Category Archives: Broncos/NFL

June 5, 2012

A first for Peyton Manning

Everybody knows that Todd Helton used to play football, preceding Peyton Manning as the quarterback for the University of Tennessee Volunteers.

What you may not know is Manning used to play baseball. He was the shortstop at Isidore Newman School, the private high school he attended in New Orleans. But as he told the story Monday on the Dave Logan Show, even baseball became a way to get in extra football practice.

“All my receivers played baseball, so we’d go play baseball and then we’d keep our spikes on and go back to the school after the game and throw pass routes,” Manning said. “So it was a good transition from baseball to football.”

Watching his old friend Helton and the Rockies play at Coors Field has been one of the few diversions Manning has allowed himself during his intensive work at Dove Valley to get ready for the Broncos season. He attended Sunday’s series finale against the Dodgers — a 3-2 Rockies win — and hung out with Helton for a bit in the clubhouse afterward.

“It’s been a lot of fun being in the same city with Todd,” Manning said. “He’s always supported me in a big way and I’ve been a huge fan of him. It’s kind of fun that he and I played at Tennessee together and we’re still kind of hanging around. I’m hoping the Rockies get on a little run here. I think they’re playing good as of late. Hopefully they can get Arizona and come back and get Anaheim this weekend.”

Hanging out in the Rockies clubhouse gave Manning an insight into the vast difference between preparing for 162 games a year, as the Rocks do, and preparing for 16, as the Broncos do.

“I will tell you one thing I am envious about,” he said. “That locker room in baseball, it’s so laid back. It has to be. I mean, 162 games. In football, if you smile before the game you get in trouble because you’re not focused. And there’s something to it. Obviously, they want to win, but it is a different atmosphere when it comes to that.”

Manning admitted to a little impatience with the strict rules in the new collective bargaining agreement governing practice time. Joining a new team, learning a new system and practicing with new teammates, he’d like all the practice time he can get.

“I’ve enjoyed the increased activities we’ve been allowed to do,” he said in the midst of the Broncos’ third set of organized team activities (OTAs). “I really haven’t left since I signed here back in March. At first, we weren’t even allowed to throw at the facility. We could only lift weights here. Then we could throw here with just players, no coaches. And then coaches could come on the field. And now, finally, we’re in these OTAs where we can go against the defense. We’ve got jerseys, we’ve got helmets, it feels like a football practice in a normal football environment.

“I think we’re getting good work done. We’re learning a lot, just trying to improve every day. So it’s been part of the process for me, but I’ve enjoyed being around the guys and getting to know them as people, but also getting to know them on the field as football players and timing and just getting comfortable.”

Following up on his mention of timing, I asked if he had any idea how long it might take to develop the sort of chemistry with his new receivers that he famously enjoyed with pass catchers such as Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark in Indianapolis for 13 seasons.

“It’s hard to give a date,” he said. “That certainly is something that we’re shooting for. Believe me, I’d like to have it down perfectly by tomorrow. Every time we throw an incompletion in practice, it’s not something that I want. I want to complete every single pass in practice. The only way I do know to get that timing is to push the comfort level out here in practice. To attempt passes, to try things. We’re getting great work going against some great guys in our secondary.

“It’s not something that happens overnight, but it is something that you can try to make happen overnight by just taking advantage of every repetition and every opportunity to meet, and after practice on your own. I threw some with (Demaryius) Thomas today after practice, trying to kind of grab a different guy to get some work.

“It’s hard to say when you can have it. I think one thing I’ve really tried to do is just not play any kind of comparisons to my years in Indy as far as receivers. It’s a different time and we’ve got different guys and we’re continuing to work to try to get our timing down. It’s a challenge that I look forward to trying to beat.”

Even after 13 years in the NFL, Manning said Denver reporters asked him a question after Monday’s workout he had never gotten before.

“People are passionate about their football,” he said. “I’m not going to lie, I had an all-time first today. I was being asked about some incompletions that we threw in practice. That’s just never happened to me before. That’s kind of like asking Todd why he didn’t hit more home runs in batting practice.”

Nevertheless, Manning found himself explaining why he might throw to a covered receiver in practice when someone else was open.

“In practice, we are working on certain things,” he said. “There are times when coach (Mike) McCoy will tell me, ‘Hey, I want you throw it to this guy no matter what. I want you to force this play in no matter what the defense does.’

“So you work on these things in practices. I can assure you I have no idea what my all-time statistics are in practice. That’s not a statistic anybody really wants to keep up with.”

For now, the Broncos are still installing plays, the first stage of getting a new offense down.

“You’re putting in new plays during this time and you’re running these plays for the first time against the defense,” Manning said. “You get to run them one time and you’d like to run it again and they say, ‘No, there’s another new play we have to run next.’

“So it is hard in these OTAs to master a play. That’s what I like about minicamp and especially in training camp, we’ll be able to repeat some of these plays that we put in and really try to get comfortable in learning everything about the play. Because really, to learn everything about a play, you really have to rep it a number of times. With the new rules and the limited amount of time you’re allowed on the practice field, there is a challenge in that. But it’s one that we’ll be able to still maneuver around.”

Between mastering the new playbook, his continuing injury rehab and acclimating himself to a new environment and new teammates, Manning hasn’t taken a lot of time off to check out the city or the state. He is a notorious workaholic, which may explain his four NFL most valuable player awards. But what he’s seen so far of the Broncos’ fan base confirms the impressions he formed as a visiting player.

“I really wish I had more time to experience it more,” he said. “People do ask me, ‘How do you like Denver?’ and I really can’t honestly tell them that I’ve had a chance to do some things that I want to do because I have spent so much time over here. The Rockies games have been the one little getaway that I have and I have been to a couple of benefits. I really don’t know it as well as I’d like to know it.

“All I can tell you is the people just couldn’t be any friendlier. There’s a great sense of hospitality here from the people. People really love this city. One thing I have learned is I’ve met a lot of people who really aren’t from here originally but moved here at different points in their lives. Take John Lynch, take Brandon Stokley, some other non-athletes that live here, and just how much they fell in love with it once they moved here. So I think that speaks a lot about the city and the people.

“From the football standpoint, I can just tell from the times that I’ve played out here how passionate these people are about their football. That’s the kind of environment that you want to play in as an athlete. Denver’s always had that passion and I’m hoping I can do my part and be a part of it. That’s why I’m working so hard, so hopefully we can give these fans something to cheer about.”

Leave a comment | tags: Peyton Manning, Todd Helton | posted in Broncos/NFL, Rockies/MLB

May 24, 2012

A Colorado original

By Dave Krieger

He is such a familiar presence on the Denver media landscape that it’s easy to forget just how unusual and varied Dave Logan’s list of career accomplishments is. But the Denver Athletic Club’s announcement this week that it will honor him with its Career Achievement Award next month was a timely reminder.

I first met Logan in the summer of 1984, just after the Broncos acquired him from the Cleveland Browns for a fourth-round draft choice. Although we were born the same year, he was an old NFL receiver and I was a young sportswriter.

Entering his ninth season as an NFL possession receiver, Logan had a reputation for great hands and the courage to catch balls over the middle and take the vicious hits that came with them. Because of his height and athletic ability, the Browns occasionally used him as a safety in Hail Mary situations, which accounts for the lone interception on his resume, off Atlanta’s Steve Bartkowski.

He was coming home to a place where he had starred at Wheat Ridge High School, winning the Denver Post‘s Gold Helmet Award as the state’s top senior football player, scholar and citizen, and at the University of Colorado, where he lettered in both football and basketball. He was drafted by baseball’s Cincinnati Reds as a high school senior, and by the Browns and basketball’s Kansas City Kings as a college senior. Dave Winfield is the only other athlete to be drafted in all three sports.

The prospect of coming home was so attractive to him that he lobbied the Browns to make the deal, but his return did not work out as he had hoped. Why Broncos coach Dan Reeves traded for him was never really clear. He stuck him behind Steve Watson, the Broncos’ top receiver, where he seldom got a chance to play. In four games, Logan caught one pass for three yards after catching 37 for 627 the season before.

Strangely, Reeves then moved him to H-back, the Broncos’ second tight end, a position Logan had never played. In his first game there, against his former team, Logan was asked to block Pro Bowl linebacker Chip Banks, then blamed for not doing it successfully.

No wide receiver would ever have been given such an assignment. Logan, it seemed, was being set up. Four weeks into the season, Reeves cut him.

Logan had every right to be bitter. He had been the Browns’ leading receiver in 1983. He had come home for this?

The yellowed clipping from the Rocky Mountain News is dated Sept. 27, 1984. Here’s a passage from the perplexed piece I wrote at the time:

Logan, who never uttered a discouraging word despite finding himself a fourth (or fifth) receiver after seven years of starting in Cleveland, would not knock the Broncos even after he was waived Wednesday.

“The only thing I can understand from the whole situation is for a guy that’s played eight years, if they weren’t going to give me any playing time, it would be better for the team to bring in a young receiver they could develop,” he said. “If I were on their side, I would feel the same way.”

I tried to get him to rip Reeves, believe me. He wouldn’t do it. This was my first experience watching Logan take the high road. It would not be my last.

We pay a lot of attention these days, as we should, to the difficulties former players have when their careers are over. So many of them struggle to find an identity beyond what they used to be. Everybody’s All-American, the Frank Deford novel later made into a movie starring Dennis Quaid and Jessica Lange, captures the sadness of a life lived in the rearview mirror.

Logan never looked back. Rather than chase a fading playing career in the usual way, trying to make another team in training camp the following summer, Logan settled down in his hometown and started looking around for a new career. The things he has accomplished since would each be a highly satisfying life for many of us. That they are combined on one resume is extraordinary.

He began his media career as a radio talk show host, a role he continues today, more than 20 years later, as host of the Dave Logan Show on 850 KOA. He parlayed his background as a former player to become a color analyst on Nuggets and Broncos broadcasts and telecasts.

In 1996 he broke out of the stereotype by moving from the analyst’s chair to the play-by-play chair on Broncos broadcasts. This fall will mark his 17th as the voice of the Broncos. Catch a Broncos highlight on national TV, whether it’s John Elway from the championship years or Tim Tebow from last season, and it’s Logan’s trademark call you’ll hear on the voiceover.

For lots of folks in my trade, the media business, this would be a hugely successful career all by itself, without the talk show or the history as a player. There are only 32 local NFL play-by-play voices, and many fewer than that who last long enough to become institutions in the role.

But long ago, Logan also began indulging his passion for the game and for young people in another way. He kicked off his high school coaching career at Arvada West in 1993, moved to Chatfield in 2000 and Mullen in 2003. This fall, he begins a new chapter in his coaching career at Cherry Creek.

In 19 seasons, he has taken his teams to the playoffs 17 times and won six championships in the state’s highest classification. It’s well known that he donates his coaching salary to his assistants.

Each of these careers — as a player, a coach and a media personality — has been remarkably successful in its own right. That they have all been accomplished by the same person would be hard to imagine if Logan didn’t make it look so easy. As we know from watching the best athletes perform, that’s the mark of the great ones.

“Dave is arguably the most versatile and accomplished sportsman produced in Colorado,” Broncos vice president and unofficial Colorado sports historian Jim Saccomano posted on Twitter when he heard about the DAC’s decision to bestow its Career Achievement Award.

“Logan is the only prep coach in history to win six state titles in the highest classification of play with three separate schools in one state,” Saccomano wrote. “That stat is for all 50 states. Next highest is a coach with three titles. Logan has six. That’s an astonishing statistic.”

Saccomano did not make this up. A couple of years ago, he had Broncos media relations folks call the high school athletic associations of all 50 states to see if anybody else had won titles at the highest classification with three different schools. They found one who had done it. He had a total of three titles.

Here’s another piece of research courtesy of the veteran Broncos publicist: Only three former NFL players have made the transition from color analyst to play-by-play man — Pat Summerall, the late Tom Brookshier and Dave Logan. That makes Logan the only former player doing play-by-play today.

As his current partner on the talk show, I have a front row seat to his influence in Colorado. Not a week goes by when at least one fan doesn’t call to thank him for the thrills his Broncos calls have provided. When Mullen unaccountably let him go earlier this year, he was flooded with missives from former players and parents of would-be future players. The impact he had on these people, and the emotions they expressed about it, were sometimes overwhelming.

As he did when the Broncos cut him nearly 28 years ago, Logan took the high road. He offered not a word of criticism of his former employer. He urged angry Mullen students and parents to calm down. It’s the way he was raised and the way he’s wired: In everything you do, show class.

He is a fiercely loyal son and father. He could have been on at least two NFL coaching staffs if he had different priorities. As someone fortunate enough to call him a friend, his unbending sense of right and wrong is the most impressive thing about him, even more than any of the career accomplishments for which he’ll be honored.

Living in a world with more than its share of glad-handers and self-promoters — and if you’re wondering whether I’m talking about athletes, coaches, school administrators or media types, the answer is yes — Logan’s idea of the right way to live is deeply old-school. Bring up his achievements and he will swiftly change the subject. Ask for a memory and he will almost certainly give you a funny, self-deprecating one.

I didn’t tell him I was going to write this because if I had, he would have asked me not to. But just think about the exclusive clubs of which he’s a member: One of only two men in the nation to have been drafted in three sports; one of only three former NFL players to become NFL play-by-play voices; the only high school coach to have amassed six championships in his state’s highest classification at three different schools.

Saccomano and the DAC are right. His achievements put Logan in a class by himself. But it’s the values he’s maintained along the way that make him a Colorado original.

Leave a comment | tags: Dave Logan | posted in Broncos/NFL, high school sports, University of Colorado

May 22, 2012

Broncos summer school: Peyton Manning 101

By Dave Krieger

Last summer, when we got our first chance to see the 2011 Broncos on a practice field following the NFL lockout, the quarterbacks were Kyle Orton, Brady Quinn, Tim Tebow and Adam Weber.

Monday, when we got our first chance to see the 2012 Broncos on a practice field, the quarterbacks were Peyton Manning, Caleb Hanie, Brock Osweiler and . . . Adam Weber.

If you conclude from this that Weber is the veteran of this year’s group, welcome back from your trip to Neptune. Hope it was fun.

Change is a constant in the NFL, but not like this. In sixteen months, John Elway has remade the Broncos in his image, and nowhere is it more obvious than at his old position. In a single offseason, the Broncos went from an early 20th century option offense to a thoroughly 21st century aerial attack.

“Now’s when you kind of form the identity of your football team,” Manning said following Monday’s workout, the only one of three days of organized team activities this week the inquiring minds were permitted to watch. “I’m looking forward to being part of that.”

The change in the offense was obvious to even the casual observer. Near the end of a one hour, 45-minute workout, Manning led the offense in the no-huddle, two-minute drill, reading the defense on the fly and hitting open receivers in the numbers or hands, most of them check-down routes.

“I’ve always believed that you develop your timing for the passing game in the offseason,” Manning said. “I don’t think you can just show up in September and expect to be on the same page. What a great opportunity for these receivers going against these corners. If you can’t get better going against some of these top cover corners, it’s just not meant to be. It’s a great challenge for everybody. Offseason workouts are a great time to make an impression on the coaches. This is where roster spots are made and the coaches are constantly evaluating. So there are a lot of benefits to this work.”

In the excitement over Elway’s overhaul of the offense, it’s easy to overlook the addition of veteran cornerbacks Tracy Porter and Drayton Florence to the roster. Along with holdover Champ Bailey, they give the Broncos a much-improved cover capacity that should test the team’s young receivers as the offense comes together this summer.

Two receivers begin with the advantage of having worked with Manning in Indianapolis — tight end Jacob Tamme, who caught one of his throws in the two-minute drill, and slot receiver Brandon Stokley, who, like Manning, will be 36 by the time training camp opens.

“Tamme and I had a talk today,” Manning said. “We were both excited about this practice, probably more excited than most other guys. It’s a new team for us, a new place. Stokley, this is his second stint here. But this is an exciting time. (Offensive Coordinator Mike) McCoy was great about, ‘Hey, we’re working hard, this is serious business, but it’s important to be excited out there, to be encouraged, enthusiastic and have fun.’

“I think we’ll do that all through OTAs and minicamp. I thought the tempo of practice was excellent. Guys were flying around, a fast-moving practice, upbeat—that’s the way I like to work. It was good to see that from everybody today.”

Manning was barking orders during the hurry-up offense just as he did for so many years with the Colts, motioning players into position.

“He’s not bashful, let’s just put it that way,” Stokley said with a smile.

“Guys that command the respect of their teammates can do that,” Tamme said. “He’s a guy you know is going to do everything he can to be his best every day. That’s what you want in a quarterback — a guy that leads, and he’s certainly one of the best.”

Manning’s former teammates seem more comfortable letting him do the talking, which is another example of the tone set by many team leaders in sports. For example, when I asked Stokley about the differences between the new Broncos offense and the old Colts offense, he politely demurred.

“No comment on that,” he said. “I mean, why would I tell you that? That’s just going to help the other teams out. Everybody will just have to wait and see.”

Manning was somewhat more expansive on this topic. The new Broncos offense, he said, is not simply a transplant of the old Colts offense.

“You’ve got different terminology and different players,” he said. “There’s no question it’s different. So the more repetition you get — I do feel on-the-field reps are the best type of reps. There’s classroom work, which is important, you have to study and take your notes, but there’s nothing quite like being out there on the field, executing the play, going against fast defensive players like Von (Miller) and Champ. That’s the best way to learn, in my opinion.”

Bailey, along with Elvis Dumervil, was one of the Broncos’ leading lobbyists while Manning was determining his destination as a free agent. Anxious to compete for a championship in the final years of his career, Bailey believes the new quarterback puts the Broncos on a different level.

“It feels good to know he’s going to be on my side,” the eleven-time Pro Bowl selection said. “What I saw today, he’s going to give us some good work. We might not see a quarterback like that all year. It’s going to be something that’s going to get us prepared for games.”

Manning continued to avoid talking specifically about his recovery from the multiple neck surgeries that kept him out of action all last year, but he acknowledged that missing a full season means he has some catching up to do.

“I certainly have different checkpoints,” he said. “I kind of like (getting) hit. There’s no question that this work will be significant for me, because going against air is one thing, but getting the snap — for me, there’s the physical challenge and the mental challenge of being able to execute these new plays, knowing where these new receivers are going to be and also seeing what you can do.

“There’s no question it’s a different mentality for me in these OTAs (than) it has been in other years because of all the changes. But I look forward to the challenge. I just can’t tell you how important these OTAs are. I think they’re important for everybody, but when you’re a new player on a new team coming off an injury, they take on added importance. I thought today was an excellent start and I look forward to the rest of the time we’re here.”

Manning continues to describe his recovery as a process. Watching him throw, it was hard to distinguish him from the player we saw for so many years with the Colts.

“This injury has been a new experience for me,” he said. “I’m following the orders of ‘Greek’ (Broncos trainer Steve Antonopulos) and (strength and conditioning Coach) Luke (Richesson), who have been excellent in my rehab and training. I’m taking their orders. I realize I still have work to do. But any time you can go out there and go through a practice, make a good throw or if you have a mistake you can learn from it, I think that’s progress. I still have work to do, like I’ve said all along, but I look forward to making that progress and putting the work in to make that progress.”

The organization is a little less cautious describing his progress.

“Dealing with the physical part, he’s getting better every day,” coach John Fox said. “It’s something we felt good about, our medical people felt good about. His progress has been outstanding. We’re excited about where he is.”

Elway was on the field for most of Monday’s workout, standing alongside Manning during one period when other quarterbacks were running the drills. Seldom has so much quarterbacking expertise occupied such a small space. In the space of his sixteen months in charge, Elway has changed the Broncos dramatically, and the direction and purpose of that change is personified by Manning.

“I think you guys got to see him today,” Tamme said. “Things are going well. I’m not going to speak for him, but it’s been fun. Offensively, I think we’ve got a chance to be good if we just keep working hard.”

“It’s different when you’ve got Peyton back there playing quarterback than most quarterbacks,” Stokley said. “Everything’s a little bit more precise, a little bit more uptempo. It’s just like I remember.”

Leave a comment | tags: Brandon Stokley, Champ Bailey, Jacob Tamme, John Fox, Peyton Manning | posted in Broncos/NFL

May 9, 2012

Karl Mecklenburg: “I have good days and bad days.”

By Dave Krieger

From NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s press conference on Feb. 1, 2008, the Friday before Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, Arizona:

Me: As you may know, in a forthcoming book, a forensic pathologist who did brain autopsies on Mike Webster, Terry Long and Andre Waters suggests that there is a syndrome that some football players suffer from that is similar to the syndrome that some boxers suffer from in terms of brain damage from repeated head trauma. He urges that the league and the union pay for continued medical follow-up for all retired NFL players to determine just how serious of a problem this is. My question is: Do you acknowledge that this is an issue, and would you support that sort of comprehensive follow-up for all retired players?

Goodell: Two points: I think we’ve been very clear about concussions and the importance of dealing with concussions as a medical issue, making sure that we take a very conservative approach that would make sure that we are doing everything to benefit the players’ health and safety. I don’t think any of those claims are backed up by scientific or medical facts. That’s what we’re trying to deal with. We have a committee that has been dealing with concussions for twelve or thirteen years now, which has done ground-breaking research. Certainly, I think we will continue to do this and focus on this. In fact, they are doing a study on former players to make sure they understand, from a scientific and medical standpoint, what is the long-term effect of concussions. I don’t think any of us has an answer to that, and we would like to get that answer, but we’d like to get it on a factual basis, rather than making a lot of charges that can’t be supported medically.”

If he had it to do over again with the benefit of more than four years of hindsight, my guess is Goodell would change that answer quite substantially. The NFL committee on brain injuries to which he referred was subsequently so discredited as an apologist for the league that its co-chairmen, Dr. Ira Casson and Dr. David Viano, resigned in November 2009.

The book to which I referred in my 2008 question, Play Hard, Die Young: Football, Dementia, Depression and Death, by forensic neuropathologist Bennet Omalu, has only gained credibility as more former NFL players have acknowledged suffering from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and/or taken their lives since its publication in 2008, among them Shane Dronett (2009), Dave Duerson (2011) and Junior Seau just last week.

Former Broncos linebacker Karl Mecklenburg is one of sixty plaintiffs in one of the numerous lawsuits against the NFL for its treatment of head injuries over the years. More than 1,200 former players are now named in over fifty separate cases. Former Broncos safety Dennis Smith is a plaintiff alongside Mecklenburg in the action filed in Pennsylvania. Former quarterback Jeff Hostetler is the lead plaintiff in that case.

“I have good days and bad days,” Mecklenburg said this week on the Dave Logan Show. “I have days I have a tough time remembering people’s names. I travel all the time as a motivational speaker and I’ve got to park on the same side of the airport, same level, same row, so I know exactly where my car is when I get back, because I have no idea otherwise. Stuff like that.

“When I go into the hotel room on the road I take out my cell phone and take a picture of the room number and then I know where it is. It’s one of those things you adjust to. And I can’t tell you how much of that is who I am and how much of that is football-related. But I think it’s a little unusual for someone fifty-one years old to be having those kind of issues.”

Like a lot of his fellow plaintiffs, Mecklenburg wonders whether the NFL knew of the potentially devastating effects of head injuries even as its in-house committee was insisting for more than a dozen years that the research was inconclusive.

“If you look historically at what has happened in the NFL and what change has happened, it’s when there’s legal pressure brought on the league,” Mecklenburg said.

“Individually, a guy like (Broncos owner) Pat Bowlen is a wonderful human being, a guy that I’d do anything for. But collectively, the league is in business to make money. They’re not going to do anything that kills the golden goose if they can possibly help it. It’s a contact game, it’s a dangerous game, but you can limit the amount of injuries, especially head injuries, if you legislate for that.

“Since things have come to light, or since they’ve decided that it’s OK for things to come to light, there’s all kinds of rules against going after the head and causing those kind of injuries. And when it happens, it’s taken seriously, where ten years ago I don’t know that the league didn’t already understand that there were long-term effects to head injuries, and the players were told over and over again that that’s not true.

“So, to me, to force the league to say, ‘You know what, the best interest of the players is also in our best interest,’ is really what I’m looking for, and what I’m hoping the other guys are looking for, too.”

As the death toll among former players by their own hands has mounted, there’s been more conversation within the medical community as to whether CTE is the result of major head trauma, what we think of as concussions, or might also be the cumulative effect of hundreds or thousands of minor traumatic incidents that go largely unnoticed, the sort of head-banging that goes on in football practices at every level every day.

“I don’t know,” Mecklenburg said. “That hasn’t been proven one way or another yet. What we do know is that there is a disease called CTE that mimics Alzheimer’s Disease. They’ve identified kind of a rogue protein, the tau protein, that they’ve found in autopsies of guys with this disease, and it’s connected to head blows. And they don’t know whether it’s the one big head blow or a whole bunch of little head blows. They don’t know.

“They realize some people are more susceptible to it than others. But a lot more information has to come in. And hopefully they’re going to be able to find ways to mitigate this thing before it’s an autopsy situation, before forty-three-year-old guys are killing themselves.”

When I mentioned some of the game’s well-known suicide victims, including former Eagles defensive back Andre Waters, former Steelers offensive lineman Terry Long and Duerson, the former Bears defensive back, Mecklenburg mentioned Dronett, the Broncos’ second-round draft pick in 1992 and Mecklenburg’s teammate for three years. Dronett, a defensive lineman from the University of Texas, went on to play six seasons for the Falcons after four with the Broncos. He shot himself to death in 2009, nine days after his thirty-eighth birthday.

“Great guy, a fun-loving guy,” Mecklenburg said. “That’s the thing. When you think about these guys and you have first-hand knowledge of them, you realize what wonderful human beings they were, and the last thing you would think that would happen, because every single one of them is outgoing, fun-loving, seemingly very well-balanced emotionally, guys. And then they get this disease and part of the disease is depression. That’s what, I think, separates it from Alzheimer’s. Depression is part of it and when that hits, in my mind, the guys have got to keep track of each other. I don’t think the NFL can do that for us. I don’t think the union can do that for us.

“I really think we’ve got to get some sort of a system going where people are in contact with each other daily and making sure everybody’s OK. I know players who played golf with Junior Seau a week before he killed himself and said he was in great spirits, having a blast messing around with the guys, and . . . and . . . boom. So it’s a scary thing. It’s this time bomb and we don’t know who’s got it, who doesn’t have it. There’s really no way to test for it at this point, and hopefully that’s going to change.”

Note: I’ll be one of the guests tonight (Wednesday, May 9) on Studio 12 (KBDI-Channel 12) from 8-9 p.m. The show, hosted by Steffan Tubbs of 850 KOA, will examine the issue of brain injuries in football.

Leave a comment | tags: Andre Waters, Bennet Omalu, Dave Duerson, Dennis Smith, Jeff Hostetler, Karl Mecklenburg, Roger Goodell, Shane Dronett, Terry Long | posted in Broncos/NFL, concussions

April 29, 2012

It took a whole town to raise Derek Wolfe

By Dave Krieger

The Broncos’ newest defensive tackle has a story made for the movies. Not quite as extreme as that of Michael Oher, the homeless kid who became an offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens and inspired the movie The Blind Side, but pretty close.

Derek Wolfe doesn’t remember being homeless, exactly. He does remember staying at various friends’ houses growing up in Lisbon, Ohio. The closest he came to family were the sisters of his stepfather, not blood relatives but women who helped out when they could. He remembers one of them providing Christmas presents when he was little.

“I’ve never met my real father,” Wolfe told the Cincinnati Enquirer last summer as he prepared for his senior season at the University of Cincinnati. “I couldn’t even tell you his name.”

That fact contributed to his estrangement from his mother. “My mom just won’t tell me anything about him,” he said then. “I guarantee he doesn’t even know I exist. I’ve given my mom chances and chances and chances, but she obviously has some issues.

“I lived with my mother only when she was married to my stepfather. My mother married him when I was only about three months old, but after they got divorced, I moved out and lived with him. My stepfather and I got along well when I was young, and even after he got divorced from my mom, but when he got remarried, that’s when everything fell apart.”

Wolfe’s best friend was a kid named Logan Hoppel. “His family told me if I ever needed a place to stay, I could stay with them.”

When he found himself a child on his own, he took the Hoppels up on their offer. For the rest of his childhood, he stayed with various friends. Getting him to adulthood became sort of a community project.

“That’s who I was raised by, is my friends,” Wolfe told me Saturday just after his introductory press conference at Dove Valley. “I have great friends. They’re like brothers to me. Anytime I needed advice or needed some structure, they gave it to me. I can’t pick one out. I have a lot of friends, a lot of families. I’ve got two aunts that helped me a lot. There’s a ton of families that helped me; my whole town.”

As it happened, Hoppel had an older cousin, Adam, who ended up playing football at the University of Cincinnati. Wolfe didn’t know it at the time, but the generosity of his friend’s family had set him on a career path.

“My childhood, it was what it was, and it formed me into the man I am today,” Wolfe said less than 24 hours after the Broncos made the 6-foot-5-inch, 300-pound defensive tackle their first pick in the 2012 draft, No. 36 overall.

“It’s never where you start, it’s always where you finish. Just like the draft. I may not have been a first-round pick, but I was their first pick. Now I’ve got to live up to that. I’m happy about it. I could dwell on the past if I wanted to, but what is that going to do? Just forgive and forget. That’s the way I like to look at it. If you sit around worrying about things, it’s just going to tear you down and tear you apart.”

As far back as he can remember, football was his escape from a life that was hard and frustrating in almost every other area. When I asked when he started playing, he knew exactly.

“I was seven. I liked to watch Reggie White. Don’t tell Mr. Elway this, but I liked Brett Favre. I wanted to be a quarterback and a defensive end. So that’s what I did. I played quarterback and defensive end my first year. Then they moved me to running back. I played running back until I got to like eighth grade or something.

“I actually cried when Elway beat us. Wait, I can’t say ‘us’ anymore. When we beat them. I was going to write hate mail to Mr. Elway because I was so upset. I told him that upstairs, too. I said, ‘You made me cry when I was eight years old.’ He just laughed at me and said, ‘Well, welcome to the good side.'”

It didn’t take Wolfe long to realize that playing football was what he wanted to do. His only other sport was wrestling, and he wrestled mainly to achieve better body control for football.

“When I was a junior in high school, I was like, ‘I want to play this forever; I don’t ever want to stop,'” he said. “Once I really started focusing on players and what to do, I started watching guys like J.J. Watt, guys like Justin Smith, just those guys that played every snap like it’s their last. Those are the guys I watched.”

Which is exactly what the Broncos saw in him — a motor that never stops. Some scouts have issues with him, which is why it was something of a surprise when the Broncos took him ahead of better-known defensive linemen such as Kendall Reyes of Connecticut, Jerel Worthy of Michigan State and Devon Still of Penn State. Not athletic enough, some say. Doesn’t deal well with double teams. Short arms.

The Broncos love his fire, his will to compete.

“On some testing things we do, he’s a high character guy and a guy that I think will bring a great attitude to our defense,” coach John Fox said.

“His background, you can see it in the way he plays,” Elway said.

“He’s really hungry,” Fox added.

“And that’s what makes him the player that he is,” Elway said. “And that’s why he’ll make us hungry on defense and he’s going to rub off on a lot of guys because he’s got a motor that doesn’t stop.”

A year ago, Wolfe almost made what he calls now “the worst decision of my life.” He nearly left school a year early to enter the draft, mainly to get a paycheck and escape poverty. He remembers sitting on his bed staring at seven dollars, all the money he had in the world.

“It was just like a breaking point,” he explained. “I was hungry. I was a month late on rent. Thank God one of my best friend’s mom owned the house we were staying at. I was just looking at it, like, ‘Seven bucks? Come on.’ I always have somebody I can go to, I’m never going to be without, but it’s like, when is enough enough? I’m tired of asking for things, you know? I’m tired of having to go ask my friend. It’s demoralizing when you have to do that because I’m a very private person. I don’t like asking for anything. So it hurts when you have to do stuff like that. I was just tired of it.”

Cincinnati football coach Butch Jones used the most practical of arguments to change his mind: He told him he’d be costing himself a bundle by coming out early.

“I decided I came this far, why stop now?” Wolfe said. “Why cut it short? Why not just ride it out? I can do one more year, grinding and eating nothing but what they give me, basically. It all worked out.”

Adam Hoppel, whom he followed to the University of Cincinnati, was signed to the Cleveland Browns’ practice squad for a while but never played in a regular season game. Wolfe, the kid his family took in, now has a chance to compete for a starting job on the Broncos’ defensive line. How his skills play out remains to be seen, but he will never need motivation.

“If you could see my area, it’s dead,” Wolfe said. “There’s not a lot going on. I was on my own for a little while and I didn’t have anything. That’s the best way I can say it. Growing up, I didn’t have anything. It was hard to get cleats sometimes. It was hard to get wrestling shoes. It was hard to do anything. You had to fight for everything you had. That’s why I fight so hard. I’ll play this game as long as I possibly can because it’s my escape from what’s really going on.”

13 Comments | tags: Butch Jones, Derek Wolfe, John Elway, John Fox | posted in Broncos/NFL

April 28, 2012

Fans hate, love second day of Broncos’ draft

By Dave Krieger

The magic of the NFL draft, the thing that turns a soporific scouting exercise into must-see TV, is simple:

When it comes to football, everybody knows everything, and nobody knows nuthin’.

Anyone who has spent more than ten minutes around the game acknowledges you can’t actually judge a draft for a minimum of two or three years. Nevertheless, the entertainment imperative means everyone is going to grade it immediately anyway.

With that in mind, I invited reaction on Twitter (maximum 140 characters) to the Broncos’ second day, in which they selected defensive tackle Derek Wolfe of the University of Cincinnati, quarterback Brock Osweiler of Arizona State and running back Ronnie Hillman of San Diego State. Here’s a sample:

“C- minus for today, at best.”

“Quality draft so far, good picks for next year and the future, I really like the choices.”

“I would give them a D for the draft so far.”

“I’m not impressed either, but since I don’t pretend to be smarter than EFX, I’ll let the pros do their jobs.”

“In Elway I Trust. Go Broncos!!”

“I think Wolfe is excellent, Hillman is underrated and Osweiler is quizzical. EFX knows more about football than I do GO BRONCOS”

“McDaniels.”

“I’ll give you a single word… nonsensicle.”

“No cookie jar is out of the Broncos reach.”

“Unknown pig farmer to stuff the run, Small forward for a QB, and a firecracker RB. I am confused, not optimistic, but hopeful.”

“Drafting Plan B.”

“Puzzling – even if you like Osweiller he doesn’t help us win now – thought plan was to go all in while Manning here.”

“Did someone let Josh McDaniels back in the bldg?”

“Draft grade D-. Elway needs water wings as he is completely out of his depth with this debacle.”

“1) Need filled – DT 2) wasted pick on friend of Elway’s son – QB 3) Need filled – RB”

“Peyton Manning is the tree, the lights, and the stand. Now looking for tinsel. I’m happy.”

“I love how media experts think Elway was saviour for getting PM, but they now compare his draft to McDaniels.”

“All good except Osweiller. WTF? Need help now with Manning, not 4 yrs from now! He will never play. Hope I’m wrong.”

“Really, what does anyone really know at this point??”

“Need, toy, project…I had no idea the #Broncos were that close to a championship?”

“Broncos got who they wanted, not who others thought they should want. Elway said they don’t view the team the way others do.”

“Draft 2012 as grade C. Like DT Wolfe but really a QB and RB? NEED DEFENSE. Got lit up too much last year. Need CB SS LBs”

“East Coast brawn meets West Coast skills”

“it seems everyone knows better than those making decisions for the Broncos.”

“reminded me of mcdaniels drafts. Reaching when you don’t need to, leaving obvious picks on the board. Qb pick a waste”

“love it. Reached a lil on Wolfe, Qb of the future, and we have the next Lesean McCoy at RB! Not to bad.”

“whet a joke. Osweiler is a 4th round pick. @Denver_Broncos have so badly mismanaged this draft it’s incredible.”

“Underwhelmed. Could have waited for Wolfe and Hillman, no one would have picked them up…”

“Underwhelmed. Hoping time will tell, but we could have obtained each of these three later in the draft.”

Yes, those last two were different people, even if it doesn’t sound like it.

Anyway, you get the idea. I started fixing the spelling mistakes, then I stopped, so please don’t point them out.

The fact is, despite what people say, none of them can actually see the future. If they could, they’d be breaking the sports books in Vegas, not hanging out on Twitter. There have been hated picks on draft day that turned out well and picks greeted orgasmically that turned out poorly. Boring as it is, the tweet that comes closest to my own view was this one:

“I’ll let u know my reaction to the Broncos draft picks in 5 years. Because at this point, nobody really knows.”

Before we get to the Broncos’ take, here’s a sample of commentary from the players selected:

“There wasn’t a lot of contact like there was from the other teams,” said Wolfe, the 6-foot-5-inch, 300-pound defensive tackle selected with the 36th pick after the Broncos had traded down twice, from Nos. 25 and 31. “It was kind of put under wraps; there was kind of a shock when they took me. I’m pretty excited.”

By the way, if you want to hear the interview Dave Logan and I did with Wolfe on KOA shortly after he was selected, you can find it here.

“I’m just absolutely ecstatic to be a Denver Bronco,” said Osweiler, the 6-foot-7, 242-pound quarterback selected with the 57th pick. “It’s a dream come true. I absolutely can’t wait to get to Denver and can’t wait to get to work and give everything I have to that organization.”

As for holding a clipboard behind Peyton Manning for a while, Osweiler said he was unconcerned: “A lot of quarterbacks might be upset about having to sit behind somebody, whereas I look at it as a tremendous opportunity to learn from one of the best, if not the best, quarterback to ever play the game.”

Personally, I like any draft pick who uses the word “whereas,” but that’s just me.

And, yes, Osweiler called Jack Elway, John’s son, one of his best friends at ASU, so if you want to believe the elder Elway used a second-round pick to do a favor to one of his kid’s pals, well, I’m guessing you may also think aliens killed President Kennedy.

Finally, we have Hillman, the 5-9, 200-pound running back that was perhaps the most electric offensive player in the Mountain West Conference. He played last year at 189 pounds, but weighed in at the NFL Combine at 200.

He is a man of few words. Asked if he had any contact with the Broncos prior to his selection, he replied: “Not that much.” Asked if he was therefore surprised to be selected by them, he replied: “Yes, I was. I was very surprised.

“I’m just going to come in and try to help win, that’s all I can do,” he added. “I’ll just bring my versatility to the team and being able to create more on offense.”

The Broncos gave the media wretches a change of pace when the second and third rounds were finished, sending coach John Fox downstairs in place of Elway, who had the duty the night before. So these comments are all from Fox.

On Wolfe:

“Derek’s a guy that played both 5-technique (defensive end in a 3-4 defense) as well as 3-technique, defensive tackle. He’s got good length, he’s got good speed for that length, 6-5, 300 pounds. He’s got a great frame. He can get bigger. Very, very productive as far as creating havoc on the quarterback mostly because he does a great job with his hands as far as snatching off things. I think the most productive sack guy of all the tackles in the draft. He’s got a great motor. On some testing things that we do, he’s a high character guy and a guy that I think will bring a great attitude to our defense.”

On Osweiler:

“He’s a guy that when we went to visit I thought had an outstanding interview, outstanding workout. I think he has a bright future. I don’t think you can ever have too many quarterbacks. I don’t think it’s going to be one of those things where Peyton Manning’s going to feel threatened by any stretch. He’s got great mobility for a guy that big, he’s got quick twitch. A tall body helps you see through some of those lanes you get in this league. All in all, I thought he was what you’re looking for in a prototypical quarterback in the National Football League.”

On who Hillman reminds him of:

“One of the big things was, no offense to Marshall (Faulk), but he broke all his records there at San Diego State. He fared pretty well. I think (Faulk) would be an example. That’s the first one that comes to mind. That’s pretty big shoes to fill. He’s kind of (Darren) Sproles-like. Very explosive. He’s dynamic when you hand it to him, check it down to him or even long passes to him. So he’s a pretty all-around running back.”

Fox was asked what separated Osweiler from the other quarterbacks available late in the second round in his mind.

“Everybody has their own evaluations,” he said. “The thing that was most impressive to us was his accuracy and mobility for a big guy and just his production in a young guy coming out. I’m sure he’ll learn a lot from Peyton Manning.”

I mentioned to Fox that Elway said the Broncos’ goal this year, like last year, was to find three starters in the draft. So I wondered if Fox had any misgivings about using the club’s second pick on a quarterback who obviously would not be starting.

“To create that competition, grooming a guy, bringing a guy in, I think is always good because it’s such a premium position,” he said. “And you never know what happens. It’s important to have depth. That’s an important position moving forward in time.”

Several questions tried to get at why the Broncos had Wolfe rated higher than a number of better-known defensive linemen who were available at No. 36, including Kendall Reyes of Connecticut, Jerel Worthy of Michigan State and Devon Still of Penn State.

“We evaluate it,” he said. “We look at a lot of tape. We work at it probably in most cases harder than most people who talk about it on TV. So we’ll stay true to what we do, not so much public opinion, and obviously we thought very highly of Derek.”

Was his high level of effort, his constant motor, a big part of what set him apart on the Broncos’ board?

“When we have our first team meeting, everybody that has one of those chairs obviously has some God-given talent or they wouldn’t have one of those chairs,” Fox said. “From experience, it’s the makeup of a guy that makes the difference. So we put a lot of stock in that.”

Just before he headed back upstairs, I asked if the Broncos took Osweiler with their second pick, at No. 57, because they had information that he was about to be taken by somebody else.

“Again, you just stay true to your board,” he said. “You don’t get all upset about that. That guy’s there, you like him, you’re committed to him, we’re committed to him and you pick your guy.”

The Broncos traded two picks to move up in the third round to take Hillman, so they are back to seven picks overall, meaning they have four remaining today: two in the fourth round (Nos. 6 and 13), one in the fifth (No. 2) and one in the sixth (No. 18). Tracking them by their overall numbers, they have Nos. 101, 108, 137 and 188 still to exercise.

Let me leave you with the line of the night. Janoris Jenkins, the cornerback from North Alabama by way of Florida, was taken by the Rams in the second round. He’s had some off-field issues, so someone asked him what made him different from the talented but troubled Adam “Pacman” Jones.

Replied Jenkins: “I never shot up a strip club.”

Leave a comment | tags: Brock Osweiler, Derek Wolfe, John Elway, John Fox, Ronnie Hillman | posted in Broncos/NFL

April 27, 2012

Broncos duck first day of NFL draft

By Dave Krieger

Well, he wasn’t blowing smoke.

Here’s John Elway’s quote from Monday when I asked him about trading away the 25th pick in the NFL draft:

“We’re open,” he said then, at his pre-draft press conference. “I think that preferably, we’d like to go back. If there is somebody that likes somebody in our position at No. 25, we’re fine there, but we’re always open to go either way.”

Turned out that New England liked somebody at No. 25, Alabama linebacker Dont’a Hightower, so Elway moved back to No. 31, picking up a late fourth-round pick in the bargain.

Then it turned out Tampa Bay liked somebody at No. 31, Boise State running back Doug Martin, so Elway moved back again, to No. 36, trading in the late fourth-rounder he’d just obtained for an early fourth-rounder as part of the exchange.

“Well, we didn’t get anybody yet, but we will tomorrow,” Elway said when the long night was over. “When we looked at where we were, obviously we had some guys targeted that didn’t quite make it to us at 25, so we had some opportunities to move back with New England to pick up a fourth. We liked that, thought that was great.

“Then, when we had a chance to move back from 31 to 36 with Tampa again, our board looked the same. We thought we’d be able to get the same people at 36 that we could at 31 — or have the same pool of players there at 36 as we did at 31. By doing that, we moved up 25 spots to the top of the fourth.

“We really believe this is a deep draft. It’s not real thick at the top, but it’s pretty deep through the middle rounds. We thought by adding another good pick it gives us more options going into tomorrow. Plus we’ll still be able to get the same people that we had targeted that made it to us at 25, at 36.

“We’re excited about the day. Obviously, it’s a little bit of a downer when you don’t have a new player. But we’re excited about where we sit and the next two days are going to be exciting.”

So it sounds like everything went according to plan. Except you could make an argument that the Broncos should have taken either of the players taken in the spots they vacated.

Hightower is a 265-pound beast who was a team captain and called the defensive signals for Nick Saban at Alabama. Adding him to a linebacking corps that already includes Von Miller could have given the Broncos’ defense a muscular middle and a potential long-term leader. With D.J. Williams facing a suspension to start next season, adding a stud linebacker seemed to make sense, particularly one as talented as Hightower. Consider that the Patriots, who have made a habit of trading back in the draft, actually traded up to get him.

Martin is a versatile running back who could have served as the complement to Willis McGahee that everyone thinks the Broncos need.

So the players selected with the two picks the Broncos got in exchange — Nos. 36 and 101 — are likely to be compared to Hightower and Martin as time goes on to see if these moves were wise.

The bottom line is the Broncos traded out of the first round altogether, moving back eleven spots from 25 to 36, and received that early fourth-round pick (No. 101) in exchange. According to the draft value chart, No. 25 is worth 720 points and No. 36 is worth 540. So the Broncos lost 180 points by moving down, then regained 96 by adding No. 101. That’s a net loss of 84 points, although, if the Broncos actually do take the same player at 36 they would have taken at 25, the point loss is purely theoretical.

Going into today’s second round, the Broncos are holding two second-round picks (Nos. 4 and 25), one third (No. 25), three fourths (Nos. 6, 13 and 25), one fifth (No. 2) and one sixth (No. 18). Tracking the overall numbers, they hold Nos. 36, 57, 87, 101, 108, 120, 137 and 188.

When Elway said the Broncos’ board at No. 36 looks pretty much like the board at 25, he was also saying that neither Hightower nor Martin was near the top of their board at 25. When I asked if he knew that Tampa intended to take Martin at No. 31, he said he did not. If he didn’t ask, it seems clear he wasn’t overly concerned whether Martin would still be around later.

If he’s looking at defensive tackles, his statement about the board makes sense. Once Dontari Poe (No. 11, to Kansas City), Fletcher Cox (No. 12, to Philadelphia) and Michael Brockers (No. 14, to St. Louis) went off the board, the next group of interior linemen — Kendell Reyes of Connecticut, Jerel Worthy of Michigan State and Devon Still of Penn State — was available at 25, still available at 31 and remains available when the draft resumes Saturday evening with No. 33.

“Everyone saw the talent that we saw too,” Elway said of the top three defensive tackles. “When those guys started going like that, they went in a hurry. We thought we were going to have to get a little bit lucky for them to fall to us anyways. They’re good football players, and when they didn’t get to us that gave us the opportunity to start moving back a little bit.”

If Elway is looking at defensive backs, which he suggested Monday was a priority against the spread offenses that exploited the Broncos’ secondary last season, the top group of cover corners was also gone by the time No. 25 rolled around. Morris Claiborne of LSU went to Jacksonville at No. 5, Stephon Gilmore of South Carolina went to Buffalo at No. 10 and Dre Kirkpatrick of Alabama went to Cincinnati at No. 17.

Cover corners who remain on the board include Janoris Jenkins of North Alabama, Josh Robinson of Central Florida, Brandon Boykin of Georgia, Jayron Hosley of Virginia Tech, Trumaine Johnson of Montana, Leonard Johnson of Iowa State and Jamell Fleming of Oklahoma, although most of them would be considered reaches near the top of the second round.

Three offensive options worth considering near the top of the second round are Wisconsin center Peter Konz, Stanford tight end Coby Fleener and Georgia Tech wide receiver Stephen Hill.

One other note from the first round merits mention. When Indianapolis made Andrew Luck the first pick, he became the tenth quarterback in the last twelve years to be the first overall pick. That only confirms the primacy of the quarterback position in today’s NFL. So it’s worth remembering that whatever they do in the draft, the Broncos’ biggest offseason move by far remains signing quarterback Peyton Manning as a free agent.

Leave a comment | tags: John Elway | posted in Broncos/NFL

April 24, 2012

Elway: Broncos open to moving back in the draft

By Dave Krieger

John Elway didn’t give away much in his mandatory pre-draft meeting with the media wretches Monday, but then, why would he? If he were more Machiavellian — and one day he might be, you never know — he would have engaged in a little misdirection of the sort Mike Shanahan used to attempt.

But Elway is still trying to be as honest as he can, which includes explaining why it would make no sense for him to show his hand publicly just before the draft.

Knowing his willingness to entertain specific position questions probably wouldn’t last long, I did get responses on two, and they were pretty different.

First I asked about defensive tackle, routinely listed by outsiders as the team’s greatest need. That need seems to dovetail nicely with a pick late in the first round because the class of 2012 is judged so deep at defensive tackle that as many as seven prospects have first-round grades from one analyst or another. Peter King of Sports Illustrated is not alone in matching the Broncos with LSU defensive tackle Michael Brockers in his mock first round, although other observers have Brockers coming off the board well before the 25th pick.

Outsiders have been calling defensive tackle the Broncos’ greatest need ever since Elway and John Fox took over — in fact, since before that — and the Broncos’ brain trust has given no indication it agrees. It was widely expected to take Alabama tackle Marcell Dareus with the second pick last year, but chose Texas A&M linebacker and pass rusher Von Miller instead, judging him a higher impact player. The decision was vindicated in the short run: Miller was named the Associated Press defensive rookie of the year.

They signed veteran Ty Warren to play tackle, but when Warren went down in training camp, they picked up Brodrick Bunkley from the Eagles at the last minute. He played well enough to earn a five-year, $25 million free agent contract from New Orleans.

“We wanted to keep him but couldn’t do that,” Elway said of Bunkley. “We don’t feel as bad about our tackles as everybody else does. I think that we feel OK there. Ty Warren will be back coming off an injury and (Kevin) Vickerson is coming back and then we have some young guys in there where we feel like we’ll be OK. It’s not nearly the need in our minds that people think it is.”

Elway didn’t even mention veteran Justin Bannan, signed to return a year after being released just prior to the lockout. That doesn’t make the Broncos deep in talent in the interior line, but there’s a popular theory that when Peyton Manning is your quarterback, you’re going to be facing the pass a lot more than the run.

For that reason, the other area I asked about was the defensive secondary. I might have mentioned that Tom Brady toasted Broncos defensive backs in the playoffs last season with New England’s spread passing attack.

“We struggled all last year against anybody that spread us out,” Elway said. “That’s the thing. Every team has needs. It’s just a matter of the impact of the people you can find to help solve that need.

“You can never have enough good corners; you can never have enough good pass rushers. There is no question corner is another spot that is very vital if you’re going to be good on the defensive side because of where the game is going and the amount of spread offense that we’re seeing now, you have to be good in the secondary. But you’re only as good as your pass rush, too. You have to combine both of those. Obviously, our pass rush is better than it’s been, but we have to get better when people spread us out.”

In other words, unless Elway was blowing smoke, the Broncos’ interest in cover guys is greater than their interest in defensive tackles.

Since well before he took over the front office fifteen months ago, Elway has believed the modern NFL is all about the passing game. Offensively, he responded by wooing and winning Manning to play quarterback.

Defensively, he knows his team needs more capable defensive backs. He hopes free agent Tracy Porter will play a more physical style than released starter Andre Goodman, but changing the name tag opposite Champ Bailey didn’t affect the numbers game. Three young players — Chris Harris, Syd’Quan Thompson and Cassius Vaughn also figure in the pre-draft depth chart.

Still, as Elway reiterated several times, it all depends on how the board falls. He is determined not to overlook a potential difference-maker by reaching for a lesser player who would fill a need.

“The bottom line is we want to come out with players that are impact players,” he said. “As I said last year, you have a lot more misses in my mind when you draft to need. So we’re going to find the best players in positions of need but also try to find those impact players that are going to come in and help us right away.”

Repeatedly, Elways was asked to predict who might be available at No. 25. Repeatedly, he said he had no idea, which explains not only why attempts to predict the course of the draft are so entertaining, but also why they’re so futile.

“It’s just fluid,” he said. “It’s always changing. There are always surprises and you never know. Even though you know everybody has their mocks and everybody has their opinions on where different players should go or different viewpoints, when you have 32 teams, they are going to have different viewpoints on different players. I think No. 1, it’s very fluid and No. 2 is that you can’t rely on anything. It is going to be changing all the time. I think that’s probably the fun part about it. It’s so unexpected.”

So Elway views the draft pretty much the way he viewed playing the game. You go in with a game plan, knowing it may be turned on its head by an early surprise or two. Ultimately, success or failure is very likely to rest on the ability to make good decisions on the fly.

Offensively, speculation centers on the need for a running back to complement Willis McGahee and the possibility of adding a young quarterback to develop behind Manning. By the time he was asked about running backs, Elway had retreated to a general assurance that the club will consider players at every position. He was not much more forthcoming on the quarterbacks.

“There are some good prospects,” he said. “You never know. When you look at the two guys at the top (Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III), everyone kind of has them as franchise guys. I think for the most part it’s always a crapshoot, especially lower in the draft—not only that position, but all the different positions. You want to try to find the best packages that you can. There are some guys that are good athletes that are going to have a chance to be successful in the league. It’s just a matter of them getting in the right situations.”

The Broncos currently have Manning, Caleb Hanie and Adam Weber on their depth chart at quarterback. If they don’t draft one, they’re likely to bring in a street free agent or another undrafted college free agent (like Weber a year ago), at least for training camp.

When I asked if he was open to trading the No. 25 pick, Elway said he was. He also volunteered he is more likely to trade back than trade up.

“We’re open,” he said. “I think that preferably, we’d like to go back. If there is somebody that likes somebody in our position at No. 25, we’re fine there, but we’re always open to go either way.”

Elway and his front office crew are generally credited with a pretty good inaugural effort in the draft. Of course, starting at No. 2 is a lot easier than starting at No. 25. Their first and third picks last year, Miller and offensive tackle Orlando Franklin, settled in as starters. Their second, safety Rahim Moore, was an early starter who played his way out of the lineup, to the benefit of their fifth, Quinton Carter. Their fourth, linebacker Nate Irving, was advertised as a middle backer but ended up mainly a special teams player.

(The order of their picks does not necessarily reflect the round in which they were selected; Moore and Franklin were both second-round picks; Irving was a third and Carter a fourth.)

Their last four picks of 2011 didn’t do much as rookies, but Harris, an undrafted free agent, became the nickel back.

Once again, Elway’s goal is to find three starters. To do that, he insists, the Broncos will have to stick to their board and avoid reaching to fill needs.

“I think you can look at a lot of different areas that we have, but the bottom line is that we’re going to take the best player on the board at that point in time when it comes to us,” he said. “That’s why I don’t want to get into what our needs are. We’ll let other people figure that out. Going into the draft it’s important that other teams are guessing where you’re going to go. We’ll continue to do that.”

Leave a comment | tags: John Elway | posted in Broncos/NFL

April 18, 2012

Elway: As a leader, Manning everything we thought

By Dave Krieger

Almost a month after the Broncos announced the signing of Peyton Manning, the club’s brass is thrilled with the leadership role their new quarterback has assumed at Dove Valley.

Facing unprecedented restrictions in the new collective bargaining agreement on coaches working with players on the practice field, Manning immediately went to work organizing informal workouts with other members of the offense. When the rules prohibited them from working on the fields at Dove Valley, they scouted out high school fields they could use. As a result, he’s already had nearly a month of work with center J.D. Walton and receiver Eric Decker, among others.

“As a person, he’s everything that we thought he was,” Broncos executive vice president John Elway said Tuesday on the Dave Logan Show.

“As a football player, he’s a guy that is obviously a great leader and has taken control of that. Especially with the new offseason workout rules, with the coaches not being able to be on the field, we need a guy that takes control and Peyton’s done that Day 1. So he’s everything when it comes to the leadership side that we thought he was.”

Although neither Manning nor the Broncos are providing detailed updates on his progress rehabilitating from the multiple neck surgeries that forced him to miss all of last season, Elway confirmed the reports of other players that Manning is progressing well.

“He continues to improve and he’s out there throwing every day, so we couldn’t be happier,” he said. “I think the excitement in the building is extremely good and we’re looking forward to getting going. We’re looking forward to the draft and being able to find some guys there that can come in and help us this year. With the schedule coming out, we’re on our way, so we’re excited about it.”

When Manning met with reporters Monday, he was asked if he’d found time to get to know Denver and find a place to live or if it’s been all business. His reply:

“It’s been all business. Everybody’s asking me where I’m living. I been living over here, living here at the facility.”

The Broncos’ schedule, released Tuesday, is the second-toughest in the league based on the records of their opponents a year ago (139-117). But while the difficult early stretch jumped off the page — the Broncos play four playoff teams from last season in their first six games — Elway focused more on the road-heavy midsection of the schedule.

After playing three of their first four at home, the Broncos travel to seven of their next ten before finishing with two home games. That’s why, despite the degree of difficulty of the opponents, Elway believes the Broncos must get off to a quick start by taking advantage of the early home games.

“After the bye (following Week 6), we’re on the road five out of (eight) weeks,” he said. “That’s why it’s going to be so crucial to us to get off to a good start. I think we did a better job on the road last year than we have in the past, but we’re going to have to go in with the mentality of being able to win big games against good football teams on the road.”

The Broncos have five nationally-televised prime-time games — two Sunday night games, two Monday night games and a Thursday night game — including the first two, a Sunday night game at home against Pittsburgh in a rematch of last season’s playoff contest and a Monday night game at Atlanta.

It’s the first time they’ve had back-to-back prime time games since 2007 and the first time they’ve ever opened a season that way. They could also end up with a sixth national TV game if one of their Sunday games is flexed into a Sunday night game during Weeks 11-17.

“It’s going to be exciting opening at home against the Steelers,” Elway said. “Anytime you open at home on Sunday night there’s going to be great excitement with that, but we know that’s going to be an important football game for us because we’ve got to win those football games at home, especially the openers.”

In all, the Broncos play seven games against teams that qualified for the playoffs last year. Only the Super Bowl champion New York Giants’ opponents had a better combined record in 2011 (140-116).

“It’s an exciting schedule,” Elway said. “The fans should be excited about it. We’ll be ready for the challenge. We’ve got five playoff teams out of the first seven and the other two are San Diego and Oakland in our division. So we’re going to try to get off to a quick start. That’s why this offseason is going to be that important to us.”

Before any of that, of course, Elway and his front office and coaching staffs get a chance to fortify the roster further in next week’s NFL draft.

“With a year under my belt, I’m in a lot better shape than I was last year, even though I felt I was in pretty good shape last year,” Elway said. “But I think the experience and plus everybody working together, our personnel staff, Matt Russell, Brian Xanders, everybody’s done a tremendous job. And getting involved with the coaches and understanding the coaches, what we’re looking for on the defensive side as well as the offensive side, I just think that year of everybody being together is going to help us tremendously.”

Elway also said the club’s most recent addition, Manning’s friend and former teammate Brandon Stokley, should help other players adapt to the new quarterback and offense. Stokley is also a former Bronco and resident of Castle Rock. He was a workhorse slot receiver for Manning in Indianapolis from 2003-06, catching 68 passes for 1,077 yards in 2004.

“Obviously, he brings great experience,” Elway said. “He’s worked with Peyton before, he’s been in the type offense that Peyton has run. He understands what Peyton’s all about. Not only is he a fantastic receiver, he’s also going to be able to help everybody else, especially the receivers, understand the way the Peyton thinks and what he expects. So he’ll be a great leader for us in that room.”

Leave a comment | tags: John Elway, Peyton Manning | posted in Broncos/NFL

April 17, 2012

Broncos’ Peyton Manning era begins

By Dave Krieger

With considerable fanfare, the television networks will no doubt declare that the Peyton Manning era in Denver begins with the first game of the new season. Don’t believe it.

Owing to Manning’s famous devotion to preparation, the era of his influence over the Broncos began Monday with the start of the team’s offseason program.

In fact, it may have begun even earlier than that, when Manning essentially took up residence at Dove Valley following his signing as a free agent nearly a month ago. He’s been working out with center J.D. Walton, receiver Eric Decker and a few other teammates at area high schools since then. But because the entire team had not gathered until Monday, make the official start April 16. When the four-time NFL most valuable player began throwing Monday, every receiver on the roster was there.

“It was a good workout,” Manning reported afterward. “Great turnout, attendance-wise. Good to see a lot of the new guys that I haven’t had a chance to meet yet. A lot of guys have been here already, this whole time, working out early, which has been good. But some other guys got here for the first day and I thought it was a productive first day. It’s April 16th and we’re just sort of trying to build a foundation for what we hope our team will be like this year.”

Taking leadership of the offseason preparation is even more important for Manning than usual this year. For one thing, obviously, he’s with a new team, meaning there’s more work to be done getting familiar with one another than, say, going into his thirteenth season with the Colts.

For another, new restrictions on offseason work supervised by coaches were built into the new collective bargaining agreement at the insistence of the players’ association. Although Manning is not likely to pick a fight with the NFLPA, it seems safe to say he was not one of those arguing for less supervised offseason work.

“I do believe in the offseason program,” he said. “I always have. I’ve seen it work and I’ve seen guys get better. I do think with these new rules, the ability to develop a player, a young player, there is more of a challenge. I mean, the coaches (have) limited time to work with a young receiver or a young running back that might need that work. I do think that’s one area that the new rules are going to challenge that. So anytime you have a chance to be out there, you take advantage of the opportunity to work on a timing route with Joel Dreessen, with DT (Demaryius Thomas), to work on a handoff with Willis McGahee, because you’re just not allowed that much time as you’re used to.

“OTAs will be starting soon, training camp will be here and then you’ll be playing the first game. So there’s a lot to do in a short period of time and you’ve got to be organized. Some of it has to be player-organized, some of it the coaches can do and I think we’re going to do a good job of that.”

Manning emphasized repeatedly that results in the fall will depend upon the work done now.

“You are working on different timing with different guys, which I’ve always enjoyed that time, working on timing in the month of April and hoping this timing, we can put it to good use and it comes into play in October on a critical third-and-five, if you will. I’ve been throwing to Eric and some of the other guys that have been here already, but today was the first time throwing to a couple other guys and it was good to have that first day and hopefully we can just keep it going.”

One indication of the youth of the receiving corps Manning takes over was his reference to Decker as the veteran leader of the group. At 25, Decker is entering his third season.

“He’s a natural-born leader,” Decker said. “In the weight room, he’s the guy taking command of running from station to station. On the field, he’s doing drill work, getting us lined up and having us do things for a particular reason. There are no wasted movements, no wasted time, and that’s a great thing to have in a leader like him.”

It’s also an opportunity for Decker to put in rigorous offseason work with a quarterback for the first time in his career.

“This is something as a receiver you dream about, playing with a guy of this caliber who has been an All-Pro every year of his career and has won a Super Bowl and, at the same time, for me to finally have an offseason,” he said. “I was hurt coming into my rookie season. Last year was the lockout, and during college, I played baseball. So I never really got that time to get this technique to get this extra work in. I’m excited for the next six weeks.”

Still, youthful receivers like Decker and Thomas won’t be Manning’s only offseason targets. In addition to earlier acquisition Andre Caldwell and new tight ends Joel Dreessen and Jacob Tamme, the Broncos added one of Manning’s old friends and former teammates to the roster Monday, signing Brandon Stokley to a one-year deal.

Stokley, of course, helped sell Manning on Denver, hosting him at his Castle Rock home the weekend that Manning visited during his free agent tour.

“I just tried to make my sell the best I could and tell him the strong points about the organization and the fans and living here,” Stokley said. “Ultimately, it was going to be his decision so I don’t know how much I helped. I tried, but I knew in the end it was going to be his choice, so I’m just glad he did pick Denver.”

Like Manning, Stokley will be 36 by the time training camp opens in July. There aren’t many 36-year-old receivers in the NFL, but the veteran is eager for the competition.

“I take it as a challenge,” he said. “That’s what I’m really looking forward to, is the challenge of getting in shape and going out there and playing with these kids that are 22, 23, and being 36. Just working as hard as I can, using this for motivation and showing people that you know what, I might be 36, but I can still make plays. I know there’s probably a lot of doubters out there, but I look at it as a big challenge for me and I’m looking forward to it.”

Throughout the Broncos’ complex, Manning has brought an optimism, an energy and a determination to make the offseason program count.

“He’s an amazing leader, and his leadership alone is, bar none, the best in the league,” said veteran cornerback Champ Bailey. “You need a guy like that on your team, and where I want to go, what I want to do towards the end of my career is win a championship, and I feel like he gives us the best chance.

“It makes you feel good about coming to work every day because you know there’s a guy on the other side of the ball that’s going to give it 150 percent regardless. To have him there leading that offense, it’s an amazing feeling. I read about how much he’s been with the receivers, working routes and whatever they’ve been doing. You don’t see that from a lot of quarterbacks, and we need that here.”

About the only thing Manning declined to discuss Monday was his ongoing rehabilitation from multiple neck surgeries that forced him to miss all of last season.

“I’m not going to get into these weekly reports,” he said. “I’ve kind of been there and done that all fall last year. I’m continuing to work hard on my rehab. Certainly, part of my phase is my time with Greek (trainer Steve Antonopulos) in the training room. It’s been good to get into that consistent routine with (strength and conditioning coach) Luke (Richesson) and with Greek. That’s one thing that I hadn’t been doing up until the time I signed here. I was kind of traveling, going different places, not really having a home base to set up out of. So I’m working hard with Greek and with Luke and just trying to make progress. But I’m enjoying being under one roof, being supervised by those two guys.”

Working out with Manning over the past month, Decker has seen no medical issues.

“I’m not his doctor, so I don’t know how to speak on his health, but catching balls from him, it looks like there’s nothing wrong to me,” he said. “He’s throwing great balls; he’s getting the work in just like we’re getting the work in and knocking some rust off. I see no issues at this point.”

For Manning, preparing for the season is a process, and never more so than this year.

“I think there’s kind of steps along the way,” he said. “Today was an exciting day. Seeing a lot of the players, meeting some of these players for the first time and getting to know them, I think you can use this time to get to know these guys off the field a little bit as well. There’s some bonding that goes on in the offseason with offensive linemen and what-not. I’ve enjoyed being around J.D. Walton. I think quarterback-center’s got to have a great relationship, so he and I have spent time together and gotten snaps together as well at the high schools.”

The curtain will rise on the new, Manning-led Broncos at their season-opener in September, but Denver’s new quarterback made it clear that whatever they are able to do there will depend on the work they do now and in training camp.

“I think you have to have a great work ethic.” Manning said. “I do not think you can just show up in September and expect to complete passes or execute in the running game. I do believe the weight room work, the on-the-field work, call it old-school, old-fashioned, that’s what I’ve always believed in. And I have seen guys get better, like the way I’ve tried to get better every offseason. I’ve tried to be a better player each year than I was the year before. That’s from the film study of the previous year, but also from the offseason work, that timing with the receivers.

“What we’re trying to do right now is you try to take maybe one or two routes a day and really try to master those routes because this is going to come up in November on a critical third-and-six. This is what it might be — zone coverage, man coverage. It’s a lot to do in a short period of time, but I do believe it’s what you have to do.”

Leave a comment | tags: Brandon Stokley, Champ Bailey, Eric Decker, Peyton Manning | posted in Broncos/NFL

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