Thread: Make your post draft season predictions

Originally Posted by Nomad B

Tned, it's not a bad thing to drink the kool-aid and we can't always look at things with the glass half-empty attitude. At least Shanahan focused on the needs of the team. As I said before, Jay will have a great year and this year will be a chemistry building year for the BRONCOS. The playoffs are a questionable but not impossible, but a winning record would be a positive step for our young team in the right direction. But my thing is I rather sweep the AFC West teams (not going to happen) but at least beat the Raiders, Chiefs, Chargers at home.

If Marshall's injury is serious and he doesn't return as the same receiver, then I think all bets are off. If marshall is healthy and all those tendons and stuff heal right, I think we are going to find that last year was more of anomoly than start of a down phase.

I know not many people feel the same way, but I think heimerdinger and Bates had a MUCH greater impact on how badly we played than the players on the field.

I am hoping that one of the reasons we didn't bring in an OC is that Shanahan is going to be more hands on, like he was in Kubiak's early years. On Defense, Slowik is an agressive man coverage type guy, which should mean our front 7 or 8 are let loose with regularity, which hopefully (have to see where the young guys are at) results in more QB pressure and as a result more INTs.

Jay is in his third year and getting better, and if Shanny is more hands on and starts getting back to creative formations and movement, disguise and misdirection, which was a halmark of the Broncos, I think a lot of people will be surprised.

Yes, I might just be over-optomistic, but I really think a lot of fans are going to be pleasantly surprised.

Obviously, all of this goes out the window if we have a rash of injuries like we had last year.

For the record this is the 1st season that I did not pick the Broncos to go 16-0.
I'm starting to get more realistic in my old age.

Injuries and youth were the problems last year. Obviously Bates and Hermindinger sucked ass too, but we lost a lot of talent throughout the year as well.

Week 1 — At Oak. Win
Week 2 — San Diego. Loss
Week 3 — New Orleans Win
Week 4 — at KC Win
Week 5 — Tampa Bay Win
Week 6 — Jacksonville Win
Week 7 — at New England Loss
Oct. 26 — Bye.
Week 9 — Miami Win
Week 10 — at Cleveland Win
Week 11 — at Atlanta Win
Week 12 — Oakland Win
Week 13 — at N.Y. Jets Loss
Week 14 — Kansas City Win
Week 15 — at Carolina Loss
Week 16 — Buffalo Bills win
Week 17 — at San Diego Loss

Well, guess I see them at 11-5, even though I locked into 10-6 in the poll.
But I suspect one of the first five or six will be a should-have-won-it game
because of the gelling process. I don't think it will be Oakland, though,
because they will have the same gelling problems.

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Originally Posted by BroncoJoe

Injuries and youth were the problems last year. Obviously Bates and Hermindinger sucked ass too, but we lost a lot of talent throughout the year as well.

Injuries hurt us last year, Heimerdinger dismantled our offense over a two year period. There is a reason there was a mutual parting of the ways and Heimerdinger took a downward move from assistant head coach to offensive coordinator. The NFL doesn't allow moves like that while under contract, and it is unlikely the Broncos only signed him to a two year contract. Therefore, Shanahan let go the guy he touted as the person that was going to turn the offense around.

Instead, Heimerdinger put in offensive schemes for two years that didn't suit the offensive line, resulting in horrible production even before the injuries occurred. When Jake was still under center the argument was that now that heimerdinger was opening up the playbook, Jake wasn't smart enough. When Jay took over, it was blamed on injuries and rookie mistakes. Fast forward to year two and it's still Jay's learning, then we get to blame it on injuries.

The truth is that Heimerdinger attempted to run an offensive scheme that would work just fine if you had a line averaging 315lb or so, with 330lb tackles, but it was not the offense that Shanahan/Kubiak successfully ran with the lightest line in the league.

Bates was equally inflexible. He attempted to implement his scheme, regardless of the personell. They are both gone, because they apparently were one trick ponies, not able to adapt to the personell in front of them. Shanahan fully admitted that he screwed the pooch with Bates and should have prevented the defensive scheme changes and stuck with the defensive approach that had kept them in that 5-10 ranking with their small/fast defense they had drafted for years.

So, while it is very possible we will have a third down year, and I know that I am in the minority, if not fully standing on my own, but I feel strongly that those two 'former' assistant head coaches are FAR more to blame for the debacle of the last two years than the players, and that I expect the Broncos to be closer to 2005 form than 2006 or 2007.

11-5, maybe 10-6 but no lower. We might not beat the Chargers twice to win the AFC west but we'll make the playoffs as a wildcard.

Have some optimism people.

Originally Posted by Tned

Injuries hurt us last year, Heimerdinger dismantled our offense over a two year period. There is a reason there was a mutual parting of the ways and Heimerdinger took a downward move from assistant head coach to offensive coordinator. The NFL doesn't allow moves like that while under contract, and it is unlikely the Broncos only signed him to a two year contract. Therefore, Shanahan let go the guy he touted as the person that was going to turn the offense around.

Instead, Heimerdinger put in offensive schemes for two years that didn't suit the offensive line, resulting in horrible production even before the injuries occurred. When Jake was still under center the argument was that now that heimerdinger was opening up the playbook, Jake wasn't smart enough. When Jay took over, it was blamed on injuries and rookie mistakes. Fast forward to year two and it's still Jay's learning, then we get to blame it on injuries.

The truth is that Heimerdinger attempted to run an offensive scheme that would work just fine if you had a line averaging 315lb or so, with 330lb tackles, but it was not the offense that Shanahan/Kubiak successfully ran with the lightest line in the league.

Bates was equally inflexible. He attempted to implement his scheme, regardless of the personell. They are both gone, because they apparently were one trick ponies, not able to adapt to the personell in front of them. Shanahan fully admitted that he screwed the pooch with Bates and should have prevented the defensive scheme changes and stuck with the defensive approach that had kept them in that 5-10 ranking with their small/fast defense they had drafted for years.

So, while it is very possible we will have a third down year, and I know that I am in the minority, if not fully standing on my own, but I feel strongly that those two 'former' assistant head coaches are FAR more to blame for the debacle of the last two years than the players, and that I expect the Broncos to be closer to 2005 form than 2006 or 2007.

I hope your're right but we have a lot of inexperienced and relatively inexperienced players on this team.

I want to blame Dinger for the offense. It was a TOTALLY different offense than the one Kubes ran while he was here, and didn't take anywhere near as much advantage of our specific personnel as he would have, and it was much more like some of Dinger's other offenses.

But I also saw Shanny with the clipboard calling lots of plays.

So was the genius of our offense in Shanahan, or in Kubiak?

When Kubiak left, he was replaced by Dinger in title, but was Shanahan calling the plays still (and the word is that Dinger was chafing from taking the blame but not having the control of the O)?

This year should be a good litmus test. If we get back to innovation, it was Dinger.

If we stay stale, it's Shanny and/or the loss of Kubes.

We'll have a similarly fun experiment on defense: do our DL players suck, or was it scheme? Can we pressure with Slowik, or will our coordination and scheme stay horrible?

At least it won't be boring...

~G

Originally Posted by TXBRONC

I hope your're right but we have a lot of inexperienced and relatively inexperienced players on this team.

No doubt about it.

The biggest challenge is going to be having the third DC in three years, and on the offense likely scrapping most of what Heimerdinger put in.

Think back three, four, five years ago. The offense was all about disguise and misdirection. Lineup with one RB and two TE and motion a TE to FB. Lineup with two RBs and motion a RB to TE. Lineup with two WR, one TE over the tackle, motion him wde and run up the middle.

Mixup up runs and quarterback bootleg/rollouts so that they got the defense flowing in one direction, and brought the play back the other direction.

During the time we did that successfully, we replaced a lot of players, but continued to have success. No, not superbowl success, because the Colts kept anhilating our defense, and then the AFCCG game, but consistant success on offense. It was because as Bill Parcells said before the Thanksgiving game during the AFCCG year, "the Broncos only run about 5 plays, but they run them very well and out of a bunch of different formations, so you never really know which one they are going to run". Now, I wrote that as a quote, but that is paraphrasing.

Look on offense. We have a 3rd year QB. If Marshall is healthy, a Third year #1 WR, a 3rd year pass catching TE, a veteran #2/slot receiver in his second year in Denver, another TE in his second year, and all of our linemen except Clady are in at least their second year in Denver, most more than 2 years. So, other than Clady and the FA WR's, our offense will have played together 1-2 years. Now, offset that by the fact Shanny will need to throw out much of Dinger's playbook along with Dinger himself and that offsets it, but while we are young on offense, it isn't like we are starting a bunch of rookies this year. It isn't like we have a rookie QB. He is a third year QB.

On Defense you have Bly and Bailey, who are veterans. Lynch (will he be a full time starter?) and somebody other than a rookie (not sure who is going to win the free safety job).

At LB you have DJ and Boss, both experienced, while Boss is new to Denver, and a big questionmark at MLB.

On the line, you will have a rotation of DE's that will be 2nd year, 3rd year and veteran ends, and at tackle you will likely have a rotation of Robertson (veteran, new to team), Thomas (2nd year), Ekuban and maybe the new guy I am drawing a blank on that we just drafted.

So, yes, the team is young, but it is a mixture of veterans with 2nd/3rd year players, with likely only 1 rookie starting in Clady.

As I said, the big challenge will be can Slowik implement a 'new' defensive scheme that can both be adapted to quickly by all players and effective, and does Shanahan dig back into the offense and get back to what gained him the mastermind label (and contrary to what some believe, it wasn't just a QB named John), or will he just let Dennison meander along and find his own way.

Originally Posted by G_Money

I want to blame Dinger for the offense. It was a TOTALLY different offense than the one Kubes ran while he was here, and didn't take anywhere near as much advantage of our specific personnel as he would have, and it was much more like some of Dinger's other offenses.

But I also saw Shanny with the clipboard calling lots of plays.

So was the genius of our offense in Shanahan, or in Kubiak?

I think that is the million dollar question. I know about 3 years ago I was lambasted on Mania for suggesting that Kubiak was calling the plays and told that even though Shanny said Kubiak called the plays, it was BS and him just trying to make his 'friend' look better.

Then, after Kubiak left and the offense suffered, then about 90% of those people that lambasted me started talking about how Kubiak was the genius.

Personally, FWIW, I think it 'was' Shanahan's offense and I know he called the plays in the early years with Elway and company. However, in the later years, he claimed to be much more handsoff and management orientated and might drop into an offensive or defensive meeting, but otherwise let the OC/DC's do the work.

Assuming that is correct, then towards the end, Kubiak was running and modifiying Shanny's offense and based on what I have seen in Houston, did a good job of mastering it.

Don't get me wrong, when I blame Dinger, I blame Shanny as much. Shanahan brought him in to open up the offense, specifically the passing game. The problem is, Shanahan didn't provide him with a new line to make it work. If that was their plan, they should have done it in stages. Kept the old playbook, while adding some new tricks and then via FA or draft, gotten a line capable of handling straight drop back passing and spread formations without risking the QBs life on every play.

I am making an assumption, and I know it is a large one, that in the same way that Shanny took responsibility for allowing a defensive scheme to be put in that didn't support the players, he did the same thing on offense. The differnce being, Dinger was his college roommate and friend/co-worker previously on the Broncos and he wasn't quite so willing to throw him under the bus, and possibly even more willing to try his ideas.

It is very possible, even likely, that since Shanny brought him in to open up the passing game, Shanny himself may have miscalculated how overmatched his OL would be with the scheme changes (even before injuries and over a two year period).

What I am hoping is that:

1. It was Shanahan's creative mind that came up with the playbook they ran so successfully for 12 or so years, and not Kubiaks.

2. In 2008 he basically takes over the OC job and mentors Dennison the way he did Kubiak in '95 or '96 or whenever it was.

Originally Posted by Nature Boy

I don't see it, not against the Raiders not with Jarmarcus Russell(who I hear currently weighs 300lbs). Talk about a team without their pieces together.

McFadden will be a huge bust, second coming of Lawrence Phillips. You heard it here 1st.

I'm not going to say that he'll be a bust just yet.........But I highly doubt he'll be lining up at QB and get a free 7 yards a carry...............His college stats are inflated for reasons just like that................He's an all or nothing type of back that kills Defenses in the 4th quarter.................I'm talking about his OWN Defense..............He is NOT the back that will grind out 4 and 5 yard runs all day..........With McFadden, it's either 60 yards and a TD or 3 and out. Either way, the Raiders Defense will ot have enough time to catch their breath.

Originally Posted by HolyDiver

I'm not going to say that he'll be a bust just yet.........But I highly doubt he'll be lining up at QB and get a free 7 yards a carry...............His college stats are inflated for reasons just like that................He's an all or nothing type of back that kills Defenses in the 4th quarter.................I'm talking about his OWN Defense..............He is NOT the back that will grind out 4 and 5 yard runs all day..........With McFadden, it's either 60 yards and a TD or 3 and out. Either way, the Raiders Defense will ot have enough time to catch their breath.

think he can hit double-digit fumbles if he plays the whole year?

Originally Posted by Tned

No doubt about it.

The biggest challenge is going to be having the third DC in three years, and on the offense likely scrapping most of what Heimerdinger put in.

Think back three, four, five years ago. The offense was all about disguise and misdirection. Lineup with one RB and two TE and motion a TE to FB. Lineup with two RBs and motion a RB to TE. Lineup with two WR, one TE over the tackle, motion him wde and run up the middle.

Mixup up runs and quarterback bootleg/rollouts so that they got the defense flowing in one direction, and brought the play back the other direction.

During the time we did that successfully, we replaced a lot of players, but continued to have success. No, not superbowl success, because the Colts kept anhilating our defense, and then the AFCCG game, but consistant success on offense. It was because as Bill Parcells said before the Thanksgiving game during the AFCCG year, "the Broncos only run about 5 plays, but they run them very well and out of a bunch of different formations, so you never really know which one they are going to run". Now, I wrote that as a quote, but that is paraphrasing.

Look on offense. We have a 3rd year QB. If Marshall is healthy, a Third year #1 WR, a 3rd year pass catching TE, a veteran #2/slot receiver in his second year in Denver, another TE in his second year, and all of our linemen except Clady are in at least their second year in Denver, most more than 2 years. So, other than Clady and the FA WR's, our offense will have played together 1-2 years. Now, offset that by the fact Shanny will need to throw out much of Dinger's playbook along with Dinger himself and that offsets it, but while we are young on offense, it isn't like we are starting a bunch of rookies this year. It isn't like we have a rookie QB. He is a third year QB.

On Defense you have Bly and Bailey, who are veterans. Lynch (will he be a full time starter?) and somebody other than a rookie (not sure who is going to win the free safety job).

At LB you have DJ and Boss, both experienced, while Boss is new to Denver, and a big questionmark at MLB.

On the line, you will have a rotation of DE's that will be 2nd year, 3rd year and veteran ends, and at tackle you will likely have a rotation of Robertson (veteran, new to team), Thomas (2nd year), Ekuban and maybe the new guy I am drawing a blank on that we just drafted.

So, yes, the team is young, but it is a mixture of veterans with 2nd/3rd year players, with likely only 1 rookie starting in Clady.

As I said, the big challenge will be can Slowik implement a 'new' defensive scheme that can both be adapted to quickly by all players and effective, and does Shanahan dig back into the offense and get back to what gained him the mastermind label (and contrary to what some believe, it wasn't just a QB named John), or will he just let Dennison meander along and find his own way.

If you're right about Shanahan taking a hands off approach as the year's have gone by then consider how poorly the offense played this past season I don't see how he will just let Dennison meander along as you put it.

Also Slowik has caught a lot of criticism because he didn't pan out as DC in Green Bay but I'm not uncomfortable with being our DC. I think Shanahan gets him kind of players he needs to make defense work I think we'll be ok.

i'm thinking somewhere between 6-10 and 8-8, so split the difference and call it 7-9 again. . .


i just don't see where the improvement has come from compared to last season's roster, and our new coordinators aren't exactly proven winners. . . if this team is going to be significantly better, i think the improvement will have to come from within-- specifically, i'm looking at cutler and the DLs from last year's draft. . .

Originally Posted by TXBRONC

If you're right about Shanahan taking a hands off approach as the year's have gone by then consider how poorly the offense played this past season I don't see how he will just let Dennison meander along as you put it.

Also Slowik has caught a lot of criticism because he didn't pan out as DC in Green Bay but I'm not uncomfortable with being our DC. I think Shanahan gets him kind of players he needs to make defense work I think we'll be ok.

If I was Bowlen, I would have had a conversation with Shanahan that went something like:

"Mike, I think you have done a great job running this team. We have won two SB's. You brought Gary [Kubiak] along great, and he is now a head coach. Lately, you might have been so focused on managing, that you stopped coaching, which was ok with Gary here, but now it's time to bring Rick [Dennison] along the way you did Gary. Your an offensive genius, and right now we need an offensive genius to get us back to where we want to be."

Or, something like that.