dragondawg
06-06-2007, 03:29 AM
Pessimists may look at new Broncos defensive tackle Sam Adams and see Courtney Brown. Or worse, see Leon Lett. Or even worst of all, see Daryl Gardener. Or anyone who ever played with the Cleveland Browns, one of the few teams that Adams has missed.
Optimists can look at Adams and see Trevor Pryce, although they would have to look at Pryce in a Baltimore uniform, doing things that the Broncos were unwilling to pay him to do, gathering a team-high 13 sacks for the Ravens, or as many as, oh, Ebenezer Ekuban and Kenard Lang put together.
Or maybe Bertrand Berry, who went to the Pro Bowl for Arizona instead of with Denver. Or Reggie Hayward, solid for Jacksonville after leaving Denver, before an injury cost him last season.
The point is, it is possible for a used defensive lineman to do just swell with a new team, just as long as the old team is Denver, and not the new one.
And Adams does have a parallel with Pryce, an injured former Pro Bowler let go by his team.
Who knows how this will work out with Adams, or any of the other, let's count them - 16, yes 16 - defensive linemen on the Broncos roster.
This is the let's-throw-it-against-the- wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to the problem, assuming all of those linemen are strong enough to lift each other.
Clearly Adams, at something around 350 pounds, might need a couple handlers to throw him against a wall, which is the point, or the plan, and beyond that, well, the plan is to be better than awful.
Also clear is where the blame lies for another 9-7 season, where it usually lies when the head coach is an offensive coach. It lies with the defense, for if the defense did its job, the Broncos could win with Jason Elam's foot, which they pretty much did for a while there last year.
The defense got the Broncos off to a splendid start last season, denying touchdowns, flirting with history, earning comparisons to classic groups. And it was the offense that wandered absently amid the confused space between Jake Plummer's ears.
As I recall my own admiration for the defense carrying so much of the early load, I awarded them the Good Slaughterhousekeeping Seal of Approval.
And yet by season's end, the defense was every bit as shabby as the offense without the excuse of a rookie in charge.
The reasons for the collapse may not be laid on Mike Shanahan, flawless in judgment and clear of vision. If a team is not going to win the Super Bowl, then all else is shadowboxing, so a Broncos team aiming at the playoffs that won't win it all may be given over to someone with a brand new learner's permit without expecting any other part of it to flounder.
Surrender is not contagious if disguised properly, that is in the Decree of Shanahan. So any feelings of futility or neglect or of today being put on hold for tomorrow are inexcusable.
If the defense did not play as well later as it did earlier, it was not because the season was realistically finished the moment Jay Cutler was given the starting job, nor because the defense was exhausted from the early effort. It was because it was broken beyond repair and must be fixed.
And someone must be at fault, and the time for quarterback Cutler to get his share of blame is somewhere down the road. He is in that wonderful place where everything is possible and all defects are excused.
To examine what went right early in the season for the Broncos defense might be another way to go rather than to fire the defensive coach, a coach who had kept a middling bunch of castoffs and draft projects in the top 10 in the NFL for most of the time he was in charge.
Now Larry Coyer is gone to Tampa to be folksy with the Bucs defensive line and Jim Bates is in to take Coyer's clipboard, bringing with him a sound reputation and a couple near misses for a head coaching job.
Bates is an assistant head coach for defense and Bob Slowik is the defensive coordinator, an arrangement that makes sense to those to whom it must. From the outside, it looks like more folks to fault.
So it is that the defense is getting the overhaul, the secondary by tragedy, the linebackers by attrition and the line by collection.
This is not so much a case of rearranging the furniture as it is piling it up.
From here to the final training camp cut, it will be one big wallow, may the best lug win
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/sports_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_83_5572944,00.html
Optimists can look at Adams and see Trevor Pryce, although they would have to look at Pryce in a Baltimore uniform, doing things that the Broncos were unwilling to pay him to do, gathering a team-high 13 sacks for the Ravens, or as many as, oh, Ebenezer Ekuban and Kenard Lang put together.
Or maybe Bertrand Berry, who went to the Pro Bowl for Arizona instead of with Denver. Or Reggie Hayward, solid for Jacksonville after leaving Denver, before an injury cost him last season.
The point is, it is possible for a used defensive lineman to do just swell with a new team, just as long as the old team is Denver, and not the new one.
And Adams does have a parallel with Pryce, an injured former Pro Bowler let go by his team.
Who knows how this will work out with Adams, or any of the other, let's count them - 16, yes 16 - defensive linemen on the Broncos roster.
This is the let's-throw-it-against-the- wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to the problem, assuming all of those linemen are strong enough to lift each other.
Clearly Adams, at something around 350 pounds, might need a couple handlers to throw him against a wall, which is the point, or the plan, and beyond that, well, the plan is to be better than awful.
Also clear is where the blame lies for another 9-7 season, where it usually lies when the head coach is an offensive coach. It lies with the defense, for if the defense did its job, the Broncos could win with Jason Elam's foot, which they pretty much did for a while there last year.
The defense got the Broncos off to a splendid start last season, denying touchdowns, flirting with history, earning comparisons to classic groups. And it was the offense that wandered absently amid the confused space between Jake Plummer's ears.
As I recall my own admiration for the defense carrying so much of the early load, I awarded them the Good Slaughterhousekeeping Seal of Approval.
And yet by season's end, the defense was every bit as shabby as the offense without the excuse of a rookie in charge.
The reasons for the collapse may not be laid on Mike Shanahan, flawless in judgment and clear of vision. If a team is not going to win the Super Bowl, then all else is shadowboxing, so a Broncos team aiming at the playoffs that won't win it all may be given over to someone with a brand new learner's permit without expecting any other part of it to flounder.
Surrender is not contagious if disguised properly, that is in the Decree of Shanahan. So any feelings of futility or neglect or of today being put on hold for tomorrow are inexcusable.
If the defense did not play as well later as it did earlier, it was not because the season was realistically finished the moment Jay Cutler was given the starting job, nor because the defense was exhausted from the early effort. It was because it was broken beyond repair and must be fixed.
And someone must be at fault, and the time for quarterback Cutler to get his share of blame is somewhere down the road. He is in that wonderful place where everything is possible and all defects are excused.
To examine what went right early in the season for the Broncos defense might be another way to go rather than to fire the defensive coach, a coach who had kept a middling bunch of castoffs and draft projects in the top 10 in the NFL for most of the time he was in charge.
Now Larry Coyer is gone to Tampa to be folksy with the Bucs defensive line and Jim Bates is in to take Coyer's clipboard, bringing with him a sound reputation and a couple near misses for a head coaching job.
Bates is an assistant head coach for defense and Bob Slowik is the defensive coordinator, an arrangement that makes sense to those to whom it must. From the outside, it looks like more folks to fault.
So it is that the defense is getting the overhaul, the secondary by tragedy, the linebackers by attrition and the line by collection.
This is not so much a case of rearranging the furniture as it is piling it up.
From here to the final training camp cut, it will be one big wallow, may the best lug win
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/sports_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_83_5572944,00.html