It’s a Lone Star State Showdown!

Password: new england clam chowder

That’s right kids, I am back from my weeklong backwoods retreat. I must admit it is quite liberating to get away from your cell phone and laptop for a few days. Life is much simpler when your biggest concerns are the weather on the horizon, avoiding jet skis in your kayak and identifying the right lure color or fly pattern.

Of course, it figures that I am gone when the national crisis also known as the Brett Favre situation is resolved. The Jets huh? Maybe the Jets figure the only way to beat New England and their AARP-card carrying defense is to have a quarterback that is even older.

At least in New York, Brett’s every move won’t be scrutinized by the press. We should put the over/under on the number of weeks into the season the New York Post makes some horrible pun about the Favre era being a disappointment on its back page. I set it at week 4 right now.

Oh and for all you idiots that set a single day record for buying Favre Jets jerseys on NFL.com? I have a Joe Namath - Rams jersey, O.J. Simpson – 49ers jersey, Tony Dorsett – Broncos jersey, Jerry Rice - Seahawks jersey, Joe Montana – Chiefs jersey, and Emmitt Smith – Cardinals jersey for you. All for the low-low price of $299 each.

Anyway, no reason to beat a dead Favre, that is old news. Last night we had our first live action of your Denver Broncos, in a riveting pre-season game against the Houston Texans (and our old friend head coach Gary Kubiak – or Koobs to some of us). So what did we learn? I’m glad you asked.

• While it is hard to learn much from the two short series by the offense there were a couple things that jumped out at me.
  • Where was the running game? Selvin Young’s 3 yards on 4 carries didn’t exactly inspire confidence that the Broncos running game has returned to its former glory.
  • As if by admission that they couldn’t run, there were a lot of short passes into the flats, especially to running backs out of the backfield. I’ve send this offense before. It is the ‘running game’ that FSU used to run. No, not the offense in those 14 straight years of top-five finishes. That would be the offense in those two straight years of 6 losses. Not that I am saying that is what could happen to the Broncos. There is little chance they have only 6 losses this year.
  • Now that the suspension has been handed down by the Commish it is interesting to see the Broncos make the conscious effort to not throw to Brandon Marshall. Young and Eddie Royal (promoted to starter with Darrell Jackson moving over to Marshall’s position) just jumped about 2 rounds in fantasy drafts this coming week.
• How about poor Matt Prater? Misses his first field goal attempt – a thirty yarder – causing roughly 437,896 Bronco fans mutter ‘I knew we never should’ve let Elam go’. Should we just nickname him Brian Griese right now? Ok, done.
• Speaking of former Bronco quarterbacks, I am reading Stefan Fatsis’s book ‘A Few Seconds of Panic’ right now. A fascinating look at the 2006 Broncos by a Wall Street Journal writer who spent training camp as a kicker with the team. Highly recommended reading, but I just read a chapter focusing on Jake Plummer (this was the year they had just drafted Cutler to replace Jake after he guided the team to the AFC Title game). It was nice to see that my long held feelings about Plummer (here and here) were validated. As were my feelings about Mark Kiszla, the second worst sports writer in Denver (congratulations Bernie Lincicome!).
• I haven’t spoken to Turner yet but I am sure he was thrilled with former Sooner Larry Birdine making a nice defensive play in the last minute. Unfortunately Gary Miller, probably the worst play-by-play announcer in all of pre-season football screwed up his number so his moment of glory was short lived.
• Not to toot my horn but – toot, toot – my two early picks for sleepers of camp played well (and even got mentioned by Woody Paige today, the best sportswriter in Denver). Anthony Alridge accounted for 40 yards of offense and another 23 on a kick-off return, flashing that 4.3 speed for the home folks. The only blip was a fumble, but if he can keep it from becoming a habit he should be ok. My boy Christian Morton accounted for six tackles and a sack in a secondary that was depleted with injuries and resting starters. Next week when he shuts down T.O. you will see (ok, that probably isn’t happening).
• My final note is a shout out to Wesley Woodyard, the leading tackler for the Broncos, a rookie out of Kentucky. Why are we still surprised by productive college players who don’t have the ‘right’ measurables looking good in the pros? Woodyard was the defensive leader on last year’s resurgent Wildcat team and recorded over 100 tackles in each of his final 3 seasons in college in the SEC (as we are told 453 times each fall, the best conference in college football).
• So why did he go undrafted? Apparently he is considered small (6’0”, 230 lbs) and a little slow (4.5 40-yard dash). Hmm, let’s pick a random former Bronco linebacker for comparison.
  • There was one player that was close to his size (6’0”, 240 lbs) and speed (4.56 40-yard dash coming out of college) and was the defensive leader for a strong SEC team (ironically that also beat FSU in a bowl game in the player’s senior year).
  • But why would we want another player to have a career like Al Wilson? He was a total bust – only a 5 time Pro-Bowler and the heart and soul of an AFC championship game team. Nah, why would anyone want that type of guy on their team.

My Week at Summer Camp – Day Three, Part Two

Note: This week, after realizing that planned (and desperately needed) vacation time coincided with the opening week of Bronco training camp, I decided to head down to Dove Valley for several days this week. I will be providing nightly updates on what we have learned about your 2008 Denver Broncos.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

We are back with our final posting from Bronco training camp. After attending the morning session and taking a lunch break we picked up Turner’s son Jacob and headed back for the afternoon session.

o        We are immediately struck by the differences between the morning sessions and the afternoon session. First (and most important) the grassy berm where we are herded is in the shade, making it feel probably 15 degrees cooler than this morning. Second, the players seem ready for a nice siesta in the shade too. The shoulder pads from this morning are gone and the players are in jerseys and shorts. Looks like Darrell Jackson is safe from getting blasted again.

o        The other thing that we notice is that there are a group of guys who are apparently learning the proper technique for calling a fair catch. Seriously, they are practicing waving their arms while a ball is in the air on the way to them. I don’t know about you, but I learned this highly complex skill about my sophomore year of high school.

o        The punt drill does provide some entertainment in that Jacob has found a new favorite Bronco during the drill. That’s right, Jacob is now a huge fan of the Jugs machine sending the balls skyward.

o        As the players stretch even more casually than in the morning session (if that’s possible), we notice Champ Bailey hanging out in a grey t-shirt talking to Dre Bly while Dre chews on sunflower seeds. Champ is on the sidelines and Dre thinks he is hanging out in the Rockies dugout. Yes, this is going to be a tense practice.

o        Thanks to their status as long-time veterans and Pro-Bowlers both Champ and John Lynch are excused from practice. In fact, I don’t even remember seeing Lynch, hmmm.

o        Well, here you go. For the second time in a week we are posting some breaking news at profootballblogger. That’s right, John Lynch has left Bronco training camp. Apparently unsatisfied with being a part-time starter (the part time when the other team isn’t expected to pass), Lynch is debating about hanging up the cleats.

§         It is hard to have anything but admiration for Lynch. He was the consummate professional; a smart, tough player who made every team he played on better. With the Broncos losing Rod Smith and (possibly) Lynch in the span of one week, there is a huge gaping hole in this team at the position of ‘leader’. It is time for D.J. Williams, Champ Bailey and Jay Cutler to take over or a 0-3 start (a distinct possibility if you ask me) could end this team.

o        Back to the actual action on the field….oh wait, even during practice there wasn’t much action on the field.

o        After stretching, the offense heads to the far field (a perennial PR gripe of mine. Why wouldn’t you have the offense near fans? Turner hypothesizes it is to keep Cutler away from the groupies stalking him from the berm). We are left to watch the defense do walk-throughs against a scout offense.

§         As riveting as this sounds, let me tell you, it isn’t. Basically the players line up in their positions and get yelled at by their coach. The ball is then snapped by the scout team and everyone takes about 5 half-jog, half-walking steps to where the would go based on the play run. We watched this for an hour. Thank goodness for the shade, this would have been torture in the sun.

§         The only thing I learned is that Jarvis Moss is even skinnier than he appears in pads (seriously, he might be less built than LeBron James) and he could be the starting defensive end this year. Even if he is a pass rush specialist, if I am an offense I would just run straight at him every time he comes in and let my tackle barrel over him, regardless of down and distance.

§         The only thing Turner learned was that his boy Larry Birdine playing an offensive lineman through the whole practice didn’t get him much closer to making the team as a defensive lineman.

·         Though the CFL scout sitting near us may have been very impressed. Pack your mukluks Larry.

·         Seriously, how sad is that? The man is a professional football scout and he couldn’t get a better seat than about 10 feet from us?

§         The only things that Jacob learned was that Diet Coke tastes good and makes you feel happy and that none of these guys throw as well as the jugs machine.  

o        The highlight of the practice, for me at least, was when the punt team came out and practiced their blocking assignments. Seriously, this was fascinating. I guess I never really spent a lot (or any) time thinking about it but the up-backs really have to read how the receiving team is going to rush and dictate out the blocking assignments. As with everything in the NFL, these calls are very complex and in code. I spent much of the practice trying to decipher how the code words aligned with the rush patterns. I failed. I guess, I can scrap that job with the New England Patriots.

§         At least I have CFL scouting to fall back on.

o        After the riveting punt practice interlude (a phrase I would have been 94.3% sure that I would never type), we returned to the defensive walk-throughs. Thankfully at this point, Jacob had grown a little tired of the walk-throughs and challenged me to tic-tac-toe. Much like Joshua learned, there are no winners in Tic-Tac-Toe.

o        Suddenly after a short hour and twenty minutes the defense came together, gave a team “Broncos” and headed to the locker room. That was apparently the end of my week at camp with the Broncos. Not exactly going out with a bang.

So, that’s it for me. I hope this has been as fun and informative for you as it has been for me. And you didn’t have to risk skin cancer. Anyway, I am taking the next week off and getting away to enjoy the best thing about living in the west (outside of 10 am college football of course) – the wilderness.

Have a good week and I will check in right around the time we get to see these Broncos play another team. If they are playing at 25% speed in no pads, I would put my money on the Broncos.

There is a chance that we could have a guest poster or two in my absence. Remember, even if something is posted under the name ‘David’ it isn’t me unless I use the secret password: ‘new England clam chowder’.