Greetings from MileHighReport - A Few Good Questions With a Broncos Blogger

Is that it isn’t so much about what he’s doing as what he is not doing:

1. He’s not taking chances by throwing into coverage (this isn’t new to Orton, he’s always taken care of the ball).

2. He’s not having to get the ball out in under 2.8 seconds because of a collapsing pocket. We could tell through the preseason and the first game or two that he just isn’t used to having a good offensive line protecting him on passing plays.

3. He’s obviously not reading the papers, blogs, etc. Otherwise he would be complaining about his noodle-arm and mediocrity (this is sarcasm…his arm is very decent).

Peter King might have said it best in MMQB this week -

Now let’s do a mini-analysis of the biggest decision of the off-season, Denver dealing Cutler for two first-rounders and Kyle Orton. It reminds me of the Patriots dealing Drew Bledsoe in 2002 and handing the quarterback job long-term to Tom Brady. Bledsoe, the independent-thinking mad bomber; Brady, the caretaker who’ll follow the gameplan to a T. Just substitute Cutler for Bledsoe and Kyle Orton for Brady and you’ve got McDaniels’ line of thinking. Now, I’m not saying (and McDaniels wouldn’t either) that Orton’s going to morph into Brady, but the amount of negative plays at the quarterback position has been exactly what McDaniels has preached: zero interceptions, zero lost fumbles, six sacks. If Orton continues on his present pace — 3,624 passing yards, 20 touchdowns, 59 percent passing (that should be a tick better) — the Broncos will be playing in January.

AS King said, IN NO WAY am I implying that Orton is even close to Brady or ever will be. The point is, McDaniels decided that he needed to change the philosophy of the offense and it was going to take more than just a change in the playbook to do that. Orton will do what he is told and he isn’t afraid to learn, or be taught. At 26, Orton is still young enough to get rid of many of the bad habits he picked up in Chicago and become a solid QB.

and realise you recognise a bunch of them from Player of the Week, Pro Bowls and big plays?

Champ Bailey, Andre’ Goodman, Brian Dawkins and Renaldo Hill are solid as a secondary.

Andra Davis, DJ Williams and Elvis Dumervil are all capable of big players in the LB corps.

I don’t really recognise their starting D-line guys, but they’re a 900lb 3-4 d-line, and they haven’t given up yards to the run, so you can assume they’re pretty good. And they do have Vonnie Holiday on the bench, and Hoodie seemed to think highly of him this year. If he’s a reserve, the other three must be solid.

Yeah…they revamped that God-awful mess that we called our defense last season. Some of my brothers deny 2008 ever happened, but it did and it was a nightmare for the defensive side of the ball. This year’s product is leaps and bounds better.

Coaching Credit: Mike Nolan – he is calling masterful defensive schemes each week.
Player Credit: Our linebackers – they are making this thing work and enough can’t be said about how well they are playing.

The defense is being called a base 3 – 4 by McDaniels and Nolan, but if we are being truthful, they are using a 5 – 2 look the majority of the time. Like anything in the NFL it gets pretty complicated with how many different looks they have, but you’ll see both formations and then some others.

Linemen: Our NT and DEs are neigh perfect for the job in the 3 – 4. They are eating up double-teams, winning the LOS battle on runs, and pushing the pocket back / opening holes on passes. You probably won’t have ever heard of them, but hey…that’s a 3 – 4 line for you right?

Linebackers: The big hoopla around them has been Dumerville – 8 sacks so far this season. He is one of the top 3 pass rushers in the league right now hands down (I could go on and on about how he is being used correctly, but you wanted a summary). Our ILBs Williams and Davis are playing crazy sick in the middle of the field…like I said earlier, they are making this defense work properly.

Secondary: You might look at their age and think “Slow” but you would be dead wrong. These guys are ProBowlers for a reason and they are all playing sound, destructive, disrupted football. Dawkins is blowing people up left and right (and covered Witten last week superbly off and on). Bailey still has the goods…see his performance last week when Romo tested him all game.

Overall we are aggressive against the pass and very solid agains the run. Dallas brought their 1st rank running offense into Denver last week and gained only ~75 yards on the ground. That was an epic win in my book. Teams are averaging 6.5 points per game this year against our D. While I thought Dallas was a good test of our run D, I’m looking forward to seeing what NE can do against our pass D.

Interesting Question. To be honest, I haven’t seen enough to make a comparison to anyone. One thing stands out, he knows how to run the football. The game is just a bit too fast for him right now but I get the sense that it could slow down any time now and Moreno will bust out with a huge game. Two weeks ago he had his first rushing TD, then last week he caught his first TD Pass. Maybe this week Moreno puts it together and has his first 100-yard Game?!?

He floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. Plus, he cuts like a hot knife through butter and hits defenders like an angry step father beats his son. He also runs like a deer in hunting season and loves the endzone like a fat kid loves cake.

There ya go. lol

It’s like Kermit the frog had particularly ugly children with a small elephant. Burning might not be enough to exorcise those demons. Some sort of scouring of the inside of the eyeball with bleach just to rid the viewers of the horror?

they have been selling like crazy since the pre-season. I think it might be a “so ugly it’s cool” thing. I know several people that bought the socks and are making them into sleeves for the game. I expect to see quite a bit of the yellow and brown this weekend.

But yeah, your point is well taken.

Normally it would be Alphonso Smith, but he tweaked his ankle and didn’t play last week. I’m not sure if he’ll be able to go this week. Jack is a second year player, who played very well against Dallas last week, and I hope that he can keep it up. I really don’t know that much about him. He played sparingly last year, but made the team because of sparkling play in the pre-season. This year he made the team as the dime back.

The Phonse is a rookie that we drafted in the second round from Wake Forest. He’s been great so far and am very anxious that he’ll be ready to go this week. I think a healthy Smith would do well against Welker, because he’s so smart with positioning and film study, and I can only hope that Williams can be an approximate representation if he has to go again.

which is allowed, just not from the sideline. Other coaches admitted doing the same thing, just not after the 2006 rules clarification. Did Bill lie? Who knows. Does it matter? No.

The NFL said no advantage was gained, Bill and the Team were penalized.
They proceeded to rip through the league like old tissue paper, and were one fluky catch away from a perfect season all the while being under the microscope to see if they were doing anything else. Obviously, the taping wasn’t needed in 2007. Can a video keep David Tyree from making that catch when Rodney Harrison couldn’t?

For us it’s old news, like the Steelers doing steroids, and the Dolphins tampering charges under Shula. If I looked for a little bit, I could probably find some old skeletons in the Broncos closet, too – or any other team for that matter. Not worth
it, dead horse.

So I guess he’s not pushing himself to get the yards after catch that are expected from him, especially not if he’s already achieved a first down. He’ll get what is needed and make sure he doesn’t get hurt, rather than seek everything he can possibly wring out of the reception, which is his usual behaviour.

and has a quarterback coming back from knee-surgery. No worries with Welker.

They were taking him for a test spin to see how the knee is doing. It’s gotta be hard for him. The guy never slows down.

But! I also suspect it’s because of the nature of the job. HC is a lot of everything – complete knowledge of the offence, defence and special teams, roster and personnel management, staffing issues, economic realities, the whole gamut.

Weis, Mangini and Crennel seemed to be single-dimensional guys thrown in over their heads; one side of the ball only, and no real evidence they had the ability to run football teams as opposed to single units. Most importantly, they also failed in that x-factor – managing 60-odd players in a way that makes an efficient and effective football team. This intangible isn’t easy – hell, Belichick himself had problems with it the first time he was a Head Coach in Cleveland.

By comparison, McDaniels has both the knowledge and the x-factor. He started off as a defensive coach in 2001; he then shifted to offence and QB coach, then became a successful offensive co-ordinator. He also has shown that knack for managing players well in Denver, at least thus far – a lot of the senior players were suspicious with McDaniels at first, but through decisiveness, ability and intelligence he has won them over and they seem to have bought into his system. That’s perhaps the most difficult and most important thing – if the players aren’t with you, no amount of talent can make them play well.

At the end of the day, everyone is answerable to the HC. That means players, co-ordinators and coaches have to have a respect in the HC above and beyond the respect they owe to each other; that’s impossible to generate artificially. McDaniels earned it by cutting the bad apples and showing faith in the players he had left, and bringing in the players he needed to fill out the roster and make a good football team. Mangini, Crennel, etc never earned the respect, and didn’t seem to do things to promote the good of the team.

He didn’t leave on good terms. One of the problems of an coordinator turned HC is that it isn’t the same role at all. Head coaches need to handle so much more, including working with the scouting group on players to draft or trade for in free agency.

Because Josh was so classy about sticking with us through the Super Bowl run (many teams wanted to hire him during the playoffs for their crap team), Belichick spent 2008 grooming him for a head coaching job. He taught him the other 90% of the job that he wouldn’t have had exposure to. Belichick was available to him this offseason to answer questions as he took the reigns in Denver. You have Belichick-less ex-coaches and those who leave with his blessing.

Hell. They even have the same base colour on the uniforms. I’m watching you, Denver.

pick out the main weapon of the opposition – Brandon Marshall – figure out how to nullify it. Pick out the secondary weapon – Knowshon Moreno? Eddie Royal? – and figure out a scheme to put pressure on that, too. If it forces Denver onto relying on the secondary or tertiary weapon, that’s all you can ask.

This was apparent in the Falcons game – he looked at the Falcons lineup, and decided that Tony Gonzalez was the paramount threat. The result? TG had one catch for a handful of yards, all game, and the Pats won it.

It’s not really an insult of the rest of the Broncos lineup, it’s just a recognition that Marshall is a game-winner in the style of Randy Moss or Andre Johnson. Giving Marshall ten catches would probably be 150 yards and 2 TDs. Giving ten catches to Eddie Royal would probably be 5 first downs and 80 yards. Belichick is a bend-but-don’t-break kind of guy, so he’ll give them to Royal.