Modest Ruminations

This is gonna be long ‘cause I’ve had a lot of things percolating in the old cabeza this summer. Consider this your warning. Go get your glasses if you need ‘em.

People, it’s the damn preseason. It’s a big waste of time. Your job as serious football fans is to watch the games and hope nobody really important gets injured. After that, you need to chill and start watching Rockies games. For the record, I’ve been a huge Rockies fan since their inception, but my problem is that I’m really only a fan for about eight weeks during any given year. The last baseball strike really pissed me off and completely modified my baseball affection. As it stands now I check the team out a bit in April and May, but I don’t really care much until after the NBA Finals are over in June. Then I become a freakishly avid fan for about eight maybe ten weeks until the NFL starts. When the team is good, as it is this year, my fan duration time stretches until the last game. 2007 was ridiculously fun and the Rockies were great. 2008 was an eight-week year. 2009 is shaping up to be something special. And who knew EY had a kid? And that he could hit? Crazy. Thank you baseball for helping me to ignore the supercilious crapfest that is the preseason.

However, all that being said, this really has been one long telenovela of an offseason for the Broncos, so I will try to address the most interesting points.

Interesting Point #1:

Jay Cutler is gone. (Phew, glad I got that one done with.)

Moving on to Draft Issues:

I’m not saying the first McDaniels Era Draft was a bust or even unwise. In the NFL, it’s sort of a given that the majority of young players don’t really ‘get it’ until about their third year. So, we really can’t judge this one for at least a couple of seasons. But if I was looking to fill holes and create a potent defense similar to the one in New England, then I probably would have gone after a whole bunch of linemen and linebackers who could learn the 3-4 system. Instead the Broncos got several secondary players, a third-string tight end, a third-string QB, and an undersized running back. Oh yeah, they also got Robert Ayers. He’s big and fast, but based on this preseason it doesn’t look like he’ll get much playing time this year. Aside from other McDaniels moves this offseason, the draft was probably the most surprising, especially if you consider that McDaniels sold himself as a Bill Belichick protégé.

Here’s how Belichick tends to draft: he eschews first-round picks (none for New England this year but four players in the second round) who demand higher guaranteed money and hold out till they get it (think of Ayers and especially Moreno who missed significant camp time and then got injured), and he goes after defensive players and offensive linemen who can be molded into fitting his system leaving himself free to sign skilled offensive free-agents like Wes Welker and Randy Moss (eight of the Patriot’s eleven picks were defensive players or offensive linemen).

Now, the Broncos don’t particularly have a need for offensive linemen this year. They have a solid front five and two or three good reserves. So their draft was necessarily going to be a bit different than New England’s, but the Broncos definitely have a need for linemen and linebackers. And in this draft, all Denver got was Ayers. . . .who won’t start. . . .and who looks confused most of the time. As for the rest of the draft, only four of the Broncos ten picks were defensive players, and only three of their top five picks were defensive. All the sports analysts were sort of surprised by this, and it might help to look at another team to understand the baffled looks on the faces of folks like Vic Lombardi. The Packers, who just like Denver are installing a 3-4 defense, had just eight picks in this year’s draft. Their first pick was BJ Raji, a great choice to build a stout front three primarily because he’s ridiculously huge – 6’2”, 335 lbs.. Next they picked up Clay Matthews, a solid lineman who gives them an immediate pass-rush. They picked up another linebacker and lineman in the later rounds, along with a cornerback. That means they got four or five solid defensive players out of their eight picks. The Broncos? Well, they got one maybe two solid defensive guys out of their ten picks, but only Ayers meets their most pressing needs. I’m no Paul Krugman, but it’s pretty obvious that the numbers just don’t match up. And we very easily could have drafted the very same people that Green Bay got.

Preseason Issues:

After the San Francisco game, it didn’t look good. After the Seattle game, it looked a little better, but it still wasn’t very encouraging. I still think the Broncos should have hired Leslie Frazer or that Spagnuolo guy from the Giants, but we got McDaniels. Probably the most encouraging thing I’ve heard about McDaniels is that the players really liked his training camp and the physical and mental preparation that he stressed. Shanahan was no slouch on the mental preparation, but there’s tremendous truth in the fact that his teams ran out of energy and got bullied, both at the end of games and at the end of the season. However, McDaniels’ team hasn’t exactly looked sharp this preseason. I am encouraged by the fact that Orton looks like he knows the offense. He’s audible-ing at the line and his protection has been great. He’s hitting open receivers, when he’s not throwing interceptions with his left and right hands, and he generally looks sharp. Everybody’s been bitching about his interceptions, and it’s true that the three in San Francisco came on pretty lousy QB decisions, and the one in Seattle was a brain-fart eerily reminiscent of Jake Plummer. But I’ll bet that he doesn’t throw another interception in the preseason.

That’s a pretty big bet, but I have confidence that Orton will do well, for him. And doing well for him means managing the game, throwing for 200+ yards and accounting for two scores each game. If he can do that, the Broncos will be fine. Part of optimism comes from the fact that defense looks decent. I remember the preseason last year when Dallas’s second-string made the Broncos first-string defense look like the boys from the local underachieving high school. I was worried then, but I’m not now primarily because the defense has looked respectable. No, they in no way resemble the dominating units from Minnesota and New York (4-3’s), and so far they don’t even look like the stout fellows from New England and Pittsburgh (3-4’s), but they look serviceable, which is far better than we’ve had in a long time.

The Schedule:

It’s damn brutal is what it is. A good team with a returning head coach, QB, and defensive unit would be hard-pressed to come up with more than 8 wins when matched against the NFC East. The Broncos realistically have very little chance of winning more than 9 games, and even that might be excessively optimistic. My season prediction breaks down like this:

-W at Cincinatti Week 1 – This team is still reeling from an absurdly wretched 08, and the Broncos should get a steal.

-W vs. Cleveland Week 2 – This will be a rough match-up, but I expect McDaniels to really shine in this one and outcoach Eric Mangini. After all, his offenses punished the Jets when Mangini was their coach.

-W at Oakland Week 3 – It’s Oakland. I wasn’t about to predict a loss, and Oakland is so horrific that the Broncos will probably be 10 point favorites. If they lose this one, they’re in trouble.

**At this point the Broncos will be 3-0 and people might start to jump on the bus. But this is also when things get rough.

-L vs Dallas Week 4 – Dallas will be good this season. I think they’ll make a push deep into the playoffs and possibly the Super Bowl. Denver will lose.

-L vs New England Week 5 – They flat out embarrassed the Broncos last year. This one should be closer but Belichick has made a career out of winning close games. He won’t lose to is protégé.

-L at San Diego Week 6 – They are a better team. If this was in Denver I might go the other way.

**At the bye, the Broncos should be a respectable 3-3. But since they will have lost 3 straight, the sayers-of-nay will be chanting loudly in papers and blogs. To hell with ‘em.

Weeks 8-12 include games against Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Washington, San Diego, and New York. This is where it gets brutal. The Broncos can reasonably expect to lose all these games, but I have a feeling they’ll win at least one. If they pull out two wins, say against the Chargers at home and against Washington, they should count themselves lucky.

-W at Kansas City Week 13 – These are the types of games that a young coach has to win. Plus it’ll be interesting to see which team’s 3-4 defense has progressed the farthest. Expect something close with a 4^th quarter Broncos victory.

-L at Indy Week 14 – Indy was very quiety a great team last year that got shafted by the refs in the playoffs. They won’t lose this one unless they’ve locked up home-field advantage, and even then they’ll probably win.

-W vs Oakland Week 15 – It’s Oakland. Come on people.

-L at Philadephia Week 16 – A road game against Philly in the Winter. . . Expect the Broncos to come home with bruises, some season-ending injuries, and a renewed commitment to put it all together for next season.

-W vs Kansas City Week 17 – The blue-and-orange will finish strong in a battle of pride.

That gives a minimum of 7 wins with an outside shot at 9. 10 wins would be a stellar accomplishment and should earn McDaniels coach-of-the-year honors. But I’m thinking the Broncos will go .500.

Final Thoughts:

There you have it: the off-season analyzed, the preseason denounced for the farce that it has always been, the Rockies extolled, and the regular season predicted. What more could you possibly ask for? If you’ve made it this far, I thank you. Next week: a breakdown of all 1,000+ pages of the Health Care legislation. You won’t find it anywhere else. I’m not kidding.