Whoah... Shanny article from the past...

[Popps]

Was just looking for some stats/dates on some past players... and ran across this article. I'm not an anti-Shanahan guy at all, but I thought it was sort of interesting given our current state of affairs.


Could you swap out a few names and run this article tomorrow?



Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Dec 4, 2001 by Lynn Zinser

In the wake of the Denver Broncos' latest collision with a grim reality, don't bother summoning a jury because the verdict has rushed in by affirmation. Mike Shanahan may be a great head coach, but he's not a great, or even good, judge of personnel. In fact, he may be downright miserable.

The names of Shanahan's mistakes are mounting in a scrap heap, a pile the team has ignored for years.

Dale Carter. Leon Lett. Kavika Pittman. Eddie Kennison. Marcus Nash. Travis McGriff. Lester Archambeau. Andre Reed. Billy Jenkins.

Shanahan has rid the team of Shannon Sharpe, Tony Jones, Chris Gizzi and Nate Wayne. He's wrecking Olandis Gary. He's drafted 10 useless receivers. He's flirted with Steve Young, but not Jerry Rice.


Even his successes are starting to look more like luck than skill. He stumbled upon Terrell Davis in the sixth round, got Brian Griese in the third, Gary in the fourth, Desmond Clark and Mike Anderson in the sixth. Those aren't calculated risks. They're low-cost gambles, $1 lotto tickets.

Since 1995, when Shanahan took over as coach and guru, the Broncos' talent pool has evaporated. Now it's a talent puddle. A few injuries have left the team decimated, unwilling to take risks, unable to dictate games.

The Broncos are playing defense on their own reputation as an elite franchise, one that simply reloads and never needs to rebuild.

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Shanahan's creation is now 6-6, its playoff hopes resembling those of Cincinnati and Arizona. Denver is 23-21 since winning its last Super Bowl, 0-1 in the playoffs. Worse, the prospects for a turnaround, and a return to contender status, aren't within grasp. The Broncos are thin in so many places, relying on brittle starters with unproven backups.

In Sunday's excruciating 21-10 loss to Miami on Sunday, Griese found himself throwing to tailback KaRon Coleman at least four or five times on crucial downs. Two weeks ago, Coleman was unemployed, playing catch with his father, wondering if he'd ever get another call from an NFL team.

The Broncos have built for the future in only a few places - oddly enough, mostly on defense.

Shanahan can't blame the salary cap. The Broncos have not had to spend gobs of money for a franchise quarterback, superstar running backs, dynamo pass rushers or run stoppers. They've found their running backs at a thrift store, drafted and developed their quarterback and many of the good parts of their defense.

But Shanahan has thrown gobs of money at free agents, nearly all of it wasted. Pittman for $22 million. Carter for $34.8 million. Lett for $9 million. Archambeau was signed for $17.5 million. He played in three games and made two tackles. Shanahan signed Kennison for $900,000 while snubbing Rice for about the same price.

Shanahan's free-agency successes constitute a much shorter list: Ed McCaffrey, Howard Griffith, Mark Schlereth, Bill Romanowski - counted for past seasons' success, not current state of skill - and judgment remains out but leaning toward kudos for Denard Walker.

Whether through free agency or the draft, Shanahan's attempts to find NFL-caliber wide receivers to back up McCaffrey and Rod Smith have dissolved into a Three Stooges routine. McGriff. Nash. Kennison. A washed up Reed, Robert Brooks and Flipper Anderson.

It's easy to judge drafts in hindsight, but consider last spring's draft: the Broncos picked defensive end Paul Toviessi, who might contribute down the road. Nobody really knows how good he is. He's spent the season on injured reserve, might not have played if healthy.

In the next draft spot, Miami grabbed deep threat wide receiver Chris Chambers, the AFC's likely offensive rookie of year with 20 yards a catch and five touchdowns. Yes, it's the Chris Chambers who scored Miami's first touchdown against Denver on Sunday.

The problem is, that scenario has played itself over and over since '95 and what's left is a team with nearly no offense, no backups, no imagination, and now, no hope.

The chances of fixing all of this, to reload and rebuild, were lost in that mound of names drowning Shanahan's resume like a pair of cement boots.

The Broncos have a great coach. They need to start shopping for a new guru.

[CBF1]

O U C H..... Not much has changed in 6 years

[SoCalBronco]

On the FA side, yeah, for the most part, we've had alot of trouble, especially on the high priced FA's, although some of the fairly moderate signings have been pretty solid. I think our drafts have been pretty solid, actually, with the exception of 2003, although that is contrary to popular opinion. On the FA side, though, yeah, we need a major re-tooling of how we assess players who'll fit in and the cost-benefit analysis deal. Another problem, that was mentioned in that Abdullah thread was how we seem to sometimes ignore a particular position for years before finally doing something about it. S is a long running issue with no promising kids in the system, DL for a long time was the same etc. I don't hate Sundquist, although I do hate how he passes off unbelievably false statements to the press/fans for public consumptions and expects people to eat it up.

[24champ]

I don't care if Sundquist and Shanny is on the same page, it's clear that we need a new talent evaluator. Our recent draft classes have been alright, but we can do better.

[Kaylore]

He hit on Bailey and Lynch. Portis. D-wil and Foxworth. Cutler, Marshall, Dumervil, Scheffler - these are all guys that have contributed. The drafts lately have been pretty good. Free agency is a mixed bag. The projects he's brought in haven't always worked out. I'm one of the few that doesn't believe that Bly sucks. I also think Graham was a good pickup, but he's just not a pass-catcher. We brought in and turned Bertrand Berry's career around, but then the Browncos didn't work out so well. We'll see...

[SoCalBronco]

We can't do that, 24. The power is already granted to Shanny in his contract to have the final say on all personnel matters. It's not like Bowlen can go out there and hire a GM. He's already vested the power somewhere else, by contract.

[Popps]

I will say, we've done some good things lately, though.

Cutler, Marshall, Graham (I believe will pan out), Stokley, Walker, Sheffler, Dumveril.

We just need to do better things in the right places, and Shanahan needs to get this team believing in his philosophy again... or he needs to go.

[24champ]

Originally Posted by SoCalBronco

We can't do that, 24. The power is already granted to Shanny in his contract to have the final say on all personnel matters. It's not like Bowlen can go out there and hire a GM. He's already vested the power somewhere else, by contract.

You are right but we need somebody with a clear ability to see talent. Sundquist strikes me as a numbers/business guy rather than a talent evaluator. Shanny could listen to somebody that has a clue about talent and make a better decision on getting players.

[Mr Chatterboodamn]

[24champ]

"Hey Lelie looks like a better choice than Reed"

[bronco militia]

and if you look a few weeks after this article when the broncos finished their season getting blown out at Indi, all anyone could talk about was Shanny leaving for Florida.

[NaptownChief]

Shanny should spend a moment everyday paying homage to John Elway because John made him a multi, multi millionaire and bought him a lot of freedom and extra years as a highly paid head coach.

[Rohirrim]

The problem is, that scenario has played itself over and over since '95 and what's left is a team with nearly no offense, no backups, no imagination, and now, no hope.

The chances of fixing all of this, to reload and rebuild, were lost in that mound of names drowning Shanahan's resume like a pair of cement boots.

The Broncos have a great coach. They need to start shopping for a new guru.

"Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee."

[Rock Chalk]

Originally Posted by NaptownChief

Shanny should spend a moment everyday paying homage to John Elway because John made him a multi, multi millionaire and bought him a lot of freedom and extra years as a highly paid head coach.

Belichik better do the same with Brady. Because Bill sucked pretty bad until Brady turned the Cheaters around.

[theAPAOps5]

People act like Shanny just became a head coach and walked into Elway. But people especially other teams fans don't realize that Shanny pretty much developed Elway and the only reason Shanny left is because Reeves was threatened by their relationship and fired him.

[eddie mac]

I'd love to know when Shanahan's ever going to find value for money in a high priced free-agent. He's never been able to manage that in the last 5-10 years.

No-one in their right mind can say that the last 3 high priced FA's through the Denver doors have been anywhere near value for money. (Henry/Graham/Gold). It seems nowadays if you want to land a decent player from another team you have to take a risk either via trade (Bailey/Bly) players coming off injuries (Walker/Stokley) or players who've underwhelmed on previous teams (Warren/Brown/Ekuban).

IMHO free agency is a waste of time. It certainly has been for this franchise for the last good few years. The draft/trades are the way forward.

[telluride]

Originally Posted by bronco militia

and if you look a few weeks after this article when the broncos finished their season getting blown out at Indi, all anyone could talk about was Shanny leaving for Florida.

He should have. We'd be better off.

[broncofan2438]

It is just a big mess right now, Kubiak was definately a mistake of getting rid of him. But who can we really turn our heads to right now

[broncosteven]

I remember this Miami game, we were down 14 -10 in 4th quarter and moving the ball before Greaseman decided that he didn't want to get hit and threw the ball to the nearest D-lineman who ran it back for the TD.

I use this example of GREASMAN's skills to prove to DUH BEAR fans that GREASEMAN is not a starting QB in this league.

[Vegas_Bronco]

I believe in the new rookie surrounded by seasoned vets draft strategy-

We needed some Dline this past year, but instead of getting a solid leader and veteran or 2 to lead the new recruits, we just turned full efforts on new draft picks. Then, we lost something in turning the class of rookies loose with no leadership or sense of responsibility - they have no accountability and therefore perform at a lower level.

We all know, if you work next to the top producer everyday, you will learn and observe from a top producer - eventually making you more effective AT A FASTER RATE.

We had this at CB position last year and our success with our rookies in the secondary was excellent. I believe all our rookies wanted to be the next Champ Bailey. Our TE position has also been excellent and untill late, our Oline development was pretty okay also. Our WR corps has been developed by Rod as much as it has by any coaching staff. Plummer was a great 'coach' and friend for Cutler as much as Shanny was.

We failed this in letting Al Wilson go...I would much rather have him on the sidelines coaching a new LB than having Gold or Webster on the roster. I'm sure he would have restructured his contract and we could have found an creative way to place him on IR. There is sooooo much Al could have taught DJ and this LB Corps. I believe our LB are soft because Al pulled the best out of them each week and now he's not there to do it and they have no leader and don't want to be leaders.

In short, we are a 'young team' simply b/c the organization places too much emphasis on the big name free agents and little on leadership and team dynamic. We truly need some more leaders to step up and replace the veteran leadership this team is lacking. I believe we have it in Doom, and Marshall, but we need more, more, more! Hopefully Jay becomes a vocal leader soon - he could influence the whole offensive development like Brady and Manning do with their newbies.

Stokley said the reason he was motivated to become better was b/c the other WRs told him that Manning won't pass the ball to someone who doesnt run a near perfect route and forget it if you drop the ball...he simply won't pass it to you. Who wouldn't be motivated if you knew this going into game prep. I do believe Brady would kick your arse verbally if you made a mistake on his team too. We need that kind of leadership on this team now!

[Spider]

missing Al Wilson pretty bad this year ...

[bloodsunday]

Originally Posted by Popps

I will say, we've done some good things lately, though.

Cutler, Marshall, Graham (I believe will pan out), Stokley, Walker, Sheffler, Dumveril.

We just need to do better things in the right places, and Shanahan needs to get this team believing in his philosophy again... or he needs to go.

Yeah but the key is to follow-up on this. We can't have all these players leave via FA or blow the next 3 drafts.

The missing piece is consistency and discipline. We are so hell bent on winning this year that we are sacrificing the future. We make very short-sighted decisions.

Case in point, was Jarvis Moss really worth moving up for? Seriously?! There were are any number of pass-rushers equal to him (at least in the number of question marks) available and it cost us another pick. We can't do that kinda crap.

I also believe that Simeon Rice was another catastrophic failure at this point.

[Wes Mantooth]

I am not at all dissapointed with the last two drafts. I see direct correllation between draft philosophies and coaching turnover. To bad the young talent is better but coaching is in the dumps.

[bronco militia]

Originally Posted by telluride

He should have. We'd be better off.

sure thing, Mrs Cleo

[Circle Orange]

Originally Posted by Alec

Belichik better do the same with Brady. Because Bill sucked pretty bad until Brady turned the Cheaters around.

Tom's good, but he never had to carry a team the same way. Belly-Hick gets good players and makes every piece play, so its harder to defend them. They don't highlight any one player and this is why they can shuttle guys in and out.

If anything, Tom should kiss Drew's feet the rest of his career for getting hurt.