the second half.  Against the Jets, 49ers, and Raiders, and Chargers, with Ayers out, the Broncos struggled against the run, not coincidentally.  Sacks aren’t the only measure of quality in an OLB, Adam.  I know you haven’t seen much Broncos football, and may not even know what “setting the edge” means, but trust me; Ayers is doing it really well, and it’s tremendously important in the Broncos’ scheme.

But even worse, during the same draft, McDaniels, in a move of both arrogance and ignorance, traded a 2010 first-round pick for the opportunity to draft Alphonso Smith in the second round. Now, we bashed this move when it was made. It was McDaniels’ first NFL draft, and he treated it like a kid dealing baseball cards. Did he learn anything about value, about the art of the deal from Belichick?

You don’t give away a future first-round pick for a second. And for Alphonso Smith! Smith couldn’t even see the field during his rookie year. He was totally lost. And he was so bad McDaniels was forced to trade him after one season to Detroit for non-factor tight end Dan Gronkowski. This represents a flat-out embarrassment. This represents having no clue how to run a team. This represents the lowest of lows in running a war room. Matt Millen knew better!

This is just bad logic.  You DO give away a future first-round pick for a second, if you think you’re getting a player who is worthy of that first round pick.  The rule of thumb for valuing future picks is that you set them to the middle of the round, one round later.  It works sort of like the Time Value of Money, where a dollar next year is worth less than a dollar today.  In other words, next year’s first round pick is appropriately valued as the middle pick in this year’s second round.  The value difference comes from having the player now, rather than in the future, and in the cap era, also from the fact that your financial exposure on a high second rounder is less than a middle first rounder will be next year.

I’ve covered all this, in the past, and my regular readers know it, but I went through it for Adam.  He should ask Gil Brandt next time they talk if what I’m saying makes sense.  (It does.)  As for the player in question, Alphonso Smith, I covered him in my Monday post that everybody’s read.  He was well-regarded by many, including me, and he hasn’t worked out as expected.  That happens to every team, where a player doesn’t play up to expectations, for whatever reason.  Smith was the seventh best CB in the Broncos’ 2010 training camp, and they didn’t see the improvement they expected, so rather than hang on to him, they cut their losses, and shored up another position.  Intelligent people don’t ride a sunk cost into more costs, if it isn’t productive.  Divesting Smith was both courageous and correct, just like Raheem Morris canning both Jeff Jagodzinski and Jim Bates was.  (He got killed by the idiot MSM for both moves, of course, and now they’re drinking a nice glass of STFU, and acting like they believed in Morris all along.  I had Morris’s back on both moves in the moment, and I have been proven to be emphatically correct, like usual.  Check my MHR archive, if you want.)

But wait. It gets worse.

Peyton Hillis was a Mike Shanahan guy. Hillis, strong and versatile, played great for Shanahan in 2008, including a majestic performance the Sunday after Thanksgiving, barreling over and beating the favored Jets in New York. Hillis was a bit of a Shanahan sensation, playing running back, fullback, special teams, and once was quoted as saying he would play linebacker for Shanahan.

So, of course, McDaniels had no use for him and thus barely played him in 2009. So, of course, he traded Hillis to the Browns for a third-string quarterback, a first-round bust in Brady Quinn in March 2010. And because McDaniels never seems to have a plan, one month later, he drafted Tim Tebow, to help ensure that Quinn had no chance to ever play behind Kyle Orton and the former Florida star. Hillis has been one of the best running backs in the NFL this season in Cleveland. Once again, it shows ego, poor talent evaluation and no direction, no correlation between one move and the next.

I also talked about the Hillis-Quinn trade yesterday, but Adam’s comment there needs a rebuttal.  The Broncos play a nickel offense almost all of the time, and they don’t use Fullbacks much.  Their profile for RBs is that they need to be able to run,catch, and block equally well, because their scheme calls for them to do all three.  Hillis is an atrocious blocker; the Browns know this, and rarely ever even ask him to do it.  He also isn’t as fast as the Broncos would like a player in that position to be.  Knowshon Moreno has been playing excellent football lately, and is a great fit for what the Broncos are trying to do in all three phases.

As for Hillis, he definitely had a couple good games for the Broncos as a rookie, but he was Shanahan’s 5th choice as the starting Tailback, behind Andre Hall, Selvin Young, Michael Pittman, and Ryan Torain.  (Shanahan didn’t like him at FB, either, because of his blocking deficiencies.  Spencer Larsen mostly started, as he does today for the Broncos.)  Hillis was given a few opportunities by McDaniels early last season, and he got stuffed on some short yardage plays, and fumbled the football, notably on a kickoff return.  I don’t remember Schein saying that Hillis was going to thrive like this in Cleveland, even though a lot of Broncos fans haven’t been terribly surprised.  Any one of us who know what we’re looking at would tell you that he’s good at running and catching the ball, but he’s a bad blocker, and he fumbles too much.  That’s exactly what he’s been and done in Cleveland.  The Broncos didn’t have Hillis wrong; they just wanted to go in a different direction.

And, as a side-note, let’s forget this stupid narrative that McDaniels somehow hated all Shanahan players, okay?  It just doesn’t hold any water at all.  Or, maybe Larsen, Eddie Royal, Daniel Graham, Chris Kuper, Ryan Clady, Ryan Harris, Elvis Dumervil, D.J. Williams, Wesley Woodyard, Champ Bailey, and Matt Prater don’t count.  That’s also known as every single worthwhile player who was on the 2008 Broncos, who was willing to accept the ways of the new program, as their contracts required them to do.  (Hillis seemed not to openly buck against the program like Cutler, Marshall, and Scheffler, although there have been reports of him not practicing at the high tempo desired by this staff.)

McDaniels has had strained relationships with players and coaches. How do you let Mike Nolan leave the building? How do you clash with the only great hire you made to your original staff? Wasn’t the defensive coordinator the big issue for Shanahan and Bowlen? Nolan is well-respected around the league. He was attracted to the McDaniels situation because they have the same agent. As a control freak, McDaniels wasn’t the boss Nolan expected. McDaniels reportedly had an issue with Nolan’s play-calling last season and took issue with the strategy. And thus, the head coach let his best asset go.

Nolan is a good defensive coordinator, but he blitzed more than McDaniels wanted to.  It’s always in the purview of the Head Coach to set the overall team strategy, and McDaniels comes from a philosophy of being sound against the run, and balanced on the back end, while favoring ball skills in their DBs.  The other part of the story is that Nolan wanted another year of security on his contract, and Miami was offering it.  Denver declined to do so.  Their parting was mutual, but it’s somehow all pinned on McDaniels by everybody, not just Adam Schein.  Meanwhile, Wink Martindale’s scheme has been fine, if the execution hasn’t always been, mostly due to a ton of man-games lost on that side of the ball by key players.

All of the above, frankly, is more damning than the controversial pick of Tebow. I happen to like Tebow as a potential pro. It’s more damning than drafting an injured yet supremely talented receiver in Demaryius Thomas is the first round. Being fair, I like both these players. But the issue for McDaniels is whether the Broncos, who needed help on defense, should’ve picked a project quarterback and banged-up receiver in the first round.

And, as Bill Parcells once said, “You are what you are.” The body of work speaks for itself. After a 6-0 start, his team sputtered to an 8-8 finish. The Broncos are in dead last in the AFC West at 3-8. They gave up 59 points at home to the Oakland Raiders in a game where Darren McFaddentold us, “It looked like we broke their will.” They gave up 59 points at home to the damn Raiders. It has to make Bowlen ill.

I think that that Parcells quote is oversimplified nonsense, but it’s taken as gospel for some reason. I started writing a column about that recently, and got sidetracked from finishing it, but I’ll run it one of these days.  That Raiders game was definitely a debacle, but the Broncos have an opportunity to get some revenge in a few weeks.  I expect that they will do so with a vengeance.  And, yeah, the Broncos are 3-8, but if a few breaks went another way, they could easily have a winning record.  Plus, as mentioned, they’re in a secret rebuilding process, regrettably.

Denver fans should be thankful for Steve Scarnecchia. He hopefully delivered the dagger in forcing a change. As if you needed any more visual evidence that McDaniels is in way over his head. He is a losing football coach. He can’t run an organization.

This is a non-sequitur from the jump-off.  Scarnecchia is a guy who made a mistake, and embarassed the organization.  I am not thankful for that.  As for McDaniels’ ability to run an organization, apparently Schein has been reading John Clayton archives.

Coaching the Denver Broncos is a plum job. The NFL is better when the Broncos are relevant. They aren’t right now. Denver needs to hire a legit new general manager, who will hire the next coach. The Broncos need to follow the Falcons model from a few years back after Bobby Petrino quit like a coward.

Denver deserves a winner. You shouldn’t need a rogue videographer to help you see the Broncos don’t have one. There’s no excuse, Pat Bowlen. Save your franchise.

Denver doesn’t deserve anything by virtue of being Denver.  Success comes to those who do the right things over a long period of time.  Josh McDaniels is mostly doing them, but forces in the media continue to agitate for his tenure to be limited to an unreasonably short period of time.  I told Nick Kostos the other night that I think McDaniels is targeted by media people who don’t like Bill Belichick personally, but find it hard to criticize him much, because he wins.  (Kostos disagreed without being disagreeable, for the record.)  Eric Mangini insulates himself by being really secretive.  McDaniels is very forthcoming and reasonable with the media, on virtually all topics except injuries, and this allows him to be targeted.  For a guy with bad people skills, McDaniels sure comes across as a pretty personable guy in his press conferences.  When he’s back next year, with more talent on the roster, and more continuity in the current schemes, media people like Brother Schein are going to be eating a lot of crow, because the Broncos are going to be contenders sooner rather than later.  I have a suspicion that a lot of the agitation from the national media types is about avoiding ever having to eat any.  I’ll just be smirking, in my semi-arrogant, Kanye-like way, once again.

Another County Heard From (Cuyahoga, That Is…)

I’ve been feeling pretty hostile toward a large part of the Broncos fan base lately.  I used to think that we were a really educated and reasonable fan base.  Through the magic of Twitter, I’ve learned that neither is actually the case.  Broncos fans, by-and-large,  are tremendously spoiled, and short-sighted.  They don’t know much about football, and they don’t try too hard to learn about it from resources like It’s All Over Fat Man and Mile High Report.  (The Broncos MSM only has negativity and obviousness to contribute, of course.)

On that note, here’s the ever-growing media narrative:  the Denver Broncos are on the wrong track because their young egomaniac coach has set out to destroy a once-proud team.  Doug Farrar from the often-craptastic Football Outsiders grew up in Denver, and this is the truth, according to him.  Mark Kiszla thinks Josh McDaniels looks like a beaten man.  (Which for Mark, would be a big success!)  This whole thing reminds me of when noted assholes TJ Simers and Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times successfully ran Dodgers’ GM Paul DePodesta out of LA after 2 years.  They hated the young, Harvard educated, Moneyball-reared DePodesta, and called him Google Boy, like knowing how to use The Google is a bad thing.  Luckily, Pat Bowlen said Monday that it’s not going to work.

The most frequent charge against McDaniels is that he’s a terrible personnel guy.  I think that’s hogwash, aided by a lot of hindsight.  There has really been no transaction that seemed egregiously bad in the moment, where somebody knowledgeable would say that it made absolutely no sense.  Everybody likes to hit the Broncos for the Peyton Hillis trade, but I’m sure it seemed like a pretty good deal to them at the time.  Hillis wasn’t what the Broncos were looking for in a back (and still isn’t, for the record) and they’d lost two games in 2009 largely due to Chris Simms’ suckitude.  Why not shore up your backup QB position with somebody who has looked functional-to-solid at times in the NFL, and give up a guy who you weren’t going to use anyway?  Eric Mangini had his Jets defense run over by Hillis once, in the best game of his career to that point, and thought he was worth a look.  It seemed like a solid trade for both teams, and the only real objections came from some Broncos fans who had developed man (and woman) crushes on the rare caucasian tailback.

(Yes, caucasian-ness is the primary driver for the majority of the love that Hillis gets.  You can’t possibly convince me otherwise, because as a player, he’s not too different from Reuben Droughns or Mike Anderson.  Identifying with people who look like you doesn’t make you a racist, necessarily, so there’s no need to get butt-hurt about this.  For what it’s worth, as a policy, I’m only really interested in dating white women, and I’m definitely not a racist.)

You get my point, though, right?  No Peter King, Mike Silver, John Clayton, or Pork Chop Williamson screamed about the greatness of Hillis at the time of the trade.  They were more focused on the possibility that Quinn may be able to beat out Orton.  They trumpeted the factoid (which is a thing that’s believed to be a fact, but actually isn’t) that Quinn played in the exact same offense McDaniels runs at Notre Dame.  Quinn has sat on the bench, like backup QBs do.  Hillis has had success running and catching the ball this year, (which a lot of Broncos fans, including me, weren’t really that surprised about), and suddenly McDaniels is an idiot who traded away the franchise RB they needed to run the ball with success.  How could he not have known he had the NFL’s only one-man running game on his roster?  This guy doesn’t even need an offensive line!  McDumbass is a fool!!!!!!

The Alphonso Smith thing didn’t work out for the Broncos, but I loved him coming out of Wake Forest too, and so did a lot of other people.  The Broncos had him graded very highly, so they made the move.  (And, yes, for the hundredth time, trading next year’s #1 for a high #2 this year can be a great deal if the player works out well.)  It’s funny how Smith was suddenly great, and McDaniels suddenly missed the boat on him, because he’s intercepted some passes for the Lions, and then he gets eviscerated on national TV last Thursday, and nobody knows for sure what the meme is anymore.  Alphonso and Josina Anderson are seemingly still bffs, for what that’s worth, and she noted stupidly that his 5 picks would lead the Broncos, although if he were still in Denver, he wouldn’t be seeing the field, of course.  (I’m hip to her game; she buddies up to players like a lower-rent Jay Glazer in high heels.  You have to take them both with a serious grain of salt, for that reason.)

I’ve made this point on Twitter a lot lately, but the Broncos’ biggest problem has been their unwillingness to lower expectations, and call a rebuilding process what it is.  They’re the only team in the NFL which isn’t allowed a grace period to rebuild, largely because they haven’t asked for one.  (There’s also the aforementioned spoiled-fans factor, which has been really bad, too.)  In the last 30 years, the Broncos have two seasons of ten or more losses, 10 in 1990, and 11 in 1999.  Both of those bad seasons were flanked on either side by seasons of double-digit wins, so they were understood to be aberrations.  No rebuilding program was called-for, or happened.  No lifelong Broncos fan knows what it’s like to go from good, to rebuilding, to good again.  It’s never happened in team history, after all, until now.

Here’s the rational question, to me.  Do you really want to flush the last 2 years, and start over again?  If you do,understand that that means a whole new program, new schemes, new personnel requirements for those schemes, and, consequently, more losing.  You’re suddenly running the risk of becoming a franchise that loses all the time and changes coaches every three years, never setting a consistent direction.  We’ve already seen this on defense, but it’s been every year, and it’s unquestionably ugly.  Think of haphazard, direction-less rebuilding as equal to 5 defensive coordinators in 5 years.

Everybody needs to understand an important, if uncomfortable fact.  The Denver Broncos don’t deserve to win by virtue of being the Denver Broncos.  Those who think otherwise are delusional idiots, like those who simplistically think that America will always dominate the world, just by virtue of being America the Exceptional.  In either case, and in all observable reality, there’s no shortcut to real, sustainable success.  You have to make the right choices, and do the necessary work over a long period of time.  Success must be earned, and sometimes the getting-there process is painful.  Sometimes, you have to rebuild, and your messaging has to reflect that, or you’re bringing trouble upon yourself.

I see teams like the Browns, Rams and Lions doing things to promote future success, and their fans are justifiably excited.  The Broncos are doing similarly good structural things, but to a lot of our fans, largely thanks to the idiot media narrative, Josh McDaniels has taken a Good Team and turned into a Bad Team.  The truth is, he took over a Bad Team, and it’s now a Growing Team in transition, most especially on offense.  They have issues with consistency and execution, which are typical of young groups.

Everybody has noticed that the Broncos have been really successful with scripting plays lately, and that they were extremely successful coming off their bye.  A lot of people seem to be struggling to grasp what this means, but it’s very clear and obvious to me.  The young players on offense perform at a very high level when they’re comfortable with exactly what they’re supposed to be doing, and they’re confident that they can accomplish the results they’re seeking.  This indicates a very important thing; if this group is given time to continue to learn and grow and improve together, they’re going to get to be more consistent, because they’ll all be more comfortable throughout entire games.  Nothing will ever be particularly new to them anymore.  A few new plays each week will be easily digestable, and the recurring stuff will see more and more consistent proficiency.

This is what I think, in general.  The schemes that the Broncos are using in all phases of the game range from fine (defense, special teams) to excellent (offense).  If the McDaniels regime can survive this firestorm of negativity and misinformation, there’s no logical football reason to fire them.  In fact, I would evaluate doing so to be illogical and reckless.  You don’t spend a lot of time and money acquiring players to do certain tasks, and then flush that process before it has a real chance to be successful.  Intelligent business-people don’t do that, regardless of what ass-clowns like Mark Kiszla say in the Denver Post.  You stick with the plan until it’s pretty clear that the plan is only going to lead to losses.  We’re nowhere near that point yet, folks.

The talent on offense is good, and all it’s lacking are experience and repetitions.  I particularly expect Zane Beadles and J.D. Walton to improve for next season, and Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker to really compete for playing time on offense as second year players.  I also expect Tim Tebow to give Kyle Orton a lot of competition, and maybe beat him out.  I think that Tebow will ultimately prove to be the better long-term option, because his ability to make plays with his feet, and his emotional leadership style will provide dimensions that have been missing.  I think he’ll be able to make the throws that Orton makes with some more experience and coaching.  Finally, for the Hillis-lovers, I believe that Knowshon Moreno is proving to be an outstanding fit for the kind of offense the Broncos are running.  He’s doing everything well right now, and he’s only going to improve.

The talent on defense leaves quite a bit to be desired.  I think that Champ Bailey needs to definitely be re-signed, and I’m hopeful that Andre’ Goodman will finally get healthy yet this season, and play at his 2009 level.  I’m encouraged about Perrish Cox and Syd’Quan Thompson for the future, but they both will have significant room to improve.  I’m not too thrilled with the Safety play I’ve seen this season, and I’d be really reluctant to count on Brian Dawkins and Renaldo Hill as starters in 2011.  I wish Darcel McBath would stay healthy, so we could see what we have there, but in any case, I’d be looking to draft a FS high in 2011, not that there are any elite ones available.  I like Mark Barron from Alabama as a possible second round guy.

The defensive line needs some talent infusion, and that’d be a good place to spend a first round pick, in a strong draft for those players.  I think Justin Bannan, Marcus Thomas, Kevin Vickerson, and Jamal Williams are solid rotation guys, but it’d be really nice to get somebody in there who can win matchups, and disrupt offenses.  I, for one, am 90% happy with the linebacking corps.  Mario Haggan and Jason Hunter have held up very well in the running game, for the most part, and I’ve really liked what I’ve been seeing from Joe Mays as a downhill player.  I think he needs a contract extension, once the CBA gets figured out.  With Elvis Dumervil and Robert Ayers both available, the pass rush would be improved, but I’d like to see a pass rush specialist drafted to use in sub packages.

If the McDaniels regime is allowed to continue, and some better defensive talent is acquired, this team will win more games.  The offense will gain continuity from repetition, and the defense will have better depth (a huge problem right now) and the key players will also mostly be in their second year in the scheme.  If Pat Bowlen gives in to the idiots in the local MSM and the fan base, and fires McDaniels, we should get used to losing, because it’s bound to continue in the near term.  I’m just glad to see that Bowlen seems to be keeping calm about this.

A Few Things About Sunday’s Win

Happy Monday Night, or Tuesday morning, or whenever you it is that you read this.  A funny sidebar just occurred to me, as I embark upon this throwaway paragraph.  I always say Happy Monday, or whatever, which long-time readers will recognize going back to my ST&NO days on Mile High Report.  It was recently pointed out to me at work that my use of that greeting convention is rubbing off, and that other people are starting emails that way too.  I can get colleagues to write and speak like me without trying, but I have a harder time getting them to do what I ask in the actual emails.  You know, like sell new business, and get new projects underway.  It’s funny how the power of suggestion works.

For those who are joining me now, welcome.  Hopefully there’s no puking today, but if there is, oh well.  Don’t read me, and just forget I exist.  Sunday’s game between the Broncos and Titans was instructive on several levels, and yields a lot of good discussion points.  As usual, this will not be a reiteration of anybody else’s points, and if somebody else agrees with me, that just means they’re right, and they should be very proud of that fact.  (Picture me smirking hugely for the benefit of my critics right now.  I’m here to tell you, it’s happening.)

1.  I’ve been a Broncos fan since 1987, and I’ve never considered them a tough or physical team.  There have been a few seasons where they’re tough and physical enough, but not really any where they were too much above average in those categories.  Mostly, though, they’ve leaned toward being smaller and softer, and playing a heavily finesse-oriented game.  It doesn’t make me particularly happy to say that about my favorite team, but it’s true.

It’s not that finesse can’t win, because it clearly can sometimes.  I just consider it to be a football truth that if you can choose to win by being physical, or by executing precisely, it’s better to choose physicality.  I believe that physicality translates better to the various states of football weather, and also that it absorbs the effects of injuries better than a finesse orientation.  Physical teams seem to get less worn down late in seasons, too.

The 2008 Broncos were very finesse oriented on both sides of the football, and upon his hiring, Josh McDaniels said that it was a big priority for him to get bigger and more physical on both lines.  He also said that the team would be practicing in pads and hitting much more than they were used to during the Shanahan years.  This is  part of a major philosophical change, and a lot of Broncos fans, and especially the local media have really struggled with understanding and accepting it.

As McDaniels started cleaning house, there was howling.  Starting with the Goodmans in the front office, and continuing with some coaches, there was howling.  Then players like Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall, Tony Scheffler and others, there has been relentless howling.  When McDaniels dared to trade away St. Peyton Hillis, the patron saint of white halfbacks, people went ballistic, and still continue to.  This is a much different team than the 2008 version, and while it may seem like an axe was taken to that roster, I’d say that it was more like a chisel.

I made the point on Saturday during my pretend temper tantrum that the Broncos have retained a pretty good number of starters from the Mike Shanahan era:

The starters who are leftover from the Shanahan era, like Ryan Clady, Ryan Harris, Chris Kuper, Eddie Royal, Elvis Dumervil, D.J. Williams, Champ Bailey, and Matt Prater don’t matter, because they mostly don’t figure into fantasy football, except for Royal and Prater.

Those were the guys who played the game the way McDaniels wants to play it.  He’s Bill Parcells’ coaching grandson, and he wants to buy the groceries.  He kept those guys, who are all Pro Bowl caliber players, incidentally, and he brought in a lot more of his kind of guys.  The result is that we now have a physical, hard-nosed football team.  Last year’s version was trying to be that, and was almost that, but didn’t quite have the bodies for it.  This year’s team is the real deal, though.  We learned that for sure on Sunday.

I’m not saying that the Broncos are on the level with the Steelers or Ravens yet, but they’re on the way.  They’re in the next class of teams, along with the vanquished Titans.  Remember last season when the Broncos went to Baltimore with a 6-0 record, and got physically dominated?  I don’t expect that to happen this season.  I expect that it will be an extremely physical game, and one that features a lot of discipline and intelligent play from both sides.  More on that later.

For now, I’m glad that the Broncos got settled in on the offensive line, and toughened up in protection as the game progressed.  Even though that group played poorly in the running game, it wasn’t for lack willingess to hit.  They kept on coming all game, and I was very pleased to see that.

This is a physical Broncos football team, and I expect the team to continue to benefit from that.  I was really happy to hear Josh McDaniels say today that the team would be in pads this week to prepare for the Ravens.  They’d better be ready to hit, because there’s going to be some hitting out there.

2.  I tweeted the following during the 4th quarter Sunday:

The Broncos nearly converted the play, but Jabar Gaffney couldn’t quite catch a low throw, and he was probably out of bounds anyway.  I followed with the following:

As promised, here’s why it was the right call.  The score was 20-16 Titans, and the Broncos had 4th and 3 from the 4, with about 4:40 to go.

a.  The math was unquestionably in the Broncos favor.  According to Advanced NFL Stats, you should go for it inside the 10 on all situations up to 4th and 4.  (If you’re closer than the 10, the applicable distance to go increases.  See the chart on slide 16 of the white background slideshow at the bottom.)  Brian Burke’s work on expected points goes way beyond even my more basic (but mathematically correct) thinking around portfolio theory, and expected return.  My way only compares expected return on goal-to-go situations, where there’s probabilities to score TDs, score FGs, or get nothing.  Burke has figured an Expected Points value for each yard line on the field, and it factors in the likelihood that the opponent will score from the yard line they take over at if you miss.  This is very important.  In any case, by my math or Burke’s you always go for it in that situation, except in special cases, like a 1 point deficit with 6 seconds to go.  When you’re down 4, it’s never even worth a thought.  You go for it, period.

b.  I mentioned that it’s important where the other team takes over when you turn the ball over on downs.  When Tennessee took over at its own 4, they were severely limited in their options.  This is true of any team, but it’s especially true about Tennessee.  They want to run the clock out, so they’ll probably run, but with some teams, you’d need to be worried about play action to get some breathing room.  With Vince Young, that’s not going to happen.  From the 20, they may run an option or something, but not from the 4.

The Broncos just had to play the run like they’d played it all day, which is to say, set the edge, and funnel it back inside, and then tackle well.  The negative starting field position made it more likely that the Broncos would stop the Titans, and then subsequently get good field position for a final shot at the end zone.

c.  The Broncos failed to cover kickoffs well Sunday, as they have all season.  That makes a reasonable person think that the Titans starting field position would be favorable, as they embarked on protecting a 20-19 lead.

Coaches ought to go for it on 4th down more often in general,  and Josh McDaniels seems to get this.  It’s not like the research is hard to find online, and McDaniels has a math degree from John Carroll University, which is an above average school about 10 miles from where I live.  I’m glad to see that he understands probability, and has the gumption to put it to work.

3.  The Broncos have now scored in the final 2 minutes of the first half of each of their first 4 games this season.  That is a sign of excellent coaching, folks.  Josh McDaniels did make a mistake in calling a timeout with 28 seconds left before kicking a field goal, and he was forthcoming and accountable about that.  Chances are that the Titans would have called one, but it’s still better to make them use it.  Aside from that, the Broncos haven’t mismanaged the clock all season.  Anybody who suggests otherwise doesn’t understand clock management.  (Of course, that encompasses most people.)

4.  Robert Ayers is having a great second season.  He was absolutely dominant on Sunday in the running game, and the Titans never really got him blocked in the entire game.  Ayers isn’t sacking the QB at a tremendously high rate yet, but he wasn’t really drafted to do that.  He was drafted to be a 3-down strongside player, and he’s been every bit of that.  The scheme that Mike Nolan installed last season, and that Don Martindale has taken over and adapted sets an extremely high premium on the ability to set the edge in the running game.  Remember my diagram from Saturday?

You see that?  You didn’t need to remember it.  I just showed it to you again.  I love myself, and my diagrams sooooo much.  There was a point, and I just remembered what it was.  Luckily, it’s still valid.  Those areas outside the TE (or lack thereof) called the Edges are really large, from 10-30 yards wide, depending on where you line up between the hashmarks.  Both an offensive and a defensive player are trying to “set the edge”, which means to engage the other player, and push him backward.  The offensive guy wants to push the defensive guy toward the sideline, or put him on the ground.  The defensive guy is trying to push the offensive guy toward the middle of the field, thus narrowing the angle that a RB has to run toward, and funneling him back toward the help in the middle.

Teams which Chris Johnson runs wild on fail to set the edge effectively, and get moving laterally too much against the Titans’ zone-blocking line.  Ayers was destroying Bo Scaife and David Stewart Sunday, and preventing the line from moving to the right, thus disrupting the whole scheme.  Jason Hunter, Justin Bannan, and Jamal Williams were really good too, but Ayers was the defensive player of the game to me.  He’s been doing this all season, and it was a big part of helping me to see the future on Saturday.

Tangentially, Peter King had a pretty stupid comment in MMQB today, while trying to clumsily compliment Kyle Orton and/or criticize Jay Cutler.  He said that the Broncos have drafted poorly with the picks received in the Cutler deal, which betrays his utter lack of understanding of the game, unless somebody tells him.  Nothing new there, of course.  There were a lot of trades the last two drafts, but the Broncos essentially got Kyle Orton, Robert Ayers, Demaryius Thomas, and Richard Quinn for Jay Cutler and Johnny Knox.  I’d do that deal every day of the week if I’m the Broncos, even if Quinn isn’t getting much done this season.

5.  Dan Gronkowski was absolutely terrible at FB Sunday.  This is an underrated story, but one that I’ll be exploring at length in the next day or two.  I just wanted to leave you with that throught for now.

Next time I have time, I’ll be talking about the Broncos running game specifically, as well as some general schematic ideas for the Ravens game.  To give you a preview, I think the Broncos can win the game, and I’ll have specific reasons why.  Have a good Tuesday, friends.

Tuesday Night Thoughts

Happy Tuesday, friends.  I have some thoughts, about football and other things, which shouldn’t surprise you unless you’re new to this rodeo.  If you are, welcome.  Hold on tight, because the bucking is about to start.  If you’ve been here before, you know what’s coming next.  Ready……. BEGIN!!!!

1.  I’m going to tread on potentially touchy ground, so I may as well start right off the bat with it.  Do you remember the 2004 Presidential election in the United States?  I would imagine that most of us do.  I don’t want to make public value judgments about the policy positions of the two candidates, George W. Bush, and John Kerry, but I do have a football point that is germane to that election.

Do you remember the primary narrative that came out of the Bush campaign?  There were two manifestations of it, but it was basically one idea.  On one hand, there was the Kerry is a flip-flopper narrative, primarily because he initially voted to authorize funding for the Iraq invasion, and then opposed the operation itself.  That was the negative version of the other key narrative, which is that you have to stay the course once you decide to take major action like invading a country.  You had a positive version and a negative version of the same general concept; it’s not okay to change your mind, even as new information becomes available, or surrounding circumstances change.

Completely independent of the policy question at hand, I think that messaging like that serves only to promote anti-intellectualism, and a denunciation of the concept of trying to understand nuance, or even recognizing that such a thing exists.  The decision was made, it is what it is, there’s no turning back, don’t even bother understanding the issue at hand, because it doesn’t matter anyway.  I don’t care who employs that type of messaging, or what it’s about, it hurts the public discourse.  If that tactic should ever be used to promote a political policy that I personally love, I guarantee that I’ll publicly denounce the promotion of popular ignorance, even as it seeks a good end.  The ends sometimes don’t justify the means.

Intelligent people should always be re-evaluating their circumstances, in whatever arena in which they’re making decisions.  They should be seeking new knowledge from a variety of sources, and recognizing external events which affect their lives and decisions.  The right approach today may not be the right approach tomorrow, and we owe it to ourselves to keep a skeptical eye on everything, and an open mind.  Blindly staying the course is for idiots and losers.  Adapting to your challenges as they present themselves is for intelligent people and winners.

Which brings me to my football point, which I’ve touched on before.  The fat part of the bell-curve bunch (hereafter the fat-parters) which makes up most of the football punditocracy kind of hates them some Josh McDaniels, but they really hate them some Raheem Morris.  I mean, come on.  He’s even younger than McDaniels, by about 5 months, and he’d never even been an NFL coordinator in an actual game when he was hired as Head Coach.  Think of all the salt-of-the-earth scoop-leaking retreads out there who deserved the Tampa Bay job more than he did!!!!!  (I’m being ironical, if you couldn’t tell;  I’m personally loath to use any exclamation points, let alone six in a row.  I’m not that guy, and neither should you be.)

Morris was named Defensive Coordinator in December 2008, when Monte Kiffin decided to leave to go coach with his son Lane at Tennessee.  That lasted about three weeks, until the Glazer family decided to relieve Jon Gruden of his duties, and promote Morris to Head Coach.  He had interviewed with the Broncos for their Head job, and was reportedly impressive.  I suspect that the Glazers were afraid of losing the next Mike Tomlin, so they decided to lock him in a year earlier than he may have been ready, rather than lose him later.

Morris was inexperienced, and had a big learning curve.  He hired the experienced Jeff Jagodzinski and Jim Bates as Offensive and Defensive Coordinator, respectively.  Jagodzinski had been and NFL Tight Ends and Offensive Line coach, and  college Head Coach, but he’d never been a play-caller, and he delegated that duty to Running Backs coach Steve Logan, who had done it for him at Boston College.  In the preseason, Morris found the performance of the offense unacceptable, and not just on the field.  He observed problems with Logan getting the plays in timely to the field, and he received input from other coaches that Jagodzinski had no idea how to run an NFL offense.  Before a game was even played, Morris decided to fire Jagodzinski, and he got absolutely skewered for it.

You can’t change your mind!  You hired the guy, you have to live with him!!  It’s amateur hour!!!!!!!!!!!

Morris was clear about his reasoning, saying that he’d evaluated Jagodzinski as being lacking as a coordinator, and that he was probably a guy who should either be a position coach or a Head Coach.  He said Jags lacked the needed attention to detail to be an effective coordinator.  This all makes sense, right?

Morris promoted QB coach Greg Olson, who had previous NFL play-calling experience, and the team promptly got out to an 0-7 start.  This kid isn’t ready for prime time!  He should have stayed the course!!!  How can you believe a guy who’d fire Jags before a game had ever been played?!!!!!!!!!!!  Morris should be fired after only one season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Bucs beat a good Green Bay team in Week 9, and then lost their next 2 games, to fall to 1-9.  At that point, the Bucs had given up 294 points, or an average of 29.4 per game.  That’s a very high number.  Morris didn’t like what he saw from the defense, so he fired Jim Bates on November 24th.  The yelling started again, sometimes reaching the level of a howl.

This is unbelievable!  Now this guy is going to call his own plays, when he doesn’t even know how to hire a coordinator?!!!!!  (From Warren Sapp and Marshall Faulk on NFLN) All he knows how to do is call Tampa-2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So what happened next?  In their final six games, the Bucs allowed 20 points to a solid Atlanta team, 16 to Carolina, 26 to the Jets, 7 to Seattle, 17 to New Orleans, and 20 again to Atlanta.  That’s an average of 18 points per game, which is much better than the defense was under Bates.  The Bucs also won the Seattle and New Orleans games, and were only blown out by the Jets.  And for Warren and Marshall, Morris blitzed quite a bit, in among the Tampa-2 stuff he did call.  The defense was a lot more aggressive under Morris than it had been under Bates.

After the 2009 season, Morris was not fired, which some fat-parters griped passingly about.  The team with the lowest payroll and the youngest roster in the NFL improved as the season progressed, and even won two of its last three games.  This year, they won their first two, and got beaten by a Steelers team that’s a lot better than they are.  The Bucs are moving in the right direction.  They’ve found players who are going to compete to be in Pro Bowls, including Josh Freeman, Mike Williams, Donald Penn, Gerald McCoy, Barrett Ruud, and Aqib Talib, and a lot of others who are going to grow up to be good players.  They’re going to be very tough to handle in a year or so.  This year, they’ll be competitive most of the time.  It’s a process, and the courageous and wise-beyond-his-years Morris is the biggest reason for the improvement they’re seeing.

2.  Speaking of not staying the course, the 49ers did the right thing in firing Offensive Coordinator Jimmy Raye Monday.  Of course, it’s being misunderstood by everybody, but I’m going to give you the real deal.  It’s been widely reported that the 49ers have been struggling to get plays in to Alex Smith on time, and that Raye often forgot parts of the verbiage as he called them from memory.  The players and other coaches had no confidence in Raye, who is one of those well-regarded, salt-of-the-earth loser types I mentioned last week.  (He’s actually known as a guy who joins staffs of head coaches who are about to get canned.)  Mike Singletary had to do something, because allowing the play-calling issues, and near mutiny to continue would be tantamount to voluntarily sabotaging his own team.

Sunk costs are irrelevant to the decisions we face today.  Always remember that, because it’s a non-negotiable, undeniable truth of life.  If what you’re doing isn’t working, you need to have the courage to change up now.  A lot has been made of the fact that the Niners and Alex Smith have now had 6 OCs in 6 years, but we’re not talking about a whole new scheme here.  Mike Johnson was the QB coach, and is now the primary play-caller.  The scheme is mostly going to stay intact, and the hope has to be that the play-calling will be better and smoother.  I’d personally recommend playing more spread-out shotgun looks.

I still think that San Francisco is going to win the NFC West, because they have the best 53 men in the division.  What they need, more than anything, is for Michael Crabtree to get it in gear, and start separating downfield.  Alex Smith has been criticized for checking down a lot, but it’s not because he wants to.  Defenses are bracketing Vernon Davis, and the 49ers’ outside WRs aren’t getting any separation to get them out of it.  Crabtree has more ability than he’s shown yet, so you wonder what’s going on with him.

3.  The Chiefs are 3-0, and I’m slightly impressed, but not fully on the bandwagon.  What I will say is that they clearly hit on a lot of draft picks this year, and they’re a lot better than they were in 2009.  You have to throw the ball on the Chiefs, because they’re really stacking the box.  In throwing, it’s best to stay away from CB Brandon Flowers, unless you clearly have him beat.  You also need to block Tamba Hali on the edge.  Beyond that, it’s really doable.

In defending the Chiefs, it begins and ends with the RBs and TE.  I’d be playing the Chiefs with 8 in the box all the time, and covering them man-to-man.  When Dexter McCluster is on the field, I’d treat him as a WR, and bring in an extra CB to cover him, but still have him in the box.  Rookie TE Tony Moeaki looks like a good player, but he’s mostly been beating zone.  I’d like to see what he can do against tight man-to-man.

Finally, Matt Cassel’s numbers came out okay Sunday, but he doesn’t pass my eyeball test.  He’s late with a lot of throws, and his accuracy is often not good.  I think Charlie Weis is a good NFL coordinator, and he’ll help, but Cassel can definitely be forced into making big mistakes, and sometimes, he’ll just make them on his own.

4.  Jay Cutler was the same old Jay Cutler Monday night.  His talent shone brightly, and so did his penchant for making mistakes.  He threw about 5 passes that should have been interceptions, but was rescued by a drop, and a bunch of penalties.  Make no mistake, the Bears should be 1-2 right now, not 3-0.  Calvin Johnson and the whole Packers team gave them two games they shouldn’t win.  I don’t still think they’re going to finish 4-12, and their run defense is better than I thought, but I had the offense exactly right.  They’re going to complete some passes, to both teams, and they’re going to get Cutler smashed.  I don’t think the Bears are going to make the playoffs, when it’s all said and done.  The way they’re winning is simply not sustainable.

5.  Marshawn Lynch continues to be the best RB on the Bills, and that’s not going to change.  He’s a little more talented than CJ Spiller, and a lot more talented than Fred Jackson.  When Lynch is given carries, and he’s physically right, he’s very hard to stop.  I expect that his days are numbered in Buffalo, and that he’ll eventually move to a more favorable environment and thrive.  The Packers should trade a third rounder for Lynch right now, but they won’t, because it’s not Ted Thompson’s way.

6.  And then there’s Peyton Hillis.  I’ve always liked the player, going back to his Arkansas days.  He’s very unique in that he’s a FB-sized guy with a HB skill-set.  He’s a very good runner and receiver, but a below-average blocker.  He’s also a bit of a fumbler.  Broncos fans know all this, and many still have man-crushes on him.  I get all that.  Hillis is definitely a guy who can play in the NFL, and be productive.  Anybody who makes that point is making a good, solid point.

The counterpoint is that he didn’t really fit the Josh McDaniels scheme in Denver.  McDaniels wants speed and versatility in his backs.  Hillis really has neither, because you can’t count on him to block well.  He needs the ball in his hands to be effective, and that’s not the case with Knowshon Moreno and Correll Buckhalter.    Sometimes a guy with valuable skills doesn’t fit what your outfit is trying to do.  I work for a learning outsourcing business, and we’re not actively seeking to employ any plumbers, attorneys, or chemical engineers.  That’s not to say that people in those professions are valueless, not at all; it’s just that their value propositions lie elsewhere than our need area.  Such was the story with Hillis in Denver.

When the McDaniels-Xanders regime started pruning their semi-rotten tree in early 2009, they were effectively saying that a lot of the jettisoned players couldn’t play in the NFL.  It was true, as more than 30 of them never did again.  Now that the Broncos don’t employ any bad players, when they let a solid one go for whatever reason, it’s not analogous to saying the guy can’t play.  They often catch on elsewhere, have success, and Broncos fans can wish them well in their future endeavors.  Such IS the story with Hillis in Cleveland.  I’m here, so I know.

So, in Denver there’s this local TV sports reporter named Josina Anderson.  Ordinarily, I’d have no idea who the local hacks are, be it here in Cleveland, or there in Denver.  Anderson seems to do a good job with maintaining relationships with the local athletes, and often has good Broncos scoops, so I follow her on Twitter.  Tonight, she was seemingly the first to report the Earth-shattering news that Karl Paymah had signed with the Texans.

Anderson tweeted the following on Sunday:

First,

Then, Wow… what could she be shaking her head about?  Isn’t the whole fit thing pretty easy to understand.  Didn’t Josina, who’s a good looking woman whose Twitter page says that she’s signed to the Wilhelmina modeling agency, ever not want to date a guy that one of her lesser friends liked?  When the guy turned out to be a decent husband for her friend, was she filled with regret for passing on him?

I responded to her head shaking:

That makes sense, right?  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, or beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or whatever other cliche you want to use.  I mean, I figure Josina knows who I am from my Mile High Report days, and that I’m an independent sort of football thinker, saying what I think.  (She probably hates me, like all reporters seem to, but that’s cool.  I pretty much ask for it.)

And then,Josina thinks I was making her point for her, when in fact, I was making the opposite point.  And since when do legitimate reporters call the team they cover “us?”  And why would I follow her thinking about football?  Is she suddenly a football thinker?  I mean this in a totally non-sexist way, but Josina has never had a football thought that I’ve even noticed before.  She’s a player-texter, and news reporter.  That’s HER value proposition, and she seems to do well with it.  I’m not saying that she’s incapable of having a good football thought, but I’m not holding my breath.

Like my friend Doug Lee at IAOFM, I get annoyed with the whole hindsight phenomenon around Hillis.  To me, players and coaches come and go, but the team is forever.  That’s true from John Elway down to a (highly over-loved) guy (who never plays a regular season snap) like Carlton Powell.  Hillis had some good moments with the Broncos, and some forgettable ones, but in the end, he and the team parted ways.  Second-guessing that does no good, and I refuse to do it.  Jay Cutler made some good throws Monday night, and Brandon Marshall caught a few passes the night before.  Tony Scheffler scored a TD on Sunday.  I don’t want them back either.  To me, the Broncos of 2010 are the Broncos, and I’m just fine with that.

I’m done for the night, friends.  I’ll see you next time I have some time to write.

Thoughts On A Broncos Loss

I’m sort of an instant football analyst, which has its pros and cons.  Often, I’m way ahead of other observers in noticing things, and pointing them out, which is a pro.  Sometimes, I see JaMarcus Russell look really good in a preseason game, and it leads me to opine that he’s turning the corner as an NFL QB, which can end up being a con.  For me, it works out more often than not, because I’m a very sophisticated observer of the game, and because I’m always accountable for thoughts that turn out to be wrong.  Not to be immodest, but I know vastly more football than the average person, so I don’t mind admitting a mistake when I was almost always the first to the party saying anything.

A lot of average persons, and no doubt, some below average ones, have been providing some “instant analysis” on Twitter about yesterday’s Colts-Broncos game.  I was going to take a screenshot of some of the foolishness, but I decided that I didn’t want to put anybody specific’s name on the lines of thinking that I am about to completely eviscerate.

First, I’ll give you a paragraph or two of my own high-level analysis.  The Broncos lost yesterday against a good football team with an excellent QB and overall program.  I’m not surprised  in the least, and in fact, I thought it was 75-80% likely that that would be the outcome before the game ever started.  I think most other reasonable people probably did, too.  The Broncos are building a nascent program, and the Colts are running a mature one.  Both teams were missing some key players, which essentially added up to a moderate quality deficit for the Broncos.  (If you read the “storylines” from a lot of the Target booksellers today, you’d think it’s only the Colts who had any injury problems.  Goodman, Moreno, and Harris > Garcon and Charlie Johnson.)

I would have loved for the Broncos to get a win yesterday, but I’m satisfied with the good showing that they put forward.  They proved that they are a good enough team to beat Indianapolis if they execute well.  Their quality is now good enough, and their scheming is absolutely good enough.  Their execution was about 85% good enough, but that 15% was enough to make them fall short against a team that was essentially undefeated until the Super Bowl last season.  That’s what I take away from yesterday’s game.  It’s a loss, but it’s the kind of loss that had evident progress to it, and it’s the kind of loss that winners build on.

The Broncos game plan, both offense and defense, was just outstanding yesterday.  On offense, they ran a lot of play action with max protection, and it stretched the Colts’ Cover-2 vertically, which really stressed them.  Forget the fact that the Broncos were ineffective running the ball; they tried enough, and pretended to try enough to get a lot of value out of it.  They realized, and now the whole NFL is going to realize, that the Colts are extremely worried about their ability to stop the run with 7 players.  Because of that, they put an eighth guy in the box every time they saw a run look, which is what  opened up so many routes downfield.  The Broncos got a ton of one-on-one matchups with their scheme.

Speaking of the passing scheme, I’ve been wondering who was going to be second to the party in talking about its value, and I was glad to see that Phil Simms, a very smart football guy, was on it.  He didn’t get into a lot of depth, but it was clear that he is impressed with how it all comes together.  Their pass protection was better schemed and executed yesterday than it has been all season, as well.  I’m telling you, the McDaniels bandwagon is the one to be on.  I’m not the only one who thinks so, either:

The scheme was 100% on point Sunday, on both sides of the ball.  The game came down to execution, which is pretty much a zero-sum game.  By that, I mean that outcomes on a given play are either positive or negative, and one team has a positive, the other a negative.  In some key situations, the Colts won the battle to execute.  Think of the Laurence Maroney run on 4th and goal, for example.  He failed to get the ball into his upfield arm, so he couldn’t reach the goal line when he was wrapped up perfectly.  A player (and team) won that play, another lost that play.  There were a ton of plays Sunday where the Broncos won, more than the Colts.  The Colts were just better at maximizing the effect of their wins, and that’s something the Broncos will get better at.  They already are better at it than they were last year, if you ask me, but it’s a process that takes time.

I had a guy tell me yesterday on Twitter that Kyle Orton lacks killer instinct, and that the Broncos will lose games because of it.  I literally started laughing out loud.  (When you text LOL, were you generally REALLY Laughing Out Loud?  Me neither; generally, I’m in a meeting or something, trying not to get noticed that I was texting, and keeping a poker face on.)  Seriously?  Killer instinct?  Isn’t that a WWE-coined term?  Can a football fan presume to know a player’s instincts?  When Orton converted 14 of his first 17 third downs against Seattle, there was nothing wrong with his “killer instinct.”  (Let’s just all agree not to use that term, mmmkay?  Nobody is killing anybody.)

Kyle Orton is not a game manager, so let’s end that MSM-aided stupidity.  He’s a player with every talent needed to be an elite QB, with the exception of good foot speed.  He’s like a slightly less accurate version of Tom Brady, and his accuracy has improved a lot in the last two seasons from where it was in Chicago.  At this point, Orton is refining his ball placement, which is like the hidden accuracy within accuracy.  Orton’s deep ball is improving too, just as Brady’s did.  Most don’t remember this, but Brady was once called a check-it-down game manager, too.  It’s amazing what some weapons and an outstanding scheme will do for you.  I’m here to tell you, Orton looks like the long-term answer at QB to me.  I don’t have a horse in that race, really, but I think anybody is going to have a hard time beating him out, the way he’s playing.  He’s going to shred Tennessee next week; their pass coverage is really bad if you can protect your QB, which the Broncos will be able to do.

Across the #Broncos hashtag on Twitter last night, there were endless calls for Orton to be benched, and for Tim Tebow to start playing.  That is 100% absurd, and I’m a guy who really likes Tebow, and thinks he’s going to be very good someday.  (Maybe somewhere else, but somewhere, anyway.)  Quite simply, if you think Orton is the problem, you’re confused.  He’s playing at a level that is just outside the elite of the NFL, and that next step is one he can take with some more help from his teammates.  The defense the Broncos faced yesterday is expressly designed to prevent what the Broncos did to it, and it couldn’t.  I always thought of the Broncos fan base as being educated and loyal, but I think that was at least partly due to familiarity bias, since most Broncos fans who I know are both things.  There sure are a lot of idiots and alarmists (and alarmists who are also idiots) out there.

The simple truth to yesterday’s game is that the Broncos were out-executed in the scoring area, and they turned the ball over twice.  That’s the whole story.  The team that knew how to win won, and the team that’s learning how to win lost.  It was predictable, folks.

The same person who criticized Orton’s innate qualities as a professional wrestler also said that the Broncos “can’t” score inside the 20.  I would say that they didn’t do it yesterday, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t.  They’re going to need to run the ball better to force defenses out of Cover-2, and into man-to-man.  Cover-2 in the scoring area is tough to beat, because it ends up playing much more like Cover-7.  The shorter area to cover packs in the seven coverage guys, and gives them all smaller areas to be responsible for.  That’s how defenders get hands on well-thrown balls, and make them fall incomplete.  It’s not too different from how defenses cover Hail Marys in the end zone; crowds make it tough to complete passes.  When Ryan Harris returns, and the improving Zane Beadles is able to move to Left Guard, the Broncos will be able to run the ball much better, especially if Knowshon Moreno gets healthy and on a decent roll.

That improvement in the running game will cause defenders to put an eighth man in the box, and play man-to-man outside, and the Broncos will have no problems scoring Touchdowns against that kind of defense.  Saying the Broncos can’s score inside the twenty is a bit like saying current unemployment in America is structural.  It makes you sound thoughtful and nuanced to people who don’t know any better, but in the end, it’s demonstrably wrong.  (Saying that Orton throwing for 476 yards against a fast defense that’s designed to limit the passing game doesn’t matter is just too stupid for words.)  The 2010 Broncos are a work-in-progress, but I agree with TJ Johnson at Itsalloverfatman.com that this team is better than the 2009 Broncos, and that the early-season records aren’t a true indicator of quality, year-over-year.

The Broncos need to execute a bit better, but they’re good enough to beat any team in the NFL on any given Sunday.  They’re one more talent acquisition cycle from being an elite team, but when the 2011 season begins, they’re going to be one.  This year, they’re going to compete for a playoff spot, and I think they have a good chance to get in there.  The early pains of the McDaniels program installation will have been worth it, and maybe people will even be civil to each other on the Denver Post message board.  (Probably not, but you never know.)  All the instant analysts who called for McDaniels to be fired, or for Orton to be benched will have been wrong, but unlike me with JaMarcus The Hutt, and other things I had wrong, they won’t ever admit it.

Monday Night Thoughts

OK, I’m trying to figure out how to make time for this.  Today, I worked 8:30 to 5, came home to find my car broken into, and some stuff stolen, dealt with that, went to an MBA class (HR management… blech) from 8 to 9:15, and caught the end of the Jets-Ravens game, and most of the Chiefs-Chargers game.  Whew!

So, now, after all that, I’m going to share some thoughts from the first weekend.

1.  I had lunch with some fantasy football playing guys today, and one was lamenting Houston’s sudden run-heavy bent, because he drafted Andre Johnson in the first round.  I don’t like fantasy football, as most readers know, so I tried to explain the real story in terms of real football.  The Colts play a ton of Cover-2, and like to try to use seven in the box.  It mostly works, because they get out to a lot of early leads, and teams have to throw to play catch-up.  That plays into the Colts’ hands, because they rush the passer and play sound zone defense.

The Donny Deutsch Big Idea that I was getting at was that the Texans ran on the Colts, because that’s clearly the way to beat the Colts.  It’s not necessarily indicative of Houston’s weekly game plan, so all is not necessarily lost.  The Texans will certainly throw the ball to Johnson plenty.  You play to win the game, though, and Sunday, pounding the ball was the way to get the win.

I think the Texans are going to be excellent on offense this season, in all ways.  I was very, very impressed with the play of LT Duane Brown in looking back at the game.  He’s a lot better than Chris Williams and Sam Baker, two OTs who were drafted ahead of him in 2008.  Brown was once a “reach”, which is a reminder of the meaninglessness of that label.

2.  The Colts offensive line is absolutely atrocious.  Mario Williams is awesome, generally, but he was throwing Colts LT Charlie Johnson around like a high school player.  There isn’t a single good player on the Colts’ line, including the vastly overrated Jeff Saturday.  Bill Polian undoubtedly knows this, and trusts Peyton Manning’s greatness to be enough to mitigate the issue.  Most of the time, it will.

3.  LT Jermon Bushrod did a really good job for the Saints against Jared Allen.  I’ve never been a big fan of Jammal Brown, but Bushrod looks like he’s developed into a better player than his predecessor.  The Saints get huge, huge value from the coaching of Aaron Kromer, who is in charge of their offensive line and running game.  Bushrod, Carl Nicks, Jahri Evans, and Jonathan Goodwin were all drafted low, and Kromer has coached them all up to being outstanding players.  Even Jonathan Stinchcomb, the RT, who was a second rounder in 2003, was considered and underachiever until Kromer started working with him.  He shouldn’t have been in the Pro Bowl last season, but he’s become a solid player.  The Saints have the best line in the NFL, if you ask me, and it’s a huge reason for their overall success.

4.  It’s halftime of the second Monday Night game as I write this, and I’m reminded, as always, that I loathe Chris Berman and his tired, lame, TIRED schtick.  At least he toned down his act some at the Hall of Fame ceremony this year.

5.  The Vikings WRs looked like they couldn’t separate on the outside.  The Saints have good CBs in Jabari Greer and Tracy Porter, but they played a lot of Cover-2, and Percy Harvin and Bernard Berrian did very little to threaten it.   Sidney Rice can get across a CB’s face, and make a catch in front of a LB, but I question Harvin and Berrian’s ability to do so.  Harvin is a very dangerous player, but he’s not a guy who can whip another guy with a sharply run route.  I’ll be watching this in the coming weeks, but it could be a big issue going forward, if neither can run a slant route across a CB’s face.  Brett Favre throws that route better than anybody who ever played the game, and if he doesn’t have it as an option, like with the Jets toward the end of 2008, he starts looking limited.  If I’m a defensive coordinator, I’m showing nothing but a physical Cover-2 till those guys beat it.

6.  I didn’t love Malcolm Jenkins as a CB coming out of college, because I question his ability to turn and run with speedsters.  That said, I was very impressed with his play at FS Thursday.  He showed really good instincts, and covered a lot of ground.  I’m ready to concede that he’s quicker than I thought he was.

7.  I continue to have no faith in the Bears this season.  I think they’re a 4-12 team, primarily because their choice of offensive scheme doesn’t fit their personnel.  The Lions are good on the defensive front, but they sacked Jay Cutler 4 times, and hit him 7 more.  The Bears’ scheme calls for deep drops and minimum protection, and the Bears lack the linemen to pull it off.  I’m certain of this, and I have been since Mike Martz (a very good coach when he has the right talent) was hired.  He and Lovie Smith will both be gone after this season, and some new coach will come in, preaching smash mouth football, but lacking the linemen for that approach, too.  The Bears have a bunch of guys who just kind of suck up front.

8.  Rookie defensive linemen usually struggle, but Ndamukong Suh is not going to be one who does.  He’s already manhandling guys physically, and it’s just a matter of time before his technique improves, and he’s unblockable inside.

9.  The Bengals are making a big mistake in letting Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens hold such sway, and thinking that they’re a passing team all of a sudden.  Their personnel is geared toward being a running team.  I know that he was kept in check Sunday, but Cedric Benson is the Bengals’ best offensive player, and their offensive line is a lot better going forward than backward.  The Patriots stacked their front against the run, and it was a successful strategy.

The Patriots got out to a huge lead, and then were willing to give up a lot of garbage passing yards in the second half, playing soft.  They won the game early, though, like most good teams do.

10.  I took a random-sample look at the Falcons-Steelers game Monday night, and I continue not to love Matt Ryan.  To me, the guy is an average QB with a good supporting cast, and a lot of love from know-nothing fools like John Clayton.  I don’t see any improvement in him since his rookie season.

11.  I had the Browns-Bucs game on at the same time as the Broncos-Jaguars Sunday, and I found it interesting.  The Browns fans instantly love Peyton Hillis, which I told a lot of them would happen.  Peyton was Peyton on Sunday; he ran hard, and caught 4 passes, and looked like the best white halfback in the NFL since the 80s.  He also fumbled twice, and lost one.  To the Browns’ credit, they seem to realize that Hillis is no FB, and that he needs the ball to be an effective player.  I’m happy for him that he’s found a place to get a chance to do what he does.

12.  I’m putting the over/under on Seneca Wallace’s elevation to Browns starting QB at 5.5 games.  Jake Delhomme just continues to throws the ball to the other team too much.  Wallace is a better player, and would give the Browns a better chance to win.  In other QB news, nobody in the Browns organization seems to view Colt McCoy as a legitimate candidate to ever be a long-term NFL starter.  That shows that they’ve got a much better/more realistic personnel operation in place here.

13.  The Bucs, on the other hand, have their QB for years to come.  I put Josh Freeman right behind Matthew Stafford, even with Joe Flacco, and ahead of Matt Ryan, Mark Sanchez, and Chad Henne among 2008/2009 drafted QBs.  He’s big, smart, athletic, and poised, and he throws a very nice ball.  I like him better than Sam Bradford, too, but I didn’t want to include 2010 guys, with them having so little experience so far.

14.  Robert Ayers looked excellent on Sunday for the Broncos, in a variety of roles.  Never mind the tempered “he looked okay” praise from the Denver media, who don’t have any idea what they’re looking at.  Ayers consistently whipped Eben Britton in the pass-rush game, and got his first sack, and he also looked sure of himself reacting to the run, and playing man-to-man coverage.  If the Broncos had ever led, and/or the Jaguars ever had to throw the ball down the field, Ayers may have had a couple more sacks, the way he was playing.  I think he’s going to replace Elvis Dumervil’s production this season, and they’ll be a monster pair in 2011.  Ayers will ultimately be the better all-around player, though, because he offers more in the running game.  I believe that Mike Mayock had it exactly right when he predicted that Ayers would be the best defensive player in the 2009 Draft in 3 years.

15.  The Redskins sure looked like a Mike Shanahan team, in conservatively protecting a lead Sunday night.  The criticism of Shanahan’s decision to “take points off the board”  in the 3rd quarter is utterly asinine.  The only reason NOT to take a field goal off the board when a penalty gives you a first down is that you’re afraid of what some second-guessing ass-clown like John Czarnecki will say.  Shanahan is not afraid of that, and no coach should be.  Don’t let anybody tell you that the numbers are with keeping the FG, because they’re not.  If I have a 50% chance of scoring a TD, a 45% chance of kicking a later FG, and a 5% chance of scoring no points, (which is conservative), my expected outcome is 4.85 points, which is clearly superior to keeping 3 points.

16.  The Cowboys have been beaten up badly today, so I’m not going to pile on.  They didn’t look like a real contender Sunday night, but they still have a ton of talent.

17.  The Jets are really good on defense, but you can throw the ball downfield on them.  Antonio Cromartie is not a good CB, and people need to stop perpetuating the myth that he is.

18.  Speaking of the Jets, they have a big problem at Left Guard, because Matt Slauson has really been struggling, and Vladimir Ducasse has reportedly been even worse in practice.  I’m not one of these people who thinks Alan Faneca is good, or should have been kept.  I’ll leave that second-guessing nonsense to others.  I’ll just say that until either Slauson or Ducasse gets better, this is going to be a major problem.  Between that issue, and Mark Sanchez’s clear lack of readiness for prime time, let’s all stop loving on the Jets’ man-parts, mmmmkay?

19.  The Jets had no ability to exploit this, but the Ravens can definitely be had over the top.  I’d run a ton of 4-verticals at them, and bet that my QB can riddle them with downfield throws.  The Ravens might have the worst secondary in the NFL, outside of Detroit, if anybody can protect long enough to exploit it.  I think Cincinnati is going to start showing signs of it this week, and Denver and New England are going to exploit it badly in weeks 5 and 6.

20.  If I were a Chiefs fan (and thank goodness I’m not), I’d be really happy with what I saw of Glenn Dorsey and Tyson Jackson on Monday Night.  Both of them looked much improved, which should come as no surprise.  Defensive linemen take time to learn how to play in the NFL.  Dorsey was outstanding, in particular.

21.  I said I’m happy I’m not a Chiefs fan, but they do get my respect.  They helped their team win a big opening game by getting extremely loud.  Great showing by the Arrowhead faithful.

22.  Has anybody noticed how bad that Chargers are in punt coverage?  This is a continuing problem for them, and it tends to refute the meme about them having great top-to-bottom roster talent.  I think they have great top-of-the-roster talent, and not much more than that.

It’s 1:21 AM, so I’m off the the rack.  I’ll try to get some more watching/writing done tomorrow or Wednesday.  Have a great Tuesday, friends!