Category Archives: Broncos/NFL

April 4, 2012

The two things Peyton Manning will need to survive in Denver

By Dave Krieger

Peyton Manning’s short free agency prompted a healthy debate about the merits of putting the fortunes of your franchise in the hands of a 36-year-old quarterback coming off a neck injury serious enough to require multiple surgeries and sideline him for an entire season.

Skeptics cited Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath as examples of once-great quarterbacks who tried and failed to rekindle past glory with new teams late in their careers. But then, Unitas was 40 when he played his final, forgettable season in San Diego after 17 years in Baltimore, and Namath could barely walk by the time he played an equally cringe-worthy final season for the Rams after 12 years with the Jets.

(By the way, these two greats put on what some consider the best passing exhibition in NFL history on Sept. 24, 1972 in Baltimore, where they combined for 872 passing yards. Namath threw for 496 yards and six touchdowns in a 44-34 win, the Jets’ first victory over the Colts since Super Bowl III almost four years before. Unitas threw for 376 and three touchdowns.)

On the other hand, although John Elway never changed teams, he did achieve his greatest success very late in the day, winning his two Super Bowls with the Broncos at ages 37 and 38.

The best example of a quarterback changing teams and achieving success late in his career is Jim Plunkett, like Elway a Stanford star and first overall pick in the draft. Plunkett struggled in his early stops at New England and San Francisco. He joined the Raiders in 1979, the year he turned 32. A year later, at 33, he led them to the first of his two Super Bowl championships. He threw for 261 yards and three touchdowns and was named most valuable player as the Raiders became the first wild-card team to win a title, beating the Eagles 27-10. Three years later, at 36, he led them to his second, a 38-9 romp over the Redskins.

“It’s about the all-around personnel,” Plunkett explained recently during an appearance on the Dave Logan Show. “You’re playing with a better group of people. You’re playing with a team that has a defense. You’re not always playing catch-up all the time. A team that’s used to winning. That’s a big plus as well. They expect to win each and every game every time they step on the field.

“It was a struggle initially for me both at New England and San Francisco. I wanted it to work out in the worst possible way for me back in my home area and it just did not. I joined the Raiders and I’m playing with a lot of Hall of Famers-to-be, guys who are used to winning, guys who have a winning past. They just surround you with more better players to get the job done.”

I mentioned Unitas and Namath and asked Plunkett what the primary differences are between older quarterbacks who save their best for last and those clearly on the downhill side of their careers.

“Part of it has to do with health,” he said. “Part of it has to do with the team you’re around. As you get older, you get hurt more. I just found that to be my case after that second Super Bowl, and even a little bit before. It was hard for me to stay healthy. I’d get nicked up a little easier. Of course, part of it was my style of play. Instead of going down like I should, I’d hang in there and get my head knocked off and in the process got beat up quite a bit.

“Peyton Manning’s had a lot of luck in that regard up until lately. And it still remains to be seen how well he bounces back. One of the things everybody’s hoping, especially the Broncos, is that he hardly misses a beat and he comes back strong. But then you’ve got to still surround him with the type of people and run the kind of offense that he’s used to, I think. That would be a big plus for him. The personnel’s just different. It was geared (in Indianapolis) to make Peyton Manning a better quarterback on offense. Right now, they might not have those kind of people at Denver in place yet.”

Plunkett, who continues to cover the game as a radio and television host for the Raiders, offered this overall assessment of Manning as a quarterback and his prospects moving to Denver:

“I see a guy who gets rid of the ball quickly, who reads defenses quickly, throws prior to the break. I’ve seen him a lot. I saw him in that great championship game when they were down 21-3, I believe, to the Patriots at halftime (the 2006 season AFC championship on Jan. 21, 2007, in which the Patriots led 21-6 at the half and the Colts came back to win, 38-34). To watch him bring that team back against a very good football team was quite impressive. The Patriots were able to put a lot of pressure on him, but the guy’s just got a great ability to anticipate where that receiver’s going to be and get rid of the ball, even though the protection’s not that good. Hopefully, that’s the kind of quarterback that Denver’s going to get.

“But also you’ve seen guys with injuries, and I’ve seen it a lot with broken jaws for some players, especially linebackers and running backs. Those guys that have broken their jaw, for whatever reason, when they come back, they’re kind of tentative. They’re afraid to put their head in there because it hurts. It’s something you’ve got to overcome. I had a few knee operations when I was playing and after you get your first hit and you get knocked down, you’re kind of testing out your knee to see if it’s OK. And I think Peyton might have to go through some of that when he comes back and starts to get hit and knocked around: ‘Is my neck going to hold up?’ And he might be kind of tentative until he takes a few shots and sees how sturdy or not that his neck is.”

Immediately after signing Manning, Elway moved to improve the quality of the weapons around him. He added wide receiver Andre Caldwell to incumbents Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker. He also signed a pair of receiving tight ends in Joel Dreessen and Jacob Tamme, the latter a teammate of Manning’s with the Colts.

Plunkett put his finger on the two key ingredients if the Broncos are going to enjoy the kind of success with Manning that Elway is banking on:

1. Manning must stay healthy, fully recovered from his neck injury and not suffering other, nagging injuries that often contribute to the deterioration of play in older quarterbacks.

2. Elway must surround him with the right personnel. If anyone understands this, Elway should. After three Super Bowl losses, it was the arrival of Terrell Davis that finally gave him the opportunity to win championships. Manning may not need a 2,000-yard rusher, but Elway will have to get the supporting cast right for the $96 million gamble on a 36-year-old Hall of Famer-to-be to succeed.

The Broncos ranked 23rd in total offense and 25th in scoring offense last season. Some of that, obviously, was the result of a run-dominated scheme built around the skill set of quarterback Tim Tebow. The Broncos ranked first in rushing, at 165 yards a game, and 31st in passing, at 152. Those numbers are likely to change quite dramatically with Manning at the controls.

Somewhere along the way, Manning will have to find the sort of working relationship with Broncos receivers that he enjoyed with Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark for him to replicate the success in the passing game he achieved in Indianapolis.

Do the Broncos have receivers capable of that on the roster currently? We’ll soon find out.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Broncos/NFL

March 28, 2012

The money stat about Peyton Manning and John Fox

By Dave Krieger

It was sort of an accident, really. The Broncos’ media relations staff came up with the statistic about Peyton Manning and John Fox that knocks your socks off as part of routine research before Manning visited Dove Valley a little less than two weeks ago.

It was part of a general briefing email the staff sent to Fox and John Elway two weeks ago today, the day the Colts released Manning. But this particular stat was also highlighted in a chance hallway meeting at Dove Valley between Fox and media relations director Patrick Smyth.

As soon as Fox heard it, he knew he had to make it part of his sales pitch to the four-time NFL most valuable player.

As Sports Illustrated’s Peter King reported in a fine blow-by-blow account of the courtship, Fox had requested certain information specifically, including some facts about the weather in Denver that would debunk its false reputation back east as a snowbound winter wonderland. That request, along with an Excel spreadsheet, produced the fact that the average starting temperature in 519 Broncos home games over the years has been 60.1 degrees.

Indeed, while they were at it, the Broncos broke down the average starting temperature for games in Kansas City, Oakland and San Diego — the Broncos’ AFC West rivals — and found it came to 61 degrees. Averaging the temperatures in Kansas City and San Diego in December may seem silly, but the exercise allowed the Broncos to tell Manning that the average starting temperature at the venues of 11 of his 16 games each season is in the 60s.

But the stat that made Manning and the Broncos look like a match made in heaven was not specifically requested. Rather, it grew out of earlier research Smyth’s staff had done when Fox was first hired almost fifteen months ago — the veteran coach’s record when his teams achieve certain markers, such as plus one in turnovers, plus two in turnovers; when they score 22 points, when they score 24, when they score 26, and so on. It’s the sort of standard stuff that appears in a team’s game notes throughout the season.

The first time I heard the money stat was six days after it made that internal Dove Valley memo, when Fox came on the Dave Logan Show following the press conference introducing Manning as the Broncos’ new quarterback on March 20.

Fox has long had a reputation as a conservative, defensive-minded head coach, a guy who likes to run the ball and whose teams play a lot of low-scoring games. But when I discussed that reputation with him in the middle of last season, he said it was a matter of circumstance, not conviction. And when you look at his teams, it’s true that he’s never had a quarterback likely to gain admission to the Pro Football Hall of Fame without a ticket.

“I’ve never had that guy,” he told me then. So, following the Manning press conference, I asked him how different the Broncos’ offense was likely to look now that he finally has a Canton-bound quarterback.

“You do the best you can with what you got,” he replied. “Unfortunately, that’s been a little bit more run-oriented for me in my ten-year head coaching career. Balance is the thing that’s tough to defend, being a defensive coach most of my career. Getting a guy like Peyton, a guy that’s got those experiences and getting you into runs or passes based on what the defense is doing, you definitely become more two-dimensional and you get that balance.”

That’s when he unloaded the stat:

“As I mentioned to Peyton in the process, he’s averaged 26 points a game over his fourteen-year career in Indy, and in my ten-year coaching career when we’ve had 26 points or more, we’re 39-3. So hopefully that will be more the ratio moving forward.”

Actually, the count is 38-3, but let’s not quibble. The bottom line is this: Over the course of his career, when Fox’s teams score 26 points or more, they win more than 90 percent of the time.

Of course, the stat also demonstrates just how rare that’s been for Fox. In ten seasons, he’s coached 160 regular-season games and ten playoff games, so his teams have scored 26 points or more less than 25 percent of the time. Last season, for example, the Broncos scored 26 points or more only three times — and went 3-0 in those games.

What turns it into a money stat for the marriage of Manning and the Broncos is that 26 is Manning’s career average. In 2010, the last season he played for the Colts, his team scored 26 or more ten times.

As King points out, the key factor in Manning’s decision to sign with the Broncos was his comfort level with the people, Elway and Fox in particular, the city and the organization. But that stat is an intriguing part of the promise of this marriage because what it says is this:

If Manning can be approximately the player he’s been throughout his career, and if Fox can be approximately the coach he’s been throughout his career, it could be an almost unbeatable combination.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in Broncos/NFL

March 22, 2012

Tebowmania changes time zones

By Dave Krieger

Tebowmania in Colorado was as much a cultural phenomenon as a sports story, which is why limiting it to sports makes it almost impossible to understand.

Take the Broncos’ trade of Tebow to the New York Jets, finally consummated last night after a day of dickering over a $5 million payback provision in Tebow’s contract.

The Broncos traded three draft picks — one each from the second, third and fourth rounds — to move up into the first round in 2010 to draft Tebow with the 25th pick. In the 23 months he was a Bronco, Tebow became a national phenomenon, topped all NFL players in jersey sales for a while, won more games than he lost and led his team to an unexpected playoff berth and a more unexpected playoff win.

Yet, after all that, his value in the NFL marketplace depreciated substantially. John Elway dealt Tebow and a seventh-round draft pick to the Jets and for a fourth-round pick and a sixth. If Tebow’s name were not attached to it, that would be a minor trade on the books of both teams.

Already reviled by Tebow’s most ardent admirers, Elway can now expect criticism for not getting enough in exchange for him, but the consensus among personnel executives around the league over the past two weeks was that Tebow would fetch either a third-round pick or a fourth straight up. So a fourth and a jump from a seventh to a sixth was basically the market price.

But why was that the market price? Why wasn’t a quarterback who pulled off last season’s serial miracles more valuable than that?

Three reasons:

1. The consensus within the league, right or wrong, is that Tebow’s results with the Broncos last year were a fluke, the product of a gimmick offense no one was prepared to defend. The most important stat to NFL club officials is not the record (Tebow was 8-5 including playoffs) or even the completion percentage (46.5 percent last season), although they do cite the latter number with regularity, suggesting it is so low that even dramatic improvement will yield only a mediocre result in a league in which the top four passers last season had completion percentages of 68, 71, 65 and 66.

The most important stat to many league execs is that Tebow won seven of his first eight starts and lost four of his last five. The consensus is that defenses, with the exception of the stubborn Steelers, figured out how to play him — less aggression yielded better results — and would have refined the approach this season.

2. The offense the Broncos built for Tebow required him to be part quarterback, part running back. Taking that many hits, it’s only a matter of time until he’s injured, league executives believe, at which point they would have to revert to a conventional NFL offense or commit totally to an option offense by signing more than one quarterback who can run it. The injuries Tebow suffered in the playoffs against New England — he would not have been able to play in the AFC championship game had the Broncos won — only served as confirmation of this view.

3. Tebow brings with him a legion of followers who believe all of the foregoing is pure hogwash. Winning is what Tebow does, they insist. The end-of-game miracles are a bonus. At the least, those in the NFL who can’t see this are blind. At the most, they might be anti-Christian, turned off by Tebow’s evangelical zeal. As a result, any perceived slight of Tebow becomes a public controversy. A significant number of league executives simply don’t want that headache.

That last part, not to mention celestial explanations of the miracle finishes by Tebow’s more zealous followers, moves the story into religious and cultural areas that perplex and frustrate NFL officials, many of whom spend so much time in their bunkers they couldn’t tell you who’s running for president, let alone who’s trending on Facebook or Twitter. If Elway, a Denver icon, can be drawn and quartered for his treatment of Tebow, what’s the upside of a mere mortal front office type wading into this pond? Not a single team expressed interest in acquiring Tebow to be its starting quarterback.

Still, as a sports story, the dispute cries out for resolution, which is why following Tebow’s career from a distance will remain interesting. The Jets just extended the contract of their starting quarterback, Mark Sanchez, to a five-year deal that includes $20.5 million of guaranteed money. Tebow was acquired to be his backup and to operate variations on the wildcat offense as a change of pace.

Jets coach Rex Ryan and offensive coordinator Tony Sparano have both run the wildcat with some success, Ryan with Brad Smith in New York and Sparano with Ronnie Brown in Miami. The fact that Tebow beat both of them last season (Sparano was coaching the Dolphins then) didn’t hurt.

Why the Jacksonville Jaguars didn’t trump the Jets’ offer remains something of a mystery. Tebow was a natural for the Jags. He played his high school football in Jacksonville and is immensely popular there. The Jags went 5-11 last season and got poor quarterback play from rookie Blaine Gabbert, the tenth overall pick of the 2011 draft. They went out and signed a veteran free agent, Chad Henne, as insurance, but he wasn’t much better in four seasons with Miami. The Jags could also use somebody to help them sell tickets so they don’t have to put a tarpaulin over thousands of seats in the upper deck of their stadium.

Evidently, the Jaguars’ new owner, Shad Kahn, was interested but his football people were not, including general manager Gene Smith, who drafted Gabbert. Smith wasn’t ready to give up on Gabbert after one year and had the same reservations about Tebow that other executives do (see above). When the trade to the Jets was finally completed, Kahn issued this statement:

“Earlier this week, I asked Gene Smith and his staff to explore the potential of acquiring Tim Tebow. I think we have a duty to consider all avenues of improving the Jaguars on and off the field, especially given the unique circumstances involving the player.

“I appreciate the high level of due diligence Gene and his staff dedicated to this matter, even as late as (Wednesday) evening, and I am very satisfied with the outcome. Our commitment to developing Blaine Gabbert was, and still is, central to our goal of returning the Jaguars to elite status in the NFL. We’re looking ahead with zero regrets.”

In the end, the Jags and the Jets made very similar offers. The Jags offered a fourth-round pick and $3 million of the $5 million the Broncos had advanced Tebow on his salaries for 2012, 2013 and 2014. The Jets offered the fourth and sixth, getting a seventh in exchange for the sixth, and $2.53 million. Because the Jags draft earlier in each round than the Jets, the draft pick offers were almost identical according to the draft value chart.

Although it was widely assumed Tebow wanted to return to Florida, site of his glorious high school and college careers, New York offers more endorsement opportunities and a much larger platform for his evangelism. In any case, Tebow did not sound unhappy about his landing spot.

“I wanted to play for Coach Ryan ever since I saw ‘Hard Knocks,’ ” Tebow said with his customary laugh. “He just seemed like a coach who loves football and is passionate about the game of football. He’s definitely a players’ coach. I just love that about him.”

Not everyone was so sanguine about Tebow’s move. Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie lobbied against the deal Tuesday on Twitter.

“We don’t need Tebow,” Cromartie wrote. “We sell out every home game. Let him go to Jacksonville, Tampa or Miami.”

Legendary former Jets quarterback Joe Namath also weighed in against it, saying, “It stinks.” And Drew Stanton, signed to back up Sanchez just a week earlier, reacted to the deal by asking for his release.

For Elway and the Broncos, such headaches are now in the rearview mirror. The Broncos return to a conventional quarterback setup with Peyton Manning the undisputed starter and a traditional backup to be signed. Former Colorado State quarterback Caleb Hanie is one candidate. Stanton might even be a candidate if he gets his wish to be released by the Jets.

And the Broncos moved immediately to shore up the receiving corps for Manning, a career 65 percent passer, signing Andre Caldwell to join Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker. Caldwell said the Manning signingplayed a major role in his decision to join the Broncos.

Leading a regime that took over the front office nine months after Josh McDaniels drafted Tebow, Elway found himself caught in a crossfire from the beginning, targeted by Tebowmaniacs who accused him of betrayal, envy and some of the other deadly sins. Passionate as quarterback controversies often are, Tebowmania took it to a whole new level.

At first, pursuing an agenda of transparency following the opaque, Bill Belichick-inspired McDaniels era, Elway acknowledged his reservations about Tebow as a passer. As he came under attack for failing to support the young quarterback sufficiently, he dialed back the openness, praising Tebow’s character and competitive fire, while still noting almost parenthetically that he needed to improve as a pocket passer.

Tebow’s fan base should not have been surprised. When he was hired to run the front office, Elway made it clear his sole goal was to win a Super Bowl and he believed Super Bowls today are won by great pocket passers. As proof, he cited the last nine Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks: Tom Brady (2), Eli Manning (2), Ben Roethlisberger (2), Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers.

John Fox’s coaching staff overhauled the Broncos offense into a run-heavy, read-option collegiate scheme to suit Tebow’s skill set, and it got the Broncos to the playoffs in a mediocre division. But that relative success, combined with Tebow’s following, left Elway presiding over a team running an offense he didn’t believe in.

So Manning’s sudden free agency was manna from heaven. A four-time most valuable player and certain Hall of Famer, Manning was not only the elite passer Elway sought, he provided unassailable cover to get out from under Tebowmania.

Well, not entirely unassailable. A significant minority opinion remains among Broncos fans that Tebow was a better choice than Manning to be the team’s starting quarterback. This baffles people in the game — Elway said any logical analysis would conclude pursuing Manning was the right move — and it reinforces their perception that Tebowmania is beyond the reach of logic.

Tebow’s legion of followers, of course, have their own logic. Tebow is 24, Manning is 36. Tebow is healthy, Manning is coming off multiple neck surgeries and a one-year layoff. They compare Tebow’s stats as a first-year starter to Elway’s rookie stats in 1983 and Manning’s rookie stats in 1998 and conclude Tebow could turn out to be the better player.

The dispute is interminable. It can only be resolved by giving Tebow an extended opportunity to be a starting quarterback in the league and seeing what he does with it. Jacksonville would have provided a better opportunity for that than New York, although, if Sanchez plays this season the way he played last season, Jets fans could be calling for Tebow a month in.

Elway will absorb the departing shots from the Tebow faithful. He has his passer and Tebowmania is now somebody else’s problem. Around the NFL, Elway is seen as having had a masterful week.

“Elway inherited Tebow and in essence dealt TT and a 7th-round pick for Manning (on a great contract), plus a 4th and a 6th and $2.53M,” tweeted Jason LaCanfora of the NFL Network. “Wow.”

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Broncos/NFL

March 19, 2012

A spectacular win for Elway the exec

By Dave Krieger

John Elway’s pursuit of Peyton Manning was always a high risk/high reward proposition. If Manning had decided to go elsewhere, the Broncos would have had few veteran quarterback options left and Elway would have taken even more heat than he already has for potentially alienating Tim Tebow.

Instead, Elway has earned a spectacular victory, acquiring for Denver the most accomplished free agent in NFL history and putting the Broncos back into the championship conversation for the first time since he retired as a player.

The Broncos had no official comment pending negotiation of a contract, but a club source confirmed that Manning notified the team this morning that he wants to be a Bronco. Assuming no snags working out the details of a five-year, $95 million deal, the parameters of which have already been discussed, the Broncos hope to introduce the four-time most valuable player at a press conference Tuesday.

As Broncos fans debated the merits of Elway’s long-distance courtship, the Broncos’ executive vice president of football operations never wavered. At various times, speculation favored San Francisco, deemed the closest to Super Bowl contention following its appearance in last season’s NFC championship game, and Tennessee, where Manning and his wife, Ashley, went to college.

In fact, one day before ESPN broke the news of Manning’s decision, CBS analyst and former Broncos tight end Shannon Sharpe posted this on Twitter: “I believe Titans have won.” Sharpe indicated he had gotten the tip from a league source.

“I was hoping we would win out,” Titans owner Bud Adams told The Tennessean. “I thought we’d be ahead of Denver. I thought he’d want to stay in Tennessee.”

Throughout the Manning pursuit, Broncos fans wondered what would happen if Manning went elsewhere. The club’s other options among veteran quarterbacks were quickly disappearing from the free agent market. Matt Flynn, Jason Campbell, Kyle Orton, Brady Quinn, Josh McCown, Chad Henne, Rex Grossman and a host of even lesser lights had already found seats in the NFL’s off-season game of musical chairs.

Fans also worried about the effect on Tebow, the incumbent starter with whom the Broncos had no contact during the Manning courtship, waiting to see how it turned out. Now, according to ESPN, the club will look to trade Tebow. This process could be almost as interesting as the Manning pursuit itself.

Tebow is even more popular in Florida, where he’s from, than he is in Denver, so the early speculation will focus on Jacksonville and Miami, the two Florida teams without stable quarterback situations (Tampa Bay seems settled with Josh Freeman).

The Jaguars recently signed Henne to join Blaine Gabbert, their first-round draft pick (tenth overall) just 11 months ago. The Dolphins pursued both Manning and Flynn in free agency, to no avail. They hosted 49ers starter Alex Smith over the weekend, hoping to grab him if San Francisco won the Manning sweepstakes. Now the Niners can be expected to get serious about re-signing Smith.

So Miami might indeed be an option for Tebow. The Broncos and Dolphins tried to make a deal for another quarterback — Orton — last summer, but that fell apart when Orton and the Dolphins couldn’t agree on a new contract. Tebow signed a five-year deal after the Broncos drafted him in 2010, so that should be less of an issue in trade talks, although his representatives might well seek an upgrade on the $1.9 million salary he is due in 2012, well below market for an NFL starter.

Just how good Manning will make the Broncos in his first year in Denver is unknown, of course. They face a brutal first-place schedule this season after winning the AFC West on a tie-breaker following an 8-8 season.

Whether the Broncos will add any of his former teammates in Indianapolis is also unknown. Center Jeff Saturday and tight end Dallas Clark would appear to be the most likely possibilities if they do, but the Broncos have promising young players at both spots — J.D. Walton at center and Julius Thomas at tight end.

Strangely, Manning’s favorite target, wideout Reggie Wayne, re-signed with the rebuilding Colts rather than wait to see where the other half of their partnership ended up. He would be a natural to add to the Broncos’ young wide receiver corps — Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker — if he hadn’t. As it is, the Broncos might seek another veteran to replace Eddie Royal, who agreed to terms with the Chargers.

Getting Manning removes only one of the risks in courting him. He still must prove he’s back to being as durable as he was before the neck injury that kept him out all last season and required multiple surgeries to repair. And he must prove he can be as effective at 36, post-surgery, post-layoff, as he was before.

But what Elway has accomplished already should not be understated. With neither the familiarity of Tennessee nor the 13-3 record of San Francisco, Elway sold Manning on Denver in a way that only he could — one Hall of Fame quarterback to another. In the process, he won for the Broncos what Tom Jackson, the ESPN analyst and former Broncos linebacker, called “possibly the biggest free agent pickup in the history of football.”

The only outcome that will truly gratify either Elway or Manning is a Super Bowl championship in the relatively short window they will have together. As soon as the contract is signed, they’ll be getting to work on that.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Broncos/NFL

March 16, 2012

Brandon Stokley knows what the Broncos will see from Peyton Manning

By Dave Krieger

John Elway, John Fox, Brian Xanders, Mike McCoy and Adam Gase are in the Broncos party that flew to Raleigh, N.C., this morning to watch Peyton Manning throw at an indoor facility at Duke University.

What are they likely to see?

Brandon Stokley knows. The former Broncos receiver, who played with Manning for four seasons in Indianapolis from 2003-06, including a 68-catch, 1,077-yard receiving season in 2004, worked out with Manning at Duke two weeks ago and again near his home south of Denver when Manning visited the Broncos last weekend.

So how did he look?

“When we got to Duke, he had thrown a couple days prior than we got there and they had some film on it,” Stokley said Wednesday on the Dave Logan Show. “I didn’t want to watch any of the film. I wanted to kind of go in there with an open mind and see for myself, first hand, what I thought of how he was looking.

“I was really impressed and really surprised at how good he looked. I had talked to him a few times before that and I hadn’t asked him how he was throwing and how he felt, really. So when I got there and I saw him throwing, I was impressed, I really was. He could make all the throws — on the run, in the pocket, comebacks, posts, any throw that a quarterback needs to make, he could make.

“What even impressed me more was he did it for five straight days. And he was the only quarterback there. If you know Peyton, he throws a lot. So he threw a lot of footballs during those five days.”

Following the Duke throwing sessions, Manning returned to Indianapolis for the emotional press conference of March 7 where the Colts announced they were releasing him after 14 seasons. Indianapolis finished a league-worst 2-14 in a 2011 NFL camapign Manning missed due to multiple neck surgeries. As a result, the Colts are starting over, beginning with the first pick in the April draft. Manning was just one of a number of veterans Indianapolis released.

Two days after that press conference, Manning flew to Denver on Broncos owner Pat Bowlen’s private plane and met with Elway and Fox for much of the day and evening Friday in the first visit of a free agency tour that would end up including meetings with the Arizona Cardinals, Miami Dolphins and Tennessee Titans as well.

After a dinner Friday evening with Elway and Fox, Manning spent the night at Stokley’s home in the Castle Rock area. Saturday morning, a week after the Duke sessions, he and Stokley went out to throw a football around, like two regular guys out for a little weekend workout. Stokley picks up the story from there.

“He slept at the house on Friday night and we woke up Saturday morning and he was worn out. But he said maybe we can go throw. I had scouted a field out and had it all ready. He decided he wanted to throw so we were going to the field and of course there was a lacrosse game going on. So we had to backtrack and we ended up throwing in my driveway for a little bit.

“Then my wife came up with a little field in the neighborhood. So we went to that field and he looked even better to me then than he did a week prior. I think the rest of three or four days that he had off definitely helped him.”

I asked Stokley if the neighborhood park was big enough to accommodate NFL pass patterns.

“It’s probably about 50 yards by 40, or 50 by 50, so any NFL throw you’ve got to make you could make on the field,” he replied.

What if any difference did he see between the Manning he played with from 2003-06 and the Manning he worked out with in Raleigh and Denver this month?

“I didn’t see any, I really didn’t,” Stokley said. “That’s what I wanted to see. He looked like the same guy to me when I played with him and that I saw two or three years ago on TV. He just throws a nice, catchable ball, very accurate. So, to me, if you didn’t know, you would have never thought he would have had the surgeries that he’s had. I think he could step in and play a game right now.”

That’s the money quote from Stokley’s throwing sessions with his old teammate: I think he could step in and play a game right now.

Stokley never asked Manning where he might play next, but he did get a sense of what he was looking for.

“I think he’s just trying to find the right fit and the right chemistry with the coaching staff and the philosophies and make sure they’re kind of on the same page,” he said. “I think that’s really high on his list.

“Last weekend, I think he was just trying to get himself wrapped up into what this whole free agency process was going to be. And I think that was one of the main reasons why he came to Denver first, was because of his relationship with Elway and with Fox. He knew he could come here and be himself and just kind of see what the whole process was going to be like.

“I think moving forward he’s kind of taking his time, (although) he’s been rushed around. I don’t know where his head’s at as far as what team he’s going to pick, but I know that he’s going to do his due diligence and whatever team he finds, he’s going to make it a lot better and a lot more competitive right away.”

It didn’t hurt the Broncos’ chances that it was sunny with temperatures in the 60s on the March weekend that Manning visited.

“I pointed that out to him,” Stokley said. “When we were throwing Saturday morning, I said, ‘Look at this day. It doesn’t get any better than this.’ So he definitely took notice.”

In fact, Stokley did what he could to play the role of Colorado ambassador.

“I would love to see him play here,” he said. “Obviously, I’m biased. I’d get to watch it first hand. I think the city, the state would get to see something special if he came to Denver. So I’m definitely putting my two cents in and hoping that he comes to Denver.”

The fact that top Broncos officials flew across the country today to watch Manning throw demonstrates that Denver is still very much in the hunt. And based on Stokley’s testimony, the Broncos brain trust won’t see anything that discourages them in their campaign to bring the four-time NFL most valuable player to Denver.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in Broncos/NFL

March 15, 2012

Sizing up Peyton Manning’s options

By Dave Krieger

For what it’s worth, Vegas still thinks the Broncos are the favorites to land Peyton Manning. In odds published Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times, R.J. Bell of Pregame.com had the Broncos at 24 percent, the Dolphins at 14 percent, the Cardinals at 11 percent and the Titans at 10 percent.

Of course, the Titans’ odds seem to have improved after yesterday’s meeting with Manning in Nashville.

Over the past week, a lot of folks have floated alleged scoops on Twitter that turned out to be false, so let’s clear up a couple of things:

The Broncos have had no contact with Tim Tebow since the Manning courtship began. If you think about it for a moment, there’s not much they could say. Until Manning makes his choice, Tebow, the Broncos and the rest of planet Earth are in a holding pattern.

The Broncos have not pestered Manning for progress reports or a decision since he left Denver on Saturday. John Elway is driving this bus. He and Manning connected well during the visit Friday and Saturday. The Broncos expect Manning to be as thorough in this process as he is in his game preparation, which is very. They do not feel the urgency, say, of Arizona, which would have to release its current starter, Kevin Kolb, by 2 p.m. mountain time Friday to avoid paying him a $7 million bonus on Saturday.

Still, the worst-case scenario for the Broncos would be a little messy. If Manning signs elsewhere and Tebow is so upset by the courtship that he demands a trade or his release — an unlikely outcome, I think, but a possible one — the Broncos wouldn’t have a quarterback. Some free agent options are already choosing their new laundry. Jason Campbell has agreed to terms with the Bears and Kyle Orton is joining the Cowboys, not that either side would have had much interest in that reunion.

All that said, let’s have a look at the pros and cons of Manning’s four main options:

Arizona

Pros: The Cardinals offer the best receiving weapons among Manning’s suitors in wideout Larry Fitzgerald and tight end Todd Heap. They also have a respected offensive mind in head coach Ken Whisenhunt. They made sufficient salary cap room to do a deal by cutting left tackle Levi Brown. They play their home games indoors, just as Manning did for the first 14 seasons of his career in Indianapolis.

Cons: The Cardinals gave up the second highest sack total in the league over the past two seasons, and that’s before they cut Brown, their best offensive lineman. They’re in the NFC, a conference less familiar to Manning than the AFC, where he’s played his entire career. They’re in a division with the San Francisco 49ers, who won 13 games last season and came within a dropped punt of the Super Bowl. They’ve never won a Super Bowl and their ownership, the Bidwell family, is . . . how to put this politely . . . not among the most respected in the league.

Miami

Pros: Manning has a condo there. The weather is nice. They have the best defense of the contenders, or did last season, anyway, when they surrendered 19.6 points a game, sixth-best in the NFL.

Cons: They just traded away their best receiver in Brandon Marshall. Speculation had it they would replace him with Reggie Wayne, Manning’s old pal from Indianapolis, but then Wayne re-upped with the Colts. The Dolphins have had largely dysfunctional management over the past several years. This year, they have a new coaching staff with a rookie head coach in Joe Philbin. They play in the same division with the New England Patriots.

Tennessee

Pros: Manning went to college there. Manning’s wife went to college there. Manning’s wife grew up in Memphis. The Titans play in the AFC South, the same division as the Colts, so the opponents and schedules would be familiar. It’s generally a warm-weather climate, although not always. They have the second-best defense of Manning’s suitors, having surrendered 19.8 points per game last season.

Cons: The targets in the passing game are OK, but nothing special. It’s not clear that anybody in the organization other than 89-year-old owner Bud Adams is that fired up about tearing up their current quarterback succession plan to bring in Manning and his offense. They already have a veteran in Matt Hasselbeck and a first-round apprentice in Jake Locker. And, as Manning knows, the Houston Texans are an emerging power in the division. They went 10-6 last season with starting quarterback Matt Schaub missing the last six games and the playoffs with a foot injury. With a healthy Schaub, they might have won 12.

Denver

Pros: The clearest path to the playoffs. The AFC West is the weakest division of the four Manning is looking at. Offensive coordinator Mike McCoy proved last season he will tailor his offense to his quarterback. John Elway can relate to Manning in a way no other suitor can, as a member of the elite club of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. John Fox is an easygoing, defense-oriented head coach. And the Broncos have the most salary cap space of the four (roughly $40 million), enough to do a deal with Manning and a couple of his best friends (Jeff Saturday? Dallas Clark?) too.

Cons: The targets in the passing game are OK, but nothing special, at least not yet. The offensive line is excellent in the running game but only so-so in pass protection. The defense, although improving, remains a work in progress. The Broncos play their home games outdoors, where it sometimes snows in Colorado (although it was 65 and sunny on the March days Manning visited).

Rational analysis may not determine the outcome here — emotions certainly come into a decision like this — but if it does, the speculation focusing on Tennessee and Denver makes some sense. Arizona and Miami have questionable management. Denver has solid ownership and management and a winning tradition. Tennessee is familiar ground with solid management and a pretty fair team.

The Broncos will have fences to mend and roster work to do if Manning goes elsewhere. For now, they are focused on shoring up the defensive line — they are interested in Paul Soliai, the former Dolphins defensive tackle, and their own free agent, Brodrick Bunkley — as well as the secondary. As is their custom, they are content to let the big spenders go first, then search for value.

The bottom line on the Broncos’ pursuit of Manning is this: Elway is in charge, and Elway is interested in Super Bowls. The argument that the Broncos improved last year and won their division (on a tie-breaker) with Tebow doesn’t cut much ice with Elway. He knows what it takes to be a Super Bowl contender and he believes bringing in Manning is the fastest way to get there. He knows the Manning courtship is a high risk/high reward mission. He believes that going for greatness usually is.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Broncos/NFL

March 9, 2012

Five reasons Peyton Manning should sign with the Broncos

By Dave Krieger

Sure, the Dolphins are the leader in the speculation clubhouse. Peyton Manning has a house in south Florida and flew there immediately after parting with the Colts this week to continue working out with former and possibly future teammate Reggie Wayne, a University of Miami product who wouldn’t mind signing with the Dolphins himself.

But with Manning in Denver today for his first free agent visit, the Broncos are clearly in the hunt as well. And check out this video of Manning’s arrival in Miami Beach late Wednesday. The TV dude asks about five different ways if he wouldn’t love playing for the Dolphins, being the next Dan Marino, playing with Brandon Marshall, Reggie Bush and possibly Wayne. Manning deflects each and every one.

“I think my agent has been getting calls at 4 o’clock today since this started,” he said. “I haven’t talked to him because I literally just got off the plane and am ready to start back with my training again, because that’s really what I need to do.”

As for his health, Manning declared himself good to go:

“My neck is fine. Doctors have cleared me. That’s been a relief to me, and I’ve continued to work hard. The best part about it is being out there throwing again. I’m throwing with my guys, throwing with Reggie, just got back from Duke, there’s a good chance I could go back there to keep training with my old coach, coach (David) Cutcliffe has been great, but throwing to Dallas (Clark) and Austin Collie and my old buddy Brandon Stokley last week was fun because when you’re in the training room all fall you’re kind of removed from the action. So it’s fun to kind of be back in the action again.”

As he did earlier Wednesday during his farewell press conference in Indianapolis, Manning left no doubt he wants to play again after missing all of last season.

“I really missed just playing quarterback this year,” he said. “I’ve done it for such a long time and I love everything about it. I realize that I’m not going to play forever, and I think I’m going to know the time to stop playing, but right now I still want to play. I want to get back out there and play. Everybody will say he has to do this or he has to prove that. I don’t feel that way. I know how much I love playing quarterback and love football and I want to go play again. So that’s what I’m looking forward to doing.”

Where should he do it? Miami has plenty to offer, no doubt, but here are five reasons he should choose Denver:

1. Clearest road to the playoffs. Even adding Manning and Wayne to the roster, the Dolphins would not be favored over the Patriots (13-3 last season) to win the AFC East. And Manning points out in that TV interview that the Dolphins have a new staff in place. That’s an unknown, particularly when it’s led by a former offensive coordinator, Joe Philbin, who has never been a head coach.

No team in the AFC West won more than eight games last season. The Broncos won the division on a tie-breaker. Add Manning and they are immediate favorites to win the division outright. That would give them a home playoff game and put Manning back in the Super Bowl tournament.

2. Stay in the AFC. Arizona has been mentioned as a possible alternative to Miami because it, like Indy, offers indoor football. But in addition to sharing a division with the Jim Harbaugh-led 49ers, who went 13-3 last season and were one fumbled punt away from the Super Bowl, the Cardinals play in the NFC.

Manning has spent his entire career in the American conference and knows the competition better there. In the same way the AFC West provides fewer obstacles to the playoffs than other divisions, the AFC provides fewer obstacles than the NFC. With the Giants, Packers, Saints and Niners, the NFC has a powerhouse in every division, not to mention the up-and-coming Lions and Falcons. The AFC has the Patriots and Steelers and a bunch of question marks.

3. An offense tailored to his game. If the Broncos proved nothing else last season, they demonstrated they have the offensive imagination and flexibility to build a scheme around the strengths of their quarterback. Not only did they bring a collegiate attack into the NFL to suit Tim Tebow, they did it on the fly when he took over as the starter in mid-season after the club started 1-4 behind Kyle Orton. In offensive coordinator Mike McCoy, Manning would find a smart, willing partner in transferring his offense to the Rocky Mountains.

4. Money. It’s not about the money, of course. It never is. But just in case it’s just a little bit about the money, the Broncos have as much room under the salary cap as any team in football. They could sign Manning and still have room to do anything else in free agency they might want to do.

5. John Elway and John Fox. In Elway, Manning would find a kindred spirit, one of the rare human beings in the world who can relate as an equal to a veteran quarterback bound for the exclusive club of signal-callers that occupies the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In Fox, he would find a coach who makes work fun.

Skeptics say Fox’s offenses are too conservative for Manning. Funny, the former Colts quarterback’s name came up last season when I interviewed Fox about his penchant for overtime games (he has coached the only two teams in NFL history to win four overtime games in the same season and postseason).

“You don’t design it,” Fox said then. “You’d like to win it regulation, you know what I mean? And you’d like to win it by a couple of touchdowns. The reality is that’s hard to do. Teams that I’ve coached, I don’t know that we’ve ever just been that incredibly dynamic, score-a-lot-of-points offense. You don’t get a lot of blowouts.”

So, I asked him, if he was coaching, say, Peyton Manning, he might not have so many nail-biters?

“Well, I don’t know,” Fox replied, “but I can honestly say I’ve never had that guy.”

Now he has a shot. With Fox at the helm, Manning might have the benefit of a better defense and running game than he enjoyed for many of his years in Indianapolis. The Colts were 10-6 with him in 2010. Without him, they were 2-14 in 2011.

Colorado might be considered a cold-weather city around the league, but the Broncos didn’t have a single bad-weather home game last season. Show him around today. See how he likes 65 degrees and sunshine in March.

The Broncos were 8-8 without him in 2011. How good could they be with him? If Manning wants to get back to competing for Super Bowls, the Broncos provide arguably the clearest path.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Broncos/NFL

March 7, 2012

Are you kidding? Of course the Broncos should make a play for Peyton Manning

By Dave Krieger

Darnell Dockett wasted no time launching his campaign to get Peyton Manning to join the Arizona Cardinals.

“Peyton to AZ!!!!!!” Dockett tweeted Tuesday as word circulated that Manning would be released by the Colts, which he was this morning.

As Dockett made clear in subsequent appearances on the NFL Network and ESPN, this was not intended to disparage Kevin Kolb, the quarterback the Cardinals signed to a five-year, $63.5 million contract, $21 million of it guaranteed, less than a year ago.

“I don’t have anything against our quarterback we have now,” Dockett said. “I feel confident in him. Who wouldn’t want to play with Peyton Manning?”

Seriously. The Broncos should feel the same way.

The Jets have Mark Sanchez, the fifth overall draft pick in 2009, and they’re reportedly ready to make a play to make New York a two-Manning market.

In short, there is no good reason for the Broncos not to join the party. All Manning can say is no.

A Broncos spokesman said Wednesday the team will have no comment on the matter until next week.

It is no knock on Tim Tebow, in whom the Broncos have a smaller financial investment than the Cardinals have in Kolb or the Jets have in Sanchez, to suggest that he could learn a thing or two from a four-time NFL most valuable player. Nor is it an exaggeration to say that adding Manning would add a rocket booster to the Broncos’ plan to return to contention.

Based on eyewitness reports and a brief video of a Manning throwing session last week at Duke University, he is much closer to being ready to play again than many observers expected after multiple surgeries to repair a neck injury. While he said Wednesday he still has some progress to make in his throwing, he is a well-known perfectionist, and the video from Duke showed him throwing both long and short distances with no apparent trouble.

Manning will turn 36 later this month. Assuming he can stay healthy, he should have several productive years left in him.

The difficulty for the Broncos, of course, would be persuading him that Denver is the best spot for him. The Dolphins, Redskins, Jets, Cardinals and Seahawks are all expected to make plays, and there could be others. Of those teams, only the Jets could argue they are significantly closer to competing for a championship than the Broncos, and even that’s debatable after the Broncos beat them last season.

It’s possible that Manning, who has played his home games indoors throughout his tenure in Indianapolis, will prefer a warm-weather climate. The Broncos can’t do anything about that, but it can’t do any harm to make  pitch. They’ll never know unless they try.

One factor in their favor is they have as much room under the NFL salary cap as any team in the league. How much of it they would be willing to devote to a veteran quarterback is another matter, but unless Pat Bowlen has more financial troubles than we know, money should not be an obstacle.

Bottom line, there is no reason not to make a pitch. Manning is one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history. He’s available. He still wants to play. He will dramatically improve some NFL team. Why not the Broncos?

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Broncos/NFL

February 27, 2012

Rockies would rather not be our punching bag

By Dave Krieger

To understand the Rockies’ decision to take manager Jim Tracy’s contract status underground, you have to understand the relationship between ball clubs and old media — newspapers, radio and television.

This is difficult for most people to do because you don’t hear much about this relationship. That’s because, until very recently, you got most if not all of your information about ball clubs from old media, which are neither inclined nor equipped to examine their own role in this dance dispassionately.

As you may have noticed, things are changing rather rapidly in this respect. Many athletes now bypass the old media filter and communicate directly with their fans through new media, Twitter and Facebook being the most obvious examples. Clubs are beginning to do the same. The Broncos have taken to breaking their own news through the organization’s Twitter account or that of John Elway, the face of the front office. They have their own videographer, Chris Hall, who posts news conferences and edited video features on the team’s web site.

The Broncos also issue a media credential to a former employee and current independent blogger, Andrew Mason. Using his own resources, Mason covers the team both at home and on the road pretty much as a traditional old media beat reporter would, except that he is more comfortable with a variety of platforms — photography, videography, the written word — than most old media reporters. He posts his work on the web site MaxDenver.com.

Both the Broncos’ and Mason’s sites are aimed at the Broncos’ very substantial fan base, both locally and nationally. They emphasize the good news and minimize the bad.

The Nuggets, too, have brought news dissemination in-house in the person of former Associated Press and Rocky Mountain News writer Aaron Lopez, who tweets and writes for the organization’s web site.

To date, this self-dissemination of the news remains limited. Although the Broncos were well aware of the investigation into Spygate II in Josh McDaniels’ final season as head coach, they were not about disclose it publicly. Still, once the Denver Post broke the story, the Broncos took immediate control of it, calling a news conference the same day — a Saturday — to announce the investigation was complete and the NFL had fined both the organization and McDaniels for breaking league rules by videotaping a San Francisco 49ers walk-through at London’s Wembley Stadium four weeks before. In effect, they were announcing that the story was over before old media had a chance to sink their teeth into it.

The Broncos have become even more pro-active about public relations under Elway, who was hired a little more than a year ago. One could imagine them beating old media to the punch the next time, announcing both the infraction and resolution simultaneously, thereby providing the story as little shelf life as possible for old media to chew on afterward.

At first glance, this looks like the traditional inclination of any organization, public or private, to manage the news and minimize negative publicity, and it certainly is that. But it is also something more. It is one result of old media transforming themselves as their monopoly on information slips away.

While those of us who grew up in old media are loath to admit it, pandering to web hits — internet page views — has become a fact of the modern age. Page views drive digital advertising, and digital advertising is the key to the internet land grab.

Years ago, people in the media business had the luxury of debating whether to provide the information people needed or the information people wanted. Even then, reader surveys indicated we could not provide too much celebrity news. And they suggested we could very easily provide — and often did — more information than most people wanted about the Zoning Board of Adjustment.

But we had a monopoly on the existing platforms for news dissemination, so we got to decide. Generally speaking, we tried to strike the balance they teach in journalism schools. Many people resented this gatekeeper function, but what were they going to do? Where were they going to go?

Fast forward to today. Old media institutions are fighting for their lives amid the creative destruction of capitalism that has brought down so many old industries and delivered so many new ones. I worked for one of them. TheRocky Mountain News went under three years ago after 150 years of existence. Given such cautionary tales, the surviving institutions of old media are now focused primarily on survival.

In this brave new world, all media, old and new, are in a battle to the death for your eyeballs. As recently as ten years ago, writers had no idea how many people read this column or that one, just as advertisers had little or no idea how many of their sales grew out of any particular print or broadcast ad.

Today, thanks to the internet, we know exactly how many page views each column gets, and we have learned a few things that do not, in the end, come as any great surprise:

Provocation sells. Extreme, even absurd claims, often get more web hits than moderate, reasonable ones. Thanks to something called search engine optimization, celebrity news gets the most attention of all. If you think the amount of media attention devoted to Tim Tebow is very nearly insane, you haven’t seen the web analytics. If you saw local page view counts for anything including Tebow’s name, you would understand why so many apparently unrelated pieces find a way to throw it in there.

The web rewards extremism not necessarily because readers are becoming more extreme in their views, although they might be. Mainly, the web rewards extremism because extreme claims drive curiosity. If I write a column saying Tracy has some good traits and some bad ones as a big league manager, it will get far fewer clicks than if I declare he is either the Rockies’ savior for the next ten years or he is a joke and has no business in a major league dugout. Either of the latter claims is likely to provoke a heated dispute, preferably in the comments section of my employer’s web site. The former claim is not provocative enough to fully stimulate that partisan debate and will therefore almost certainly be less successful in attracting eyeballs to my employer’s web site.

Which brings us back to the Rockies. The Rocks have not yet been as pro-active as either the Broncos or Nuggets in managing and disseminating their own news, but they are getting there. They have begun tweeting from an organizational account and they publish the writing of correspondents who work for mlb.com on their rapidly improving web site.

More than most organizations in town, they have been battered by old media’s recognition that extreme stands attract more attention than moderate ones. When the Rocks are good, as they were in 2007 and 2009, old media lavish attention on them. When they are bad, as they were in 2008 and 2011, old media rip them as if they had never accomplished a thing.

So the decision to quit making public announcements about the contract status of their top executives and manager is just a way of giving old media fewer fat pitches to hit. After all, who else does such a thing? Does the Post announce that it is re-upping a sports editor or columnist, opening the door for the public to chime in on whether that’s a good idea? Does KOA declare how long it intends to keep me around? Does CBS4 announce the term of any anchor’s contract?

The Rocks remember well the beating they took in old media when they announced on the first day of the 2007 season that they were re-upping general manager Dan O’Dowd and manager Clint Hurdle for two years apiece. They were slapped around for weeks. What had O’Dowd and Hurdle ever done to deserve these extensions? Didn’t it prove that the organization didn’t really care about winning?

Six months later, the Rocks went to the World Series. They got no apologies. Old media were too busy capitalizing on the club’s success with special sections and special programming glorifying an organization they had excoriated earlier that same year.

This drives the owners and executives of sports organizations nuts. They see it as a total absence of accountability and intellectual honesty. Old media executives don’t much care. They believe their accountability is to the marketplace, where there’s a referendum every day.

Old media are doing what they must to survive in a world in which anyone with an internet connection and an inspiration can self-publish in an instant, a world in which advertisers have a broader array than ever before of media platforms from which to choose. In a (relatively) free market economy, old media institutions have every right to do what they feel they must to survive.

And organizations such as the Rockies have every right to chart their own course, to do what they can to avoid being punching bags. All they announced last week is that they will provide fewer artificial occasions for us to slap them around. Tracy will be employed in his current position until he’s not. Just like you or me.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Broncos/NFL, Rockies/MLB

February 21, 2012

Just what sort of quarterbacks are the Broncos looking for?

By Dave Krieger

Here’s what we know: Tim Tebow is the Broncos’ starting quarterback going into training camp this summer, but with only two quarterbacks under contract — Tebow and second-year undrafted free agent Adam Weber — the Broncos are planning to add at least two more to the roster between now and then.

Here’s what we don’t know: What kind of quarterbacks do the Broncos want to add? Do they want someone like pending free agent Jason Campbell of the Raiders, a career-long starter who would want a genuine opportunity to compete for the starting job? Or do they want an older veteran, someone like 37-year-old Jake Delhomme, who has a long history with head coach John Fox and would likely be willing to accept a role as Tebow’s backup and confidant?

If Broncos’ brass knows the answer, it’s not saying.

“We’re in the process right now of going through that, going through the free agency,” John Elway said Monday on the Dave Logan Show.

“We got done with our free agent meetings today, going through the process of ranking every position, not only the quarterback position but obviously every position. So I think as we go over and discuss each position we’ll come to a conclusion of what we’re looking for at each position, whether that be the quarterback or the defensive line position. I think the bottom line is you’re always looking at a chance to try to get better and bring in somebody that is going to come in and compete and make the people they’re competing with better.”

Coach John Fox was no more forthcoming, telling the Denver Post: “Who, what, where, when, what market — it’s still way too early (to say) how we get those quarterbacks.”

Actually, it may be a little early, but not much. The NFL free agent market opens March 13 — three weeks from today. A long and varied list of quarterbacks will become free agents that day if their current teams don’t sign them to new contracts in the interim.

It begins with an impressive name that won’t actually be available. Although they’ve been talking about it for 18 months, the Saints and Drew Brees still haven’t reached agreement on a new deal. Nevertheless, Brees will be back in New Orleans next season, even if the Saints have to slap a franchise tag on him.

Alex Smith of the 49ers is in approximately the same situation. If his success under coach Jim Harbaugh last season didn’t make his return to San Francisco obvious, his decision to carry Harbaugh’s bag at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am did.

There’s also Matt Flynn, the 26-year-old Packers backup with two career NFL starts. Thanks mostly to one really good start at the end of the season, he’s about to hit the free agent jackpot, probably in Miami, where Green Bay’s former offensive coordinator, Joe Philbin, is now head coach.

Then there’s Peyton Manning, who could be waived prior to March 8, when the Colts owe him a $28 million bonus. Manning will be 36 next month and missed all of last season with a neck injury. His health and arm strength remain question marks after four surgical procedures. Some team that believes it’s one quarterback away from a Super Bowl — say, the Jets — might take a shot if Manning and the Colts can’t rework their deal, but it won’t be the Broncos.

After that, the list of available quarterbacks goes downhill pretty fast. Campbell, 30, is probably the best of the lot. Like Tebow, he was the 25th pick of the draft, in his case the 2005 edition. Campbell has never been a backup, starting 70 of the 71 games in which he’s appeared, so it’s unlikely he’s signing anywhere he doesn’t have at least an even chance to win the starting job.

Also on the free agent list: Delhomme, Kyle Orton (uh, no), Brady Quinn (not if he can help it), David Garrard, Chad Pennington, Chad Henne, Vince Young, Kyle Boller, Dennis Dixon, Shaun Hill, Byron Leftwich, Luke McCown, Charlie Whitehurst, Kellen Clemens, Derek Anderson and . . . well . . . you get the idea. The usual suspects.

Tebowmania is another variable likely to cull the list. On some teams, the backup quarterback is the most popular guy in town. Not on this one.

The other addition to the quarterback depth chart is likely to come from the class of 2012. The top prospects, Andrew Luck of Stanford and Robert Griffin III of Baylor, will be long gone by the time the Broncos exercise their first draft pick (No. 25). Most of the rest should be available, either there, later in the draft or in the aftermarket of undrafted free agents.

Among them: Ryan Tannehill of Texas A&M, Brandon Weeden of Oklahoma State, Nick Foles of Arizona, Brock Osweiler of Arizona State, B.J. Coleman of UT-Chattanooga and Kirk Cousins of Michigan State.

The Broncos have to answer an interesting question here, too: Do they want a traditional pocket passer in the mold Elway prefers? Or do they want somebody on the roster other than Tebow who can run the read option? That, in turn, depends on whether they believe Tebow will progress enough as a pocket passer this offseason to render the read option a one-year experiment rather than a staple of their offense.

If they want another mobile quarterback who could run last year’s offense in a pinch, they might take a look at former Rockies prospect Russell Wilson of Wisconsin or Darron Thomas of Oregon.

In short, given the available alternatives, it’s not clear that Tebow will have any serious competition for the starting job.

With Fox entering his second year as coach, the Broncos’ emphasis remains on the defensive side of the ball, where they need help along the interior of the line, in the backfield and potentially at middle linebacker, depending on their current view of Nate Irving, the third-round draft pick last year who was unable to supplant Joe Mays as a rookie.

The many and varied Tebow-oriented debates aside, he went 8-5 as a starter last season, putting him pretty far down the Broncos’ list of immediate issues. So while the club will be adding bodies at his position, it’s looking all but certain Tebow will get a chance to build on his successes in 2011 as the Broncos’ starter in 2012.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Broncos/NFL