The whirlwind experience that is the Denver Broncos soap opera continues.
Longtime head coach Mike Shanahan, a probable future Hall of Fame coach is fired after yet another recent mediocre season. A hot young assistant in Josh McDaniels, not likely ready for prime time, is hired over significantly more experienced and defensively well-versed minds such as Minnesota coordinator Leslie Frazier. Quarterback Jay Cutler's name is floated in trade talks and eventually the Pro Bowler is dealt away after proving his production potential.
Heads are still spinning.
Draft day comes and the Broncos keep the surprises coming drafting a running back and a "who's he" project with their first rounders.
It's almost as if the franchises' fans are the parents and owner Pat Bowlen is the teenager exhibiting a pattern of behavior way outside the norm of stability, making the fans wonder if there are serious emotional issues affecting Bowlen, and his new officers.
Georgia's Knowshon Moreno is by all accounts a dynamic running back headed for a franchise that desperately needs one but the new attitude in the league is that for every LaDainian Tomlinson taken high in the draft there are many productive runners selected long after the first round. The Broncos themselves should remember this well. There is a bounty of strong second-round and second-day backs available and more pressing needs on the other side of the ball.
The Broncos brass must have chosen Moreno because it did not see the playmaking they need in the present roster. Scouts who offered public comments for print before the draft thought Denver was diving head first into a pair of defenders in round one, if not the majority of its' draft.
Not true.
No Texas rusher Brian Orakpo? No physical, intense, heat-seeking missile USC linebacker Brian Cushing? Not even Northern Illinois' pass rusher Larry English, whom San Diego found worthy at pick No. 16? The scoreboard next season will keep ringing like a pinball machine with the Broncos struggling to stop teams.
The theory has to be that with less-dynamic quarterbacking expected in 2009 from either Kyle Orton, Chris Simms, or "OrSims" taking snaps the team had to have a reliable running game to take the pressure off the QB and thus, the coach who treated Cutler like the unwanted girl before prom.
Article comments
1 - RafaTheRed
Very poorly research article!!!