Broncos Defense spoils Shanahan's Homecoming

Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie pick 6 late in the 2nd half sealed the deal for the Broncos.

Mike Shanahan is the greatest Coach in the History of the Denver Broncos franchise and ranks as one the best in NFL History and one day he will be in the Hall of Fame. This week he came back to Denver hoping to remind Broncos Fans that he’s still one of the best in the NFL and capable of leading a team like the Redskins to a win over his old team.

During the first half and into the start of the second half the Redskins Defense seemed to have handcuffed Peyton Manning. If you combine this with some outstanding play in the Washington secondary and an aggressive pass rush through 2 ½ quarters it looked the Redskins might hang in there and make a game of it. After DeAngelo Hall intercepted a Manning pass and ran it in for a 26 yard pick 6 and a 21-7 Skins lead early in 3^rd Q Shanahan started to get away from a the game plan that could of helped him pull off a big upset.

Instead of pounding the ball down the Broncos throats with Alfred Morris and Roy Helu, to slow the game down, run time off the clock and keep the ball out of the hands of Manning he repeated his past history. He decided his large clever offense play book could fool the Broncos D by having a mix of run and Robert Griffin III passes to keep the chains moving, drives alive and thus scoring more points.  

It failed, just as is it failed late in his career in Denver when his offense unit’s biggest strength was playing smash mouth football and ball control offense. The last 2 or 3 years in Denver Shanahan seemed to think John Elway was still his starting QB and that Rod Smith, Eddie McCaffery and Shannon Sharpe was on the line of scrimmage. Shanny believed that running the ball well even when it was very successful and effective was boring. Balance was very important to him. He strongly believed that in his system Jay Cutler could execute the deep passing game but Cutler could never play consistently enough and the only real deep threat he had in those years at WR was Brandon Marshall.

Despite having one of the strongest running teams in the NFL those last few years in Denver Shanahan refused to alter his game plan. Had he just made the decision to run the ball in many of the close games the Broncos played in back then I’m convinced his Coaching stats in Denver would have included more regular season wins and playoff W’s. Shanahan’s ego and belief in his own system was blinding his ability to play to the strengths of the team he had before him. He needed to make adjustments to his offense that fit the talent of the team but he refused and it cost him his job.    

Yesterday was a repeat performance of his failed philosophy. RGIII still wasn’t a 100% with his injured knee and doesn’t have a stable of quality WR’s to throw to. TE Jordan Reed was taken 23^rd in the 3 round of this year’s draft and he was been RGIII’s only Receiver consistently catching any balls for him in the Redskins last 2 games. So it seemed fairly stupid to have RGIII drop back and attempt to throw the ball despite Denver’s secondary being dead last in pass defense coming in. The pass rush of the Broncos made up for it though and got after RGIII even so much as to injure his other healthy knee.

The Broncos Defense played as well in the second half of this game as they have all season and deserves much of the credit for this win getting 3 sacks and 1 pick 6 by Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. Last week the Broncos turned the ball over 4 times and lost. This week Manning didn't play his best game and turned it over 4 times and they won thanks to the D. He rebounded by passing well in the 2nd half and with the help of Knowshon Moreno adding 133 yards of total offense. Moreno had a few hiccups against the Colts last week but played hard again this week and made some key plays that helped the Broncos score 38 unanswered points in the 2^nd half. I was happy to see Montee Ball get more playing time and score his 1^st NFL TD. One day Ball is going to be a big stud for the Broncos.

The injuries to Julius Thomas, Duke Ihenacho and Chris Harris could be big for the Broncos in the second half of the season if serious. Hopefully Manning's ankles will get enough rest so that he’ll be stronger in 2 weeks. I know they were some other players dinged up for the Broncos but at this writing no injury report has been published.

All in all the Broncos had a great first half of the season. I just pray now that after they come back from the bye they finish just as well, especially in the playoffs and let’s hope the Super Bowl.  GO BRONCOS!!

Next weekend will be all about my wife Jenny Jacques since the Broncos don’t play. What’s on the calendar Babe? I’m all yours.

A "Successful" Broncos Season is what?

First, you have to separate what is defined as a great season and a “successful” season. In 1996 the Broncos were a 13-3 team, had home field throughout and then proceeded to lose to the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars. After this one was over I didn’t call that Broncos season a success at all. After this one no hard core Broncos fan and no one in the media called that season a success either. It was such an epic failure that there was talk after the game that the great Elway might retire.

I consider that loss the worst defeat in Broncos team history, #2 was the Washington Redskins Super Bowl loss, then at #3 the epic fail by Jake Plummer when he blew his wad in 2006. The SB losses to the NY Giants and San Francisco 49ers were devastating but both teams were better than the Broncos so it wasn’t a big shock when we came up on the short end.

I remember the Jaguars game like it was yesterday. The day before the game I bought a brand new 32 inch Hitachi Color TV. I invited about 10 friends over to watch the game. I was absolutely convinced the Broncos were going to win the whole thing that year because they had the best regular season record in the AFC and I believed at the time no one could stop them. That one hurt, hurt bad, it crushed Elway and the City of Denver. Did they win a lot of games that year and put up great stats? Oh yeah but to call that season successful is bad joke.

The same would be true of the Redskins loss in the Super Bowl. The Broncos got a second chance after losing to what was a far better team than them in the Giants the year before. The Broncos were the best team in the NFL during the regular season in 1988. The Redskins were lucky to be there.

They let the Bucs QB Doug Williams and RB Tim Smith have career days when both wouldn’t even be backups on most teams. For whatever reason a pretty good Broncos D up until that point unraveled, especially in the secondary that didn't help matters either. Tony Lilly, who can forget Lilly getting beat like a school boy on every pass play.

Then of course there’s 2006, a team as it turned out that was one player, a QB, away from a SB.

After the last Super Bowl win in 1998 Mike Shanahan would go onto have what some would call “successful” seasons. None of them translated into a Super Bowl win however and the memory of the last one has turned into a 13 year wait for another.

The game is played to win championships period. If the Broncos blow a chance here with home field advantage with Peyton Manning at the top of his game and the D playing as well as they have in years I wouldn’t call it a successful season.

THEY MUST WIN THE SUPER BOWL! GO BRONCOS!!