Tag Archives: Peyton Manning

September 16, 2013

Tony Dungy: Peyton Manning only getting better from here

The Broncos are 2-0. Peyton Manning has nine touchdown passes and no interceptions. His former coach, Tony Dungy, was watching his latest performance in an NBC studio, preparing for Sunday Night Football.

“You said, ‘Uh-oh, Peyton’s only going to get better,'” NBC’s Dan Patrick recounted. “The difference between last year’s Peyton and the start of this year?”

“Last year, I talked to him before the season started and he thought he was going to be fine,” Dungy said. “He thought he was going to be able to throw, he thought his neck would hold up. But he really didn’t know.

“He’s been through a year, he knew he could take a hit, more comfortable with the receivers being there a year, and he got the best slot receiver in football (Wes Welker) that he’s still only getting used to. Look out in another month. These guys are really going to be good on offense.”

It’s not clear what 90 points against the two most recent Super Bowl champions counts for on Dungy’s scale, but this gaudy number was achieved in spite of uninspired first halves in both games. The Broncos were outscored by the Ravens and Giants 26-24 before intermission. They blew them away after halftime by a collective score of 66-24.

“I thought we made good second-half adjustments,” Manning said of Sunday’s 41-23 victory at the Meadowlands. “Two weeks in a row, we’ve come out in the second half and really sort of changed the tempo of the game and came out of the locker room and put up consecutive touchdown drives. Just like to find a way to fix it in the first half a little bit.

“Of course, the first drive was really good, just didn’t finish the way we needed to. And then we had some more self-inflicted errors in that first half, things that we were doing that were kind of stopping ourselves. Those are things we have to correct. Fortunately, our defense kind of kept us in it, but we need to do a better job in the first half and not wait till the second half two weeks in a row.”

In the NFL opener, the Ravens led 17-14 at halftime. The Broncos regrouped and scored three consecutive touchdowns in the third quarter while stuffing the Ravens offense on the alternating possessions, then cruised to a 49-27 triumph.

This week, the pattern changed only a little. The Broncos led 10-9 at halftime, thanks to a defense that held the Giants to field goals on three scoring drives and then intercepted Manning’s younger brother, Eli, on New York’s final possession before intermission.

“The red zone, the scoring zone, whatever you want to call it, is a huge area because it’s a four-point swing,” Broncos coach John Fox said. “If you let a team go down there three times, it can be 21 or it can be nine.

“So it’s a huge deal to get better. We were not very good in that area defensively a year ago. It’s something we worked very hard on this off-season, in OTAs and training camp. I think our guys are figuring that out a little bit better. So far in a short season, we’re two games into it, we’ve responded a little better in those situations.”

Coming out for the second half, the Broncos stuffed the Giants offense with a three-and-out, then drove 53 yards in nine plays, capped by Welker’s third touchdown catch of the season, stretching the lead to 17-9.

Unlike the Ravens the week before, the Giants responded. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that referee Gene Steratore’s crew responded. Of the 81 yards on New York’s ensuing touchdown drive, 36 were awarded on penalties, and that allows only one yard for consecutive flags at the goal line that all but announced the Giants were getting in, one way or another.

All told, Steratore’s crew threw four flags on the Broncos defense during the drive, including a doubtful pass interference call on cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie on New York’s failed third-and-goal play and an even more dubious taunting call on defensive tackle Terrance Knighton on the subsequent first-and-goal.

In any case, the Broncos replied with another touchdown drive that put them back up by eight. They got the ball back almost immediately on one of their four interceptions — this one by cornerback Chris Harris, his second in as many games — and drove for yet another score. When Trindon Holliday returned the Giants’ next punt 81 yards for a touchdown, the score was 38-16 and another close game had been blown open in the second half.

“We make adjustments,” Fox said. “Sometimes this early in the season there’s unscouted looks, there’s a couple things that maybe cause some confusion. You settle guys down, put it on the board, show them what to do, how to react next time. That’s what football is. I mean, it’s adjusting. So our guys respond to it well and our coaches do a good job of getting it across.”

Dungy had another theory for Manning’s relatively slow starts so far.

“He wants to be so perfect, and sometimes he’s out-thinking himself — ‘They may do this, so we better change this.’ And then they get back to running the things that they’ve run, and just in-sync, and the second halves the last two weeks have been beautiful,” he said.

This is the most intriguing aspect of the Broncos’ first two victories: Manning has managed to look out of sorts about half the time while putting up enormous numbers, both on the stat sheet and the scoreboard.

“It’s funny because you look at Peyton and it seems like he’s struggling and before you know it, it’s 21, 28 points, and you’re like, ‘Where the heck did all this come from?'” former All-Pro defensive back Rodney Harrison said on NBC. “That’s the power of Peyton Manning.”

Throughout the week leading up to the “Manning Bowl,” the third meeting between Peyton and Eli, Peyton made it clear he didn’t relish the fraternal matchup. When it was over, his feelings hadn’t changed.

“It’s a strange feeling,” he said. “It’s not like beating another team. It’s not probably quite as enjoyable as it would be if you were beating somebody else.”

Indeed, Eli, who has now lost all three matchups with his older brother, seemed to be pressing to keep up, throwing four interceptions. With the Broncos not scheduled to play the Giants in the regular season again until 2017, 37-year-old Peyton predicted happily that he would not be around for the next one, barring a Broncos-Giants Super Bowl in the meantime.

Manning’s glossy numbers are far from the Broncos’ only good news through two weeks. Without sack specialist Von Miller, suspended for the first six weeks, the defense has been opportunistic and sometimes sensational. Without 12-time Pro Bowl cornerback Champ Bailey, sidelined by a foot injury, the defensive backfield has six interceptions. The special teams have a blocked punt and a punt return for a touchdown.

Running back Knowshon Moreno had touchdown runs of 20 and 25 yards against the Giants and 93 yards on only 13 carries overall. Compared to rookie Montee Ball’s 16 yards on 12 carries, along with a fumble that wasted the Broncos’ first drive, Moreno looks like the featured back for now.

If there is any cause for concern, it would be that the Broncos are struggling to run the ball out of the three wide-receiver set that allows them to put their main receiving weapons — Welker, Demaryius Thomas, Eric Decker and tight end Julius Thomas — on the field at the same time.

“We went a little more two tight ends in the second half,” Manning said. “We were mostly one tight end, three wides in the first half. I thought the two tight ends was a good change for us and we ran the ball better out of that personnel grouping. For whatever reason, that helped our running game. And then we were able to get a couple of big plays in the passing game, a couple of crossing routes to Demaryius and to Decker. That was a good change by the coaches.”

Although heavier personnel are traditionally used for running plays, Manning said he’s not sure the single substitution between the two groups explains the change in the running dynamic.

“It’s not a major, drastic change,” he said. “It’s just one guy for one guy. It’s kind of Virgil Green for Wes Welker. But for whatever reason, our execution got better. We’ll see the film as to what was the real reason for it, but it did give us a little more rhythm, and then when you can go to three wides after that — Wes’s touchdown was in three wides — it can maybe keep them a little bit more off-balance.”

All things considered, it’s a pretty minor issue for a team averaging 45 points a game. But it’s something to work on, as is starting faster. After all, as Manning said, you don’t want to peak too early.

“He’s still learning these guys,” Dungy said, “but another month and they get Von Miller and Champ Bailey back, this is going to be an outstanding team.”

Leave a comment | tags: Peyton Manning, Tony Dungy | posted in Broncos/NFL

September 6, 2013

Arms race: Broncos unveil another weapon

By Dave Krieger

Imagine you’re the defensive coordinator for a team that has to play the Denver Broncos. In fact, you’re the defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens, the team that has to play the Broncos first. Just so you know, your name is Dean Pees.

Your opponent has three 1,000-yard wide receivers, which is a problem. Nobody has three 1,000-yard receivers. You can’t double-team Demaryius Thomas (1,434 receiving yards last season), Wes Welker (1,354 for New England) and Eric Decker (1,064). You’ll have to mix and match, disguise, throw in some zone looks and hope you can limit the damage.

Now imagine somebody tells you that two minutes and 30 seconds into the second half, Peyton Manning will have three touchdown passes against your defense and none of them will be to any of those guys.

More frightening even than Manning’s NFL record-tying seven touchdown passes in Thursday’s season opener was the fact that the first three went to Julius Thomas, Julius Thomas and Andre Caldwell.

Thomas, a 6-foot-5-inch former basketball player, had never caught a touchdown pass in the NFL. Caldwell had six career touchdowns, but none for the Broncos as he entered his second season with the club.

In Julius Thomas’ coming-out party after two years stunted by injury, the big, athletic tight end caught five passes for 110 yards and two touchdowns, adding yet another difficult matchup to what was already an impressive array of weaponry. Meanwhile, the veteran Caldwell, the fourth of four wide receivers, was the picture of efficiency, getting one pass all night and catching it for a touchdown.

So now imagine you’re Perry Fewell, defensive coordinator of the New York Giants, who play host to the Broncos in Week 2. Do you have to take Julius Thomas, the tight end, as seriously as you take the Broncos’ big three?

About a half hour after Manning put up the shiniest stat line in a career full of shiny stat lines — 27 of 42 for 462 yards, seven touchdowns, no interceptions and a passer rating of 141.1 — I asked him if the emergence of the second Thomas in his arsenal will make defensive coordinators rethink how they game plan the Broncos.

“It would be an interesting question,” he said. “I’m not sure how they will answer it, or if they will, but it will be interesting to see how teams play Julius all season. He is a big guy, he definitely will make teams have a conversation, and that’s what you want. You want guys that make teams have a discussion — ‘how are we going to handle this guy?’ — and he’s a big guy.

“First play of the game, he ran a seam route. He didn’t do exactly how he was coached to do it, but that guy (Ravens safety James Ihedigbo) put a pretty good hit on him and he got right back up and hung in there, did not have to come out, and made a couple big plays.”

It didn’t seem like a good sign at the time. For an instant, it looked like a substantial completion on the first play, before Ihedigbo separated Thomas from the ball.

“That ‘out’ route on the left side where he made the guy miss, that was a huge play because they had some momentum and I think we just had the penalty and we were up on our heels a little bit,” Manning said. “But we did a great job answering the score there. A lot of credit goes to Julius Thomas there.”

The Broncos trailed 14-7 at the time. After a scoreless, forgettable first quarter, cornerback Chris Harris gave them a shot of adrenaline with a diving interception in front of Brandon Stokley early in the second. Manning hit Julius Thomas up the seam for 24 yards and a touchdown on the next play to make it 7-7. Manning complimented the aggressive call and made a point of crediting first-year offensive coordinator Adam Gase.

Then Welker muffed a punt near the goal line and gave the turnover score right back. So the Broncos were again down a touchdown when they were hit by the penalty Manning referenced — an offensive pass interference call on Decker — putting them in a first-and-20 hole at their own 33-yard line. Manning hit Julius Thomas with a short out, Thomas juked with an agility that belied his size and rambled 44 yards up the sideline to the Ravens’ 23. Manning went back to him for the touchdown, and the game was tied again.

“It went like we all thought it was going to go,” Julius Thomas said afterward. “The whole offseason we’ve been talking about how many different weapons we have, and I think we were able to display that today. We had a lot of guys make plays — all of our backs, receivers, tight ends. So that’s just what we look to do. We just want to find the right matchups and try to go after those.”

If Julius Thomas can become a consistent weapon alongside all those thousand-yard guys, the Broncos offense could be pretty close to unsolvable. Which is what happened in the third quarter, as if Manning and the orchestra had been merely tuning their instruments since a 33-minute lightning delay to start the game.

“I don’t make excuses, but I do think that the lightning delay did slow us down,” Manning said. “I was telling somebody earlier, you guys have seen teams break it down — you come out of the team prayer and put your hands in and everyone says ‘Broncos’ or ‘Win’ on three, then you go out onto the field.

“We did it three times tonight. We went back and sat down for another 10 minutes and came back and, ‘Now we’re really going,’ and then it was all for naught, go sit down for another 10 minutes. So it took us a little while to get started, but they had to deal with it also.”

If you’re still imagining you’re a defensive coordinator in the league, the third quarter was the equivalent of a horror movie. The Broncos received the second-half kickoff and took just six plays and 2:30 to traverse 80 yards. Manning finished the drive with his only throw of the night to Caldwell. It was the home team’s first lead.

The Ravens went three-and-out and then Broncos special teams ace David Bruton blocked their punt, giving Manning the ball at the Baltimore 10-yard line. He threw two five-yard passes to Welker and it was 28-17.

The Ravens went three-and-out again, got their punt away this time, and set up a nine-play, 63-yard Broncos drive that symbolized the night. Manning tried to throw his fifth touchdown pass on a fade to the left, but Decker, who had an off night, let it slip through his fingers. So Manning turned and threw the next one to Welker on the other side.

In eight minutes, 28 seconds, the Ravens’ 17-14 halftime lead had turned into a 35-17 deficit. Baltimore’s defense looked spent. The Broncos were operating out of the no-huddle at a mile above sea level, they were eating up big chunks of yardage, and as the quarter went on, the Ravens looked more intent on breathing than reading keys.

“We wanted to play an uptempo game,” Manning said. “It helps when you can get into a rhythm when you are having positive plays on those first and second downs. Early in the game, it was first down, second down, third down, every single time. Once we got into a rhythm, we weren’t even getting into third downs. It was first down, second down, first down. That is tough on a defense when you can keep moving into a good clip. It still comes down to the execution. I don’t necessarily think tempo is the reason for it, but the execution got better later in the game.”

When Demaryius Thomas is the cherry on top, you’re got a pretty good sundae. Both of DT’s scores came in the fourth quarter as the Broncos kept their foot on the gas, perhaps in response to all the complaints about how conservative they were the last time the nation watched them play.

If linebacker Danny Trevathan hadn’t hot-dogged an interception return, bringing back memories of Leon Lett as he dropped the ball in celebration before crossing the goal line, turning a touchdown into a touchback, the score would have been even more lopsided than it was.

At 49-27, it was plenty lopsided anyway. Manning became the sixth player in NFL history to throw seven touchdown passes in a single game, and the first to do it in 44 years. The others were Sid Luckman of the Bears in 1943, Adrian Burk of the Eagles in 1954, George Blanda of the Oilers in 1961, Y.A. Tittle of the Giants in 1962 and Joe Kapp of the Vikings in 1969.

The second-most recent name on the list rang a bell for the most recent.

“Yeah, Joe Kapp — great Canadian quarterback out of Cal,” Manning said. “Kicked the crap out of a guy on YouTube a couple of years ago, too.”

Of the six, only Manning and Tittle threw seven touchdowns without an interception. That’s sort of a football equivalent to baseball’s concept of a perfect game, only more so. There have been far more perfect games in baseball than seven-touchdown-no-interception games in the NFL.

“A couple guys were joking, we were saying it’s like Madden — the only time you get to throw seven touchdowns,” Julius Thomas said.

I asked if he had a nickname that would distinguish him on second reference from the other Thomas, and he said he didn’t. Someone suggested “Orange Julius” and he said that would be OK with him. I’m not sure it solves the second reference problem.

In any case, his reference to Madden seemed apt. There were times Thursday night when it looked a little like a video game from the press box, especially the first three possessions of the third quarter.

This was not just a win, one game out of 16, although that’s certainly what the Broncos will say over the next 10 days as they prepare for a trip to New York and a Manning vs. Manning storyline. It’s a long season.

But this was a historic performance that will be cited 50 years from now, just as performances by legendary names like Luckman and Tittle are cited here. This was the very definition of an auspicious beginning.

Leave a comment | tags: Adrian Burk, Demaryius Thomas, Eric Decker, George Blanda, Joe Kapp, Julius Thomas, Peyton Manning, Sid Luckman, Wes Welker, Y.A. Tittle | posted in Broncos/NFL

August 25, 2013

Ronnie Hillman’s misery

By Dave Krieger

At 5-9 and an alleged 195 pounds, 21-year-old Ronnie Hillman was going to be the starting running back for a team oddsmakers like to go to the Super Bowl. At least, that’s what the depth chart said.

Willis McGahee was gone, somebody had to do it, and Hillman seemed a more promising choice than the talented, injury-prone, ever-disappointing Knowshon Moreno.

But about that depth chart. The Broncos’ personnel brain trust, led by John Elway, liked Hillman in the 2012 draft, selecting him in the third round, but liked Montee Ball better in the 2013 draft, taking him in the second.

Ball, the rookie, is a year older than Hillman. Listed at 5-10, 215, Ball was the sort of workhorse in college, at Wisconsin, that Elway envisioned taking some of the offensive burden from Peyton Manning’s shoulders.

But Ball was making pretty much all the rookie mistakes, including letting Manning get his head bounced off the turf in Seattle in preseason game No. 2. He was processing the considerable complexities of the Manning-engineered offense as newly-learned information. It was taking too long. This is not uncommon for rookies.

Week 2 of the preseason was sort of a draw. Hillman was inches — or less — away from a touchdown when it turned into a fumble and a 106-yard touchdown the other way. Ball missed a block in pass protection that led to the sort of hit on the 37-year-old Manning that makes you cringe and close one eye.

Week 3 was going really well for Hillman until the nightmare recurred. He had carried the ball six times for 34 yards and caught two passes for 12 yards when he swung into the right flat early in the second quarter, caught a short swing pass from Manning and found himself in the grasp of Rams rookie linebacker Alec Ogletree.

Ogletree would create another turnover later, intercepting Manning on a play the veteran quarterback attributed mostly to Ogletree.

“He obviously has a pretty wide wingspan,” Manning said. “I was surprised he was even able to get his hands on that ball. So if we play the Rams again, I will remember that.”

That hadn’t happened yet when Ogletree ripped the ball from Hillman’s grasp, chased it down and carried it into the end zone to give St. Louis a 17-7 lead. That’s two touchdowns on Hillman carries the past two weeks, neither by his team.

So I asked him afterward what happened this time.

“I had two hands on the ball, so I really don’t know,” he said. “It just got it out. Obviously, they returned it for a touchdown, so I’ll just try to work on it and try to hold on tighter, I guess.”

I asked how much trouble he was having processing these back-to-back disasters.

“It’s hard,” he said. “I’m tough on myself more than anybody else. I’m probably just going to see what I did wrong and see exactly what’s going on with me and fix it.”

Does he think it affects the competition for the starting running back job?

“Definitely,” he said. “When you put the ball on the ground and you’ve got guys like Montee and Knowshon running the ball as well as they did tonight, and Lance (Ball), it kind of affects your competition. Those guys did a great job today and it’s unacceptable what I done and I just got to work on it.”

His mindset going forward?

“Just use it as a tool to get better and prevent this from happening again,” he said. “It’s preseason, but it’s no excuse for what I done. Just go to practice and improve.”

Asked if he still had confidence in Hillman, coach John Fox did his best to lighten the burden.

“I still have great confidence,” Fox said. “I mean, we ran the ball pretty effectively. I think we had 30 carries for 140-plus yards (actually 33 for 133), about 4.5 yards per carry (4.0). I think it’s very evident that we turn the ball over four times and we’re still able to win. That’s the bright side. The not-so-bright side is we had four turnovers. The stuff that we worked so hard on last week, we will work very hard again on it this week. When we have young players learning to play in the league for the first time, it can happen. We just have to eliminate that before the regular season.”

Have the fumbles cost Hillman his advantage?

“Well, I think the one this week was altogether different,” Fox said. “I personally thought his progress was stopped; otherwise he’s got to get on the ground faster or do a better job of holding onto the ball when guys yank on him late in the down. Again, every one of these things is a learning experience for these guys. I think he will work on it, so I have not lost confidence in him whatsoever.”

Wide receiver Demaryius Thomas lost three fumbles in the Broncos’ first five games a year ago. He was instructed to carry a ball all week, tucked tightly against his body, wrapped in a couple of green beanies bearing the names of a coach’s children. Precious cargo was the message. Thomas did not fumble again. So Fox was asked Saturday night if he would try a similar regimen with Hillman.

“We’re doing everything,” Fox said. “We worked hard on it last week. You’re giving up our little drills, but we’ll continue that. That will be part of the process, and hopefully we’ll get better at that.”

With the Broncos still the most popular pick to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, Manning has used his group interviews to emphasize all the personnel changes they’ve made, insisting this year has brought a learning curve nearly as long as last year’s, his first in Denver. One of those changes is at running back, where Elway decided to let the veteran McGahee go.

Manning said Saturday night that Montee Ball, the rookie second-round draft choice, “is going to play a lot.” He suggested at one point that whoever starts, Ball will play as much as a starter might. In the preseason game in which the starters are supposed to play the most, the rookie ended up with the most carries, 14, for 43 yards. Although Hillman was sent back out for the first series after his second-quarter fumble, he did not carry the ball again, nor did Manning throw it to him again.

“We’re going to have a young running back,” Manning said. Someone asked if he had any advice for Hillman.

“I have given him advice, but that is something that I would like to keep between me and him,” Manning said. “Ronnie has coaches that are coming to him first and communicate with him regularly. I don’t necessarily have any words that need to be shared with the public.”

Hillman, who took questions at his locker until the last camera crew had its one-on-one, heard more than one inquisitor attempt to soften his pain, asking, in effect, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”

“It’s kind of hard to look at the positives when you have a negative like that, so for me, I’m just going to focus on what I have to improve on and get better,” Hillman said.

Nothing in all of sports is forgotten more quickly than games that don’t count, mostly because their statistics don’t, either. Hillman’s ability to bounce back is quite literally in his own hands.

“It’s in my head right now, but I’ll forget about it tonight and tomorrow and come back to practice Monday, ready,” he said. “I’m fine emotionally. I’m harder on myself than anybody else, so I’ll just go back and work on it.”

Whoever is listed first on the depth chart once the games begin to count, running back looks like a committee for a while. If Moreno remains the most reliable back in pass protection, he may get some third downs. Hillman will again get an opportunity to turn heads with his quickness, but these nightmares will have to stop.

Leave a comment | tags: Montee Ball, Peyton Manning, Ronnie Hillman | posted in Broncos/NFL

April 18, 2013

The 5 movies you need to know if you want to be Peyton Manning’s teammate

By Dave Krieger

In his first meeting with the wretches since the end of last season, Peyton Manning opened the door. Earlier this week, from the podium at Dove Valley, he dropped a little gem on the inquiring minds from Nuke LaLoosh. He was talking about returning to the NFL last season after missing all of 2011 with a neck injury.

“Being back out on the field, playing with my new teammates, it was a new atmosphere for me, totally different culture and a huge transition, but I did not take it for granted one single moment, being out there on the field,” he said.

“Now, once you’re out there, you certainly want to win. It’s more fun, as the great Ebby Calvin ‘Nuke’ LaLoosh said in Bull Durham, ‘I like winning. It’s like, uh, you know, better than losing, you know?’ One of my great quotes that I’ve always used to motivate me.”

So naturally, when Manning joined us on the Dave Logan Show a couple of days later, I followed up, asking whether he found wisdom in other sports movies as well. Apparently happy not to be taking another question about nerve regeneration, he gave us an overview of sports films.

Then, without further prompting, he revealed the five movies he wants teammates to watch so they’ll understand his casual references to famous lines. Only one of the five is even nominally a sports movie.

“Well, I’ve always been a big fan of sports movies,” Manning said. “There’s probably better baseball and basketball great sports movies. If you had to name your No. 1 baseball movie, you’ve got to go with The Natural and Roy Hobbs. Basketball, you’ve got to go with Hoosiers, obviously.

“In football, it’s kind of up for debate. I mean, you could go with The Longest Yard — the original, not the remake, clearly — but it’s really more of a prison movie than it is a football movie. And, you know, there are some bad ones out there, right? There are some bad ones.

“But you could get into a little maybe R-rated with North Dallas Forty, and those kind of movies, a little more old-school. Kind of your era there, Dave. That’s kind of yours.”

“I know, I know,” Logan acknowledged.

“But Any Given Sunday, with (Al) Pacino, not necessarily what I would define as the classic football movie,” Manning continued.

“Listen, dude, you could never have played for Pacino as a head coach,” Logan interjected.

“No, absolutely not,” Manning agreed. “There’s no way. But I think there’s still that great football movie to be made out there. But Bull Durham, it’s a classic.”

That’s when he let us in on his strategy for connecting with younger teammates.

“I tell you, the past few years, as I’ve reached my elder years as a quarterback in the NFL, I’ve kind of tried to get to know these rookies and try to get on the same page with them,” Manning said.

“But what I’m finding out is we don’t speak the same language because we don’t know the same favorite movies. In order to get on the same page with me, you need to watch these five movies, so we can repeat lines and all that. I’ve kind of changed it up over the years, but the main five are going to be Vacation, Fletch, Stripes, Caddyshack and probably The Jerk.

“That’s kind of my top five. But most of these guys have never heard of these movies, and they really don’t think they’re funny because it’s a different kind of humor. It’s this ’70s-’80s-’90s humor. But whatever you can do to get on the same page.

“So right now (Broncos backup quarterback Brock) Osweiler is kind of working on that project and he’s trying to get to know those movies. I don’t think he likes ’em either, and he probably shouldn’t because I’m 37 and he’s 22 and that’s just the way it is. But it’s all about trying to establish the connection.”

“Honestly,” I asked him, “doesn’t Nick Nolte in North Dallas Forty remind you a little bit of Logan?”

“Absolutely,” Manning said. “Absolutely, he does. And I can be Mac Davis.”

“I couldn’t get out of bed on Monday, I can tell you that much,” Logan said.

There are several interesting aspects to Manning’s list:

First, they were all made between 1979 and 1985. Manning was born in 1976, meaning they all came out before he turned 10. So either Archie Manning gave him an early education in adolescent humor or Peyton went back to discover these classics later on.

The Jerk was released in 1979, when Manning was three; Caddyshack in 1980, when he was four; Stripes in 1981, when he was five; Vacation in 1983, when he was seven; and Fletch in 1985, when he was nine.

Second, they were all built around early members of the cast of Saturday Night Live: Chevy Chase (Vacation and Fletch), Bill Murray (Caddyshack andStripes) and Steve Martin (The Jerk), one of the most frequent early hosts of SNL.

Third, of course, each sports some memorable repartee that can be applied, often inappropriately, in other contexts. A few aren’t even profane. For example:

From Fletch:

Dr. Joseph Dolan: You know, it’s a shame about Ed.

Fletch: Oh, it was. Yeah, it was really a shame. To go so suddenly like that.

Dr. Joseph Dolan: He was dying for years.

Fletch: Sure, but the end was very sudden.

Dr. Joseph Dolan: He was in intensive care for eight weeks.

Fletch: Yeah, but I mean the end, when he actually died. That was extremely sudden.

From Stripes:

Recruiter: Have you ever been convicted of a felony or a misdemeanor? That’s robbery, rape, car theft, that sort of thing.

John Winger: Convicted? No.

Russell Ziskey: Never convicted.

From The Jerk, when a sniper keeps missing Steve Martin, hitting cans of motor oil instead:

“He hates these cans. Stay away from the cans.”

From Vacation:

Cousin Eddie: I don’t know why they call this stuff Hamburger Helper. It does just fine by itself. I like it better than Tuna Helper, myself. Don’t you, Clark?”

Clark Griswold: “You’re the gourmet around here, Eddie.”

From Caddyshack:

Sandy: I want you to kill every gopher on the course!

Carl Spackler: Check me if I’m wrong Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers, they’re gonna lock me up and throw away the key.

Sandy: Gophers, ya great git! The gophers! The little brown furry rodents!

Carl Spackler: We can do that. We don’t even have to have a reason.

Leave a comment | tags: Any Given Sunday, Bill Muray, Bull Durham, Caddyshack, Chevy Chase, Fletch, Hoosiers, North Dallas Forty, Peyton Manning, Steve Martin, Stripes, The Jerk, The Longest Yard, The Natural, Vacation | posted in Broncos/NFL

January 13, 2013

For the Broncos, a puzzling, timid ending

By Dave Krieger

“Thanks,” Baltimore coach John Harbaugh said afterward, “for bearing witness to one of the greatest football games you’re ever going to see.”

You could understand his enthusiasm without buying his analysis. From the Ravens’ point of view, Saturday’s four-hour, 11-minute marathon represented an unbelievable comeback that will go down in Baltimore sporting lore. From the Broncos’ point of view, the only thing remotely great about it was the play of a five-foot-five-inch kick returner.

The word that best describes the home team’s approach is timid, right up until the key play with 41 seconds left in regulation, when a 22-year-old safety suddenly turned into a risk-taker. All in all, the Broncos’ judgment — when to play it safe and when to take a chance — seemed poorly calibrated.

I was standing in the south end zone when their fingernails slipped off the ledge, in the waning light of a day so cold that field security personnel were deployed in full facial gear. Rahim Moore, the free safety still a month from his 23rd birthday, was cornerback Tony Carter’s deep help in a situation that demanded the soft, safe prevent defense that fans hate.

When Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco stepped up through an ineffectual pass rush and launched a prayer of a bomb up the east sideline toward speedster Jacoby Jones, Moore cut in front of the receiver to intercept or deflect the ball.

Too late, he realized he had misjudged the angle on Flacco’s rainbow. He stumbled backward like an outfielder who has misjudged a fly ball. The football sailed over both Broncos defenders and settled into Jones’ hands. He jogged into the end zone without resistance.

This was the Ravens’ impossible situation before that play began: Third-and-three at their own 30-yard line with 41 seconds remaining, no timeouts, down 35-28. They had already used a precious 28 seconds going seven yards on two plays.

The Broncos led the NFL in quarterback sacks this season. When they knew opponents had to throw, they feasted. But they got very little pressure on Flacco all day as the Ravens’ reconstructed offensive line held the Denver pass rush at bay. Flacco completed 18 of 34 passes for 331 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions and a passer rating of 116.2.

Which made him the best quarterback on the field by a substantial margin. This was quite a surprise considering how Peyton Manning had outplayed him a month earlier in Baltimore. Manning completed 28 of 43 passes for 290 yards, three touchdowns, two interceptions and a passer rating of 88.3. Not bad, especially if you consider that his first interception bounced off receiver Eric Decker’s hands, but not exactly immortal, either, especially at the end.

Like the team around him, Manning seemed strangely timid for most of the afternoon. After that disastrous blown coverage in the final minute of regulation tied the game at 35, the Broncos got the ball back with 31 seconds showing and two timeouts. Manning took a knee and welcomed overtime.

Afterward, head coach John Fox explained this by pointing out what happened near the end of the first overtime quarter, when Manning threw behind Brandon Stokley into the arms of Ravens cornerback Corey Graham and put the visitors in position to kick the game-winning field goal.

“With 30 seconds it’s hard to go the length of the field and some bad stuff can happen, as you saw at the end of the game,” Fox said.

It was a contrived answer, like boilerplate when the actual explanation cannot be disclosed. For one thing, the analogy to the end of the fifth quarter was a poor one because the end of a fifth quarter in the postseason is like the end of a first or third. The game just continues. There’s no need to hurry up. So Manning’s mistake near the end of the fifth quarter was not a result of trying to do things in a hurry and bore no relation to the end of regulation other than the coincidence of a quarter winding down.

In addition, the Broncos didn’t have to go the length of the field at the end of regulation. They just needed to get into field goal range.

But they chose to be timid, just as they did in the series before Moore’s blown coverage. Having forced the Ravens to surrender the ball on downs, the Broncos took over at their own 31 with 3:12 remaining, leading by a touchdown. Two runs by rookie Ronnie Hillman, in for the injured Knowshon Moreno, gained 13 yards and a first down. The Ravens called their second timeout to stop the clock with 2:23 remaining.

The Broncos gave it to Hillman again, forcing Harbaugh to use his final timeout with 2:19 on the clock. They gave it to Hillman again, running the clock down to the 2-minute warning.

At this point, with the Broncos facing a third-and-seven, the Ravens no longer had any means of stopping the clock. The Broncos had a four-time Most Valuable Player at quarterback and one of the league’s most productive offenses. They needed a seven-yard pass completion to ice the game and move on to play for a berth in the Super Bowl.

Instead, they gave it to Hillman for a fifth consecutive time. He was stopped for no gain. They let the clock run, finally punting the ball back to the Ravens with 1:09 showing, setting the stage for Moore’s brain freeze.

“I just misjudged it, man,” the miserable young safety said afterward. “It was pathetic, you know? It’s my fault.”

The Broncos did what they could to deflect attention from Moore’s gaffe by talking about their other mistakes, and there were plenty to talk about. Champ Bailey, the normally reliable Pro Bowl cornerback, was consistently beaten by Ravens receiver Torrey Smith. Smith caught two touchdowns on him, and it could have been worse.

Von Miller, the Broncos’ Defensive Player of the Year candidate who finished the regular season third in the league in quarterback sacks with 18.5, eventually shared a sack with Elvis Dumervil in overtime, but was neutralized for most of the day by Ravens right tackle Michael Oher of “The Blind Side” fame.

Manning had a timid 6.7 yards per pass attempt, meaning he was usually checking it down, dinking and dunking, while Flacco’s remarkable 9.7 yards per attempt reflected Baltimore’s aggressive downfield passing game.

The Ravens’ three longest plays from scrimmage — the 70-yard bomb to Jones in the final 41 seconds, a 59-yard bomb to Smith over Bailey in the first quarter, and a 32-yard heave to Smith in front of Bailey in the second quarter — were all touchdowns.

The Broncos’ three longest plays from scrimmage were a 32-yard pass from Manning to Decker in the second quarter and two short gains extended by penalties. Manning showed no interest in throwing the ball deep.

“I couldn’t tell you what their defensive game plan was, but for a good bit there in the second half, (they had) a lot of two-deep safeties, man-to-man underneath,” Manning explained afterward. “They are going to take away some of those guys on the outside, which means you’ve got to beat them on the inside — the back out of the backfield, the tight end. That’s how you have to attack that defense.”

Maybe, but Manning threw to his backs eight times, his tight ends 11 times and his wideouts 24 times. He had only two pass plays that went for more than 20 yards.

Their big plays came not from Manning and the offense but from kick returner Trindon Holliday, who authored the longest punt return for a touchdown in NFL playoff history (90 yards) and the longest kickoff return for a touchdown in NFL playoff history (104 yards). No one had ever returned both a punt and kickoff for touchdowns in the same playoff game. Trindon Holliday’s day will be in the record book for a long time.

If Manning lacked confidence in his ability to throw a deep, accurate ball in the frigid temperatures, he wouldn’t acknowledge it publicly. All season, he declined to discuss the progress of his comeback from four neck surgeries and the nerve regeneration in his throwing arm and hand it required, other than to say it was incomplete. We do know he decided to wear a glove on his throwing hand beginning with the final two regular season games because he was having issues gripping a cold ball.

My only basis for suspecting this was an issue Saturday is that Manning played with a timidity that simply isn’t characteristic of him. I find it hard to believe that any defensive game plan could turn Peyton Manning into Elvis Grbac.

For whatever reason, the Broncos’ stars for most of a 13-3 season were ordinary in the most important game of the year, and that includes Manning, Miller and Bailey. Following an 11-game winning streak to finish the regular season, they seemed oddly flat.

“If you don’t win, you get criticized on everything,” said Fox, dismissing all second guesses with a single swipe.

The Vegas sports book fantasy of Manning vs. Tom Brady in the conference championship is off the books. As they did in 1984 and 1996, the Broncos had both a playoff bye and home field advantage and still bowed out of the postseason at their first opportunity.

Manning called the loss “disappointing,” as great an understatement as Harbaugh’s analysis was an overstatement. To some extent, Manning, Fox and everybody else were covering for Moore, trying not to say, “Look, we had the game won with 41 seconds left, whaddaya want?”

Still, they also committed three turnovers that led to 17 Ravens points and kept the visitors in the game. Two of those were Manning interceptions, one of which deflected off Decker’s hands. The third was a Manning fumble when no one was open and he had to pull the ball down in the pocket. Again, we don’t know if his ability to grip the ball was an issue there. And the defense, ranked in the league’s top five, surrendered 479 yards and innumerable big plays that kept Baltimore in the game.

Fox is presumably responsible for the decision to have Manning take a knee with two timeouts and 31 seconds left in regulation. Offensive coordinator Mike McCoy is presumably responsible for the play calls with his team leading by a touchdown near the end of regulation, although Manning said the running play on third-and-seven with two minutes remaining was an audible on his part.

So you can blame the coaches or you can blame Moore or you can blame Bailey or Miller or Manning. Or you can blame them all. For 59 minutes and 19 seconds the only Bronco who played at a championship level was the kick returner. Then, 41 seconds from victory, a 22-year-old safety had a brain cramp that will haunt him and fans of his team for a long time.

Of course, you can also blame the officials, as many fans did. The crew led by Bill Vinovich seemed particularly inept, calling 18 penalties and constantly stopping the flow of the game. The Broncos seemed unable to get into a rhythm with their no-huddle offense.

On Manning’s first interception, the one that bounced off Decker’s hands and turned into a Ravens defensive touchdown, replays seemed to show Decker was hit before the ball arrived. Broncos fans found the absence of a flag particularly galling because the previous Ravens touchdown had been aided by a dubious pass interference penalty against Carter.

But frankly, the Broncos weren’t much better than the officials. Even after Moore’s mistake, even after they declined an opportunity to move the ball at the end of regulation, the Broncos had the entire overtime, slightly more than a quarter, in which to score three points and win the game. Of the 16 minutes, 42 seconds of overtime, the Broncos had possession of the ball for just 6:30. Their deepest penetration was their own 39-yard line.

“The worst thing about it is we’re going home off a play I could have made, and I’m here to make,” Moore said, standing stoically in front of his locker and answering every question.

“Coach Fox and his staff and everybody is relying on me to make that play. I didn’t make it. That’s what I do. I’ve been blessed with those skills and I didn’t use what I was blessed with today. But at the end of the day, it was a great season. I’m sorry it ended like this, but next year it won’t.”

Could be. The last time the Broncos were 13-3 and a No. 1 seed, the year was 1996 and the Jaguars came to Denver and shocked them. John Elway & Co. came back the next year to win the first of two consecutive Super Bowls. So maybe this year was their dress rehearsal for a similar run behind Manning. Certainly, they have an excellent young core of players.

But when it came time to rise to the occasion Saturday, the Broncos couldn’t do it. They were out-coached and outplayed by a team they had dominated four weeks before. And they never showed the swagger that defines a champion.

Leave a comment | tags: Jacoby Jones, Joe Flacco, John Fox, Peyton Manning, Rahim Moore, Von Miller | posted in Broncos/NFL

December 17, 2012

Nevermore: Broncos ditch doomsday scenario

By Dave Krieger

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

`’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door –

Only this, and nothing more.’

Spoiler alert: ‘Twas not a visitor. ‘Twas the Raven. And this is what the Broncos said Sunday about the Ravens’ previous dominance in the city of Edgar Allan Poe:

Nevermore.

No single Sunday has delivered results so promising for Denver’s football squad since the Sunday in March when Peyton Manning elected to join it.

It was not merely that the Broncos expunged an ignominious losing streak in Baltimore, nor that they won their ninth consecutive game, a streak now tied for third-longest in franchise history.

It was mainly that they leapfrogged the defrocked New England Patriots in the conference standings, with a little help from the San Francisco 49ers, who blitzed the Pats on Sunday Night Football, then hung on by their fingernails in the second half.

If the Broncos win out at home against the hapless Cleveland Browns (5-9) and Kansas City Chiefs (2-12), they will finish the season as at least the AFC’s No. 2 seed. (If the Houston Texans were to lose both of their remaining games, against Minnesota and Indianapolis, the Broncos could ascend to No. 1.)

Earning one of the top two seeds not only gets them a first-round bye, meaning they would need two playoff victories to reach the Super Bowl rather than three. It also exempts them from another postseason trip to Foxboro, Mass., and you may remember how the last one of those turned out.

This was widely assumed to be the Broncos’ doomsday scenario. No matter how well they played in the regular season, if they finished with a playoff seed inferior to that of the Patriots, the season likely would end again in disappointment far from home. After all, last year’s dream ended with a 45-10 spanking at Gillette Stadium. Even with Manning on board the Broncos’ bus, the Patriots beat them at Gillette again, 31-21, earlier this season.

The combination of the Broncos’ win at Baltimore and the Patriots’ 41-34 loss to the Niners means that if the Broncos win out, any postseason meeting with Tom Brady & Co. will be in Denver, not New England.

And so, as surely as winter follows fall, here comes the Super Bowl talk. Whether you get your sports conversation from the radio, TV or social media, you will be treated to a barrage of excited Super Bowl talk for at least the next three weeks. The Broncos will do their best to ignore it.

“We’re not measuring ourselves now,” coach John Fox said after his team improved to 11-3 on the season. “We need to measure ourselves at the end to be the best. Right now, our guys have responded very well to just improving every week, and we’ve kept it as simple as that. The big challenge this week was to win the turnover battle and we were able to do that. I thought that was the biggest difference in the game. This (Ravens) team is a very good football team and we may run into them again.”

To appreciate how hard it is to do what the Broncos did — playing every phase of the game expertly with two rushing touchdowns, a passing touchdown, an interception for a touchdown, a stifling defense, two takeaways, no giveaways and a dominant time of possession — you have only to observe the frustration along the other sideline.

“The thing about football is the offense can be playing really well and then the defense is not playing really well; it’s lopsided,” said Ravens running back Ray Rice, who was held to 38 rushing yards. “Today the defense was playing really well, and we didn’t. Last week, it was the flip side. We have to find a way to come together and play as one unit. ”

For all the Broncos’ ultimate dominance, the key play in this one came at the end of the first half, with the Ravens on the verge of a touchdown that would have cut the Broncos’ lead to 10-7. The home team, which had only four first downs and 119 yards before intermission, finally got its offense moving in the last two minutes, connecting on a 43-yard pass from Joe Flacco to Jacoby Jones to begin the drive and arriving at the Broncos’ 4-yard line with a first-and-goal and barely 30 seconds showing.

Head coach John Harbaugh, new offensive coordinator Jim Caldwell and Flacco, the quarterback, had two choices. They could call timeout — they had all three remaining — and set up a play, or they could run to the line of scrimmage and run a play out of the no-huddle offense in an effort to catch the Broncos off guard. They chose the latter. The Broncos were not caught off guard.

“There were 34 seconds when the ball was snapped,” Harbaugh said. “With three timeouts left that’s going to give us time to run three plays. That’s plenty of time. Throughout the course of the drive, we wanted to score, but we didn’t want to leave a lot of time on the clock. That’s a strategic call. We have a number of plays we run with no-huddle that are not kill-the-clock plays, but they are run-route plays, and that was the play we had. And we thought that gave us a great chance to score, and that’s what we ran.”

The Ravens chose a pass play with one receiver running a fade to Flacco’s left and another, Anquan Boldin, running a flat route beneath the fade. Flacco is supposed to check the fade first, then the flat. If neither is open, he’s supposed to throw it away, stop the clock, try again.

“That’s one of our plays that you kind of get a flat and a fade, and it’s kind of like going up and clocking the ball,” Flacco said. “It’s kind of like calling a timeout in that situation because it’s one of those things that you catch it and get out of bounds, you catch it in the end zone, or you throw it away, and you live for the next down. I just made a mistake, there’s no other way to put that. I made a mistake. I wanted to have the fade, and I came down to the flat, and the guy undercut it, picked it and went the whole way. It’s just a mistake on my part.”

The guy was Chris Harris, the former undrafted free agent who took over for Tracy Porter opposite Champ Bailey earlier in the season and has not permitted Porter to get back on the field. He cut in front of Boldin, caught Flacco’s pass at the 2-yard line and sprinted up the Broncos’ sideline 98 yards for a touchdown, the longest regular-season interception return for a score in franchise history. The previous record — a 93-yard return at Cleveland 32 years ago — was authored by linebacker Randy Gradishar.

“Chris did a good job kind of hanging back there, and stepped in front, right in front of our bench,” Fox said with a smile. “He had a lot of direction from the sideline on that (return).”

“A 14-point swing,” Manning said. “Baltimore has some momentum there on the drive and looks like they’re probably going to get the touchdown. Plus they get the ball the first series of the second half. So just a huge play by Chris, undercutting it. The turnover is good; the fact that he took it all the way to the house for a touchdown is even bigger. Big swing in the game, in the momentum, and I thought it kind of jump-started everything in the second half for us.”

“I didn’t really expect him to throw that out-route, but he threw it to me, and I just wanted to make sure I scored,” Harris said. “That was a long run, but once I got to the 40, I was like, ‘I just have to stride it on in.’ ”

Flacco tried to run him down, but managed only to dive at his feet as he flew into the end zone.

Asked to explain what happened on the play, Boldin, the intended receiver, replied: “I’d rather not.”

Someone asked Flacco if he changed his mind at the last moment about where to go with the ball.

“No, I was just reading it out,” he said. “The fade was just taking a little bit longer than I wanted. I was probably a little bit late on it because the sideline was squeezing with (Boldin) and all that. In hindsight, I should have just taken the ball and thrown it over Anquan’s head and lived for the next play.”

The Ravens did manage a scoring drive to start the second half, but they got only a field goal out of it. When the Broncos responded with consecutive touchdowns, it was 31-3 and all over but the excuses. The first of Denver’s two third-quarter touchdowns came on a 51-yard bomb from Manning to Eric Decker, who finished with eight catches for 133 yards in an oftense that seems to reward a different receiver each week.

“(We) were hitting some outs and some intermediate routes and we thought it was time to maybe send something down the field,” Manning said. “They had good cover guys outside, so anytime you’re playing against good cover guys you’ve got to give them the mix, you’ve got to give them the short, the intermediate and the deep stuff.

“It was a double-move by Eric, a good route, good protection. I really thought it was set up by the run game. We were running the ball well. It was off a run play we’d been running. Had a good fake. I don’t know that it necessarily froze the safety or anybody, but it just gives you that good mix of run and the play-action when you’re running the ball well.”

Ravens safety Ed Reed undercut the route, leaving Decker with single coverage, perhaps because Decker had been running comeback routes for much of the day.

The Broncos ran the ball 45 times and threw it just 28. Even subtracting the final series — two kneel-downs by backup quarterback Brock Osweiler and a no-gain run by rookie running back Ronnie Hillman — this is a heavier dose of running plays than one normally associates with Manning, who set or extended two more NFL records Sunday (most 11-win seasons, 9; most 4,000-yard passing seasons, 12).

Manning said one series where he threw it on all three downs — and went three-and-out, getting knocked down by the pass rush twice — represented probably the worst play-calling of the day. Heavy reliance on the running game was not a plan solely for the Ravens. The Broncos are coming to understand it will be a good strategy in the playoffs against higher-scoring offenses as well. If the re-emergence of Knowshon Moreno is paired with veteran Willis McGahee, who could be ready to return from injury for the AFC Championship Game, the Broncos’ ground game could be nearly as formidable as their aerial attack.

“It’s something we’re going to have to be able to do,” Manning told KOA. “Especially against teams that have these explosive offenses, you don’t want to give them the ball back.”

So let the fans and media types talk about the Super Bowl. Manning will make use of every moment of practice and game action between now and then to get in closer touch with his new teammates. They may not seem new to you anymore, but they do to him.

“You try to learn something every day,” he said. “You get a little more comfortable with something every day, but it’s still very new, there’s no question about it.

“I think the goal is to get on the same page. Obviously, the more that the receivers and I are on the same page, the better for our offense, the better for our team. I do think the more games you play, the better you’re going to be; the more practice reps you get, going against our secondary in one-on-one drills in practice.

“What are we, in Week 15 here, that’s all the time we’ve had to improve our timing. It’s not what it’s going to be if you play with guys six, seven, eight years. So it feels like a scramble and you’re trying to use every piece of practice that you have — walkthroughs, meetings, special teams periods where you might get them off to the side. We try to use all those things to talk football.

“There’s some things we’ve made strides on; there’s some things that I think you just have to have more time in order to get more on the same page. But I appreciate the work ethic. I know Decker had a good day today. DT probably didn’t have the numbers that he’s been having, but his presence, I can assure you, is a huge part of what’s going on out there. It’s a huge part of why the run game is good.

“For the most part, those runs, Baltimore had their safeties and corners apart, or removed from the line of scrimmage. That’s because the respect they have for a guy like Demaryius Thomas and Decker. So if you can run it versus those looks; when they come up, if you can throw it, that means you’re playing good offensive football.”

Winners of nine in a row, now in position to earn a first-round bye and second-round home game in the playoffs, the Broncos, according to their quarterback, remain a work in progress.

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing further then he uttered – not a feather then he fluttered –

Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before –

On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.’

Then the bird said, `Nevermore.’

Leave a comment | tags: Anquan Boldin, Chris Harris, Edgar Allan Poe, Joe Flacco, Peyton Manning | posted in Broncos/NFL

December 7, 2012

My Heisman ballot, for all the good it will do

By Dave Krieger

Can we just admit right now that the Heisman Trophy does not, in fact, reward the most outstanding player in college football, or do we have to wait until Saturday?

The Heisman Trophy rewards the most outstanding offensive player in college football, and frankly, even that is too broad because the next offensive lineman to win the award will be the first.

The Heisman Trophy rewards the most outstanding offensive skill position player in college football, and if you’re a wide receiver it’s going on twenty years since somebody with your job description won it, so good luck.

This is an award for the glory hogs, OK? Of the last thirteen winners, ten were quarterbacks and the other three were running backs. Two positions out of twenty-two, thirteen years in a row.

That’s fine. Fans love the glory hogs. Just call it what it is. Don’t pretend it’s going to the best player — most outstanding player is the language in the instructions — if it’s impossible for the vast majority of positions to win it.

Charles Woodson, you say. Right. Out of 76 winners of the annual award, one had a defensive position — cornerback — listed next to his name.

Of course, Woodson wasn’t solely a cornerback in college. He also played a little wide receiver for Michigan, and was a thrilling punt returner. Without those credits, he never would have won it. So the fact remains that no one playing exclusively on the defensive side of the ball has ever won the thing.

Not only that, Woodson beat out Peyton Manning in 1997 for the 63rd Heisman, so you can bet Heisman voters won’t make that mistake again.

Keep this in mind: Woodson won in ’97 with eight interceptions. As a defensive back.

Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o had seven interceptions this season. As a linebacker. Along with 103 tackles. For the No. 1 team in the country. The best player on the best team.

Hmm. I know I’ve heard that expression before.

But no, you say. This is not an award for the most valuable player. It’s an award for the most outstanding player.

What does that mean, exactly? It means quarterback or running back, that’s what.

Of the last eleven Heismans, ten went to quarterbacks. When Johnny Manziel becomes the first freshman winner Saturday, it will be eleven out of twelve. Manziel has to win because he has more total yards than the other quarterbacks who have won, so you can see how the diminishing eligibility criteria become self-fulfilling.

Te’o will join Hugh Green of Pittsburgh in 1980 as only the second defensive player to finish second. That will have to be enough.

Well, that and the Maxwell Award, which also purports to honor the most outstanding player in college football. The Maxwell broke with tradition to assert that a defensive player as good as Te’o deserved that honorific for the first time since 1980.

Good for the Maxwell. Even as the Heisman narrows its view of eligibility for outstandingness, maybe the Maxwell will continue to expand its view.

Oh, Te’o also won the Walter Camp Player of the Year Award. And the Bednarik Award for best defensive player.

So Manti is collecting plenty of hardware. He’ll be fine. Just don’t tell me the Heisman recognizes the most outstanding player in college football. Because that’s got to be a defender occasionally. Just by the law of averages.

Anyway, my Heisman ballot, filed on time and everything, for all the good it will do:

1. Manti Te’o, Notre Dame.

2. Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M.

3. Collin Klein (of Loveland, Colo.), Kansas State.

How about we just call it the Heisman Glory Hound Award? Would that work for everybody?

Leave a comment | tags: Charles Woodson, Collin Klein, Hugh Green, Johnny Manziel, Manti Te'o, Peyton Manning | posted in college football

December 3, 2012

Broncos may not be dominating, but they are rolling

By Dave Krieger

So Mitch Unrein was doing what he does on the football field, which consists mainly of hand-to-hand combat with offensive lineman, when Jamon Meredith, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ right guard, reached through his face mask and gouged both his eyes simultaneously.

Temporarily blinded, Unrein reached out to fend off Meredith and was immediately penalized for the personal foul of putting his hands in another man’s face. These are the ironies NFL players live with.

Red-eyed but unbowed, Unrein absorbed this particular injustice more easily than most because he had caught a touchdown pass from Peyton Manning just a few minutes before, a rare moment of glory for a 290-pound defensive tackle from Eaton, Colorado who went undrafted and started his career on the practice squad.

“I was just glad he caught it,” teammate Champ Bailey said afterward. “You see a lot of linemen get wide open and drop that thing.”

“I’ve never had a TD catch in my entire life,” Unrein said. “The last time I scored a touchdown was as a freshman in high school. So it feels pretty good. I mean, it’s still kind of surreal.”

It was that kind of day for the Broncos, who marched down the field the first time they had the ball, topping off the drive with a goal line formation in which Unrein lined up at fullback. When he released into the left corner of the end zone, Manning lofted a floater into his arms for the one-yard touchdown.

But the Broncos seemed to regress into confusion for the remainder of the first half. At intermission, they trailed 10-7, and the mere seven points suggested their offense was short on rocket fuel.

“Their defense does a good job of moving around,” explained tight end Jacob Tamme, who, in the absence of veteran Brandon Stokley, became Manning’s security blanket.

“They run a lot of games up front and make it tough to run the ball because they’ve got D-linemen moving everywhere and linebackers doing the same thing. It was really just kind of adjusting to how they were playing us and we were able in the third quarter to come out and put some big drives together.”

Tampa defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan might have gotten this idea from Mike Nolan, the Atlanta coordinator with whom he competes in the NFC South. Nolan’s walk-around, amoeba defense confused Manning into three interceptions and the Broncos’ first loss in the second week of the season.

In this case, Manning seemed less confused than his linemen. He connected on 11 of 15 first-half passes, but the Broncos sabotaged their own efforts with six penalties for 60 yards before intermission, including 10-yard infractions against offensive linemen Orlando Franklin and Chris Kuper that short-circuited the two drives following the touchdown.

“I really felt like there were some opportunities there,” Manning said. “We had some self-inflicted penalties, some mistakes we thought were hurting us. Believe me, they have an excellent defense, but we thought we were doing some things to make it a little tougher.”

After scoring at least 30 points in the first five wins of their current seven-game winning streak — the fourth-longest in franchise history and longest in 14 years — the Broncos managed only 17 the previous week in Kansas City. Sitting with seven at halftime against Tampa, the orange-clad denizens of Sports Authority Field at Mile High began to grow restive.

If game balls went to coordinators, which they seldom do, Mike McCoy and Jack Del Rio might have deserved them after this one. In a contest of halftime adjustments, the Broncos dominated. They won the third quarter 21-0 and the fourth became a formality.

So much so that fans began to entertain themselves by doing the wave. Unfortunately, the Broncos had the ball at the time. Manning, needing quiet so his signals could be heard in the no-huddle offense, politely shushed them.

“I’m all for excitement, but certainly, in a no-huddle offense when you’re calling something at the line, the quieter the crowd can be, it certainly is helpful,” he explained, while also paying obligatory tribute to the crowd’s enthusiastic spirit.

Meanwhile, on the defensive side, the Broncos gave up consecutive scoring drives in the first quarter, then shut out quarterback Josh Freeman and his troops until the fourth, when a couple of late scores accounted for the 31-23 final. They limited Doug Martin, one of the NFL’s leading rushers also known, unfortunately, as The Muscle Hamster, to 56 yards on 18 carries, a measly average of 3.1 yards per.

“We just settled down,” Bailey said. “You’ve got to give (Freeman) credit. He’s a good quarterback. He’s been doing that all year, making plays early in the game. We knew if we just stay with it and just keep trusting our technique, we’ll be fine.”

“The hype these guys get is well-deserved,” Freeman said of the Broncos’ defense, which is ranked in the NFL’s top 10 for the first time since 2005. “They get after it. Their front four did a good job of timing their blitzes. The Denver defense played a great game today.”

Freeman completed six of eight passes in the first quarter, when the Bucs scored 10 points, but only two of six in the second and three of 12 in the third as the Broncos took control.

Von Miller had a quarterback sack to give him 15 on the year — third in the league behind San Francisco’s Aldon Smith (17.5) and Houston’s J.J. Watt (15.5) — but he also returned an interception for a touchdown, yet another plank in his campaign for defensive player of the year.

“He’s the best player in the NFL right now on defense,” said safety Rahim Moore. “He’s unstoppable. I’m just glad to be a part of his team. He makes all of us better.”

The Broncos improved their record to 9-3, clinching the AFC West title — and the playoff berth that goes with it — with four games still to play. They tied the Raiders, whom they play Thursday night in Oakland, for most AFC West titles all time, with 12.

They remain in a battle with the AFC’s other division leaders for playoff seeding. Baltimore, which leads the North, lost to Pittsburgh on Sunday, dropping them into a three-way tie with the Broncos and Patriots at 9-3. Like the Broncos, the Patriots clinched their division Sunday.

A win at Baltimore in two weeks would leapfrog the Broncos over the Ravens, but they still need help to pass the Patriots, who beat them earlier in the season, to get one of the top two AFC seeds and the first-round bye that goes with it. New England still must play Houston, which has the inside track on the AFC’s top playoff seed at 11-1, and San Francisco.

“Winning the division, that was certainly one of our goals,” Manning said. “We still want to keep getting better throughout the season.”

So the Broncos keep rolling along, playing well enough to win each week without exactly dominating.

“A year ago we were getting critiqued if we won or lost,” club vice president John Elway said last week. “Now we’re getting critiqued on how we win. So that’s a good thing, as long as we’re winning.”

The critics of the Manning signing have disappeared. The apocalyptic talk about his age and injuries has been silenced. The Broncos rule their division once more, the first step in Elway’s plan to return to their glory days.

Leave a comment | tags: Champ Bailey, Mitch Unrein, Peyton Manning, Rahim Moore, Von Miller | posted in Broncos/NFL

November 25, 2012

Winning without your fastball

By Dave Krieger

No question about it, the Broncos lost valuable style points Sunday in Kansas City.

Wait, what? There is no column for style points in the standings? Oh, then never mind.

Before complaining about the Broncos’ season-low point total (17) or season-high missed field goal total (2) in their sixth straight win, keep this in mind:

In 2008, a Chiefs team that finished 2-14 beat the Broncos at Arrowhead, 33-19.

A year later, a Chiefs team that was 3-12 at the time came to Denver for the season finale and blew out the Broncos, 44-24.

In their 22 previous visits to Arrowhead, the Broncos were 7-15.

The Chiefs have been dysentery to the Broncos. No matter how bad they are, they can still ruin Denver’s day.

So winning at Arrowhead is its own reward. How the Broncos get there is all fine print. Fortunately, this is not college football. There are no voters to judge the dominance of a win or computer algorithms to assess the margin of victory. In the NFL, as Bill Parcells famously said, you are what your record says you are. The Broncos’ record says they are 8-3, six games after starting the season 2-3.

It also says they are 4-0 against division opponents with games at Oakland (3-8) and at home against Kansas City (1-10) still to play. They are already guaranteed a winning record within the AFC West for the first time since 2005.

The game? The game was like watching a power pitcher on a day he lacks command of his fastball. Can he find another way to win? Will he grind it out or flip out?

This was not the finest game Peyton Manning’s receivers have played. With the ball at their own 2-yard line and 8 minutes to play, offensive coordinator Mike McCoy was fearless, calling three consecutive pass plays. On first down, Manning put the ball on the hands of wide receiver Demaryius Thomas on a split screen. On second down, he put it on the hands of tight end Joel Dreessen on a crossing pattern. Neither made the catch.

Still, the defense did its job once more and when the Broncos got it back at their 16 with 6:24 remaining, they put together a 12-play, 68-yard drive that ended in a confidence-restoring field goal for Matt Prater, who had missed twice for the first time all year, and drained all but 14 seconds off the game clock in the process.

“This is the kind of a drive that championship teams put together,” CBS analyst Dan Dierdorf said. “This is just a demonstration of how to win football games, what Denver has done on this drive.”

Here are some reactions to the 17-9 win from Broncos players in their own words, posted on Twitter, with spelling and contractions as posted:

Tight end Jacob Tamme: “Another good team win on the road! Records mean nothing. Hard fought, man.”

Defensive lineman Derek Wolfe: “Def wasnt pretty but a wins a win and we gotta keep on rollin”

Omar Bolden: “Sometimes it’s pretty and sometimes it’s ugly. . . . I really don’t care what it is as long as its a W!!!”

Chris Harris: “Blessed to be able to play in front of my Fam & friends today. I came a long way.”

Eric Decker: “W is a W in this league! What’s better than 5 in a row, #BroncosCountry? 6 in a row!!”

A pattern has emerged in Manning’s post-game ruminations. When outsiders are piling on the praise, Manning responds with caution, emphasizing things his team could do better. When outsiders are critical, Manning defends his guys.

But after praising the work of Knowshon Moreno, who stepped in productively for injured Willis McGahee after spending most of the season on the scout team, Manning made it clear the Broncos will be working on their shortcomings in Kansas City as they prepare for Tampa Bay next week.

“I know Jack Del Rio has high expectations for the defense,” he said. “Mike McCoy has high expectations for the offense. Ultimately, it is about winning the game, but certainly we want to try to fulfill those expectations that the coaches have for us. They set goals for us. There are certain parts of the game, certain goals for the game, they want to accomplish, whether it’s ball security, red zone, third down.

“Sometimes, you won’t hit on all those goals, yet you can still win the game. So when we watch the film, the coaches are very constructive of us and the players are very accountable in wanting to hit those goals and play better. I think that’s the sign of guys that certainly have the right attitude, in my opinion.”

Manning also disclosed that Broncos players have recently added a players-only film session in which they are expected to own up to their own failings.

“Certainly, I think players being accountable is very important,” he said. “These past couple weeks we’ve been watching the game film together — just the players; the coaches aren’t in there. It’s the player’s job to speak up on what he did wrong if there was a mistake he made, and what he can do better.

“I know offensively that’s been productive for us. I know defensively Champ (Bailey) and Elvis (Dumervil) have said the same thing. Ultimately, players have to hold each other accountable. You’re certainly always trying to get better, and you want to get better late in the season. Either you get better or you get worse; you don’t stay the same. So certainly our goal is to get better every week.”

For the first time all year, the Broncos won a game in which they did not score 30 points. The hidden story of the winning streak has been their growing confidence on the defensive side of the ball. Del Rio has taken a unit that finished 20th in total defense a year ago and moved it into the league’s top 10.

Its pash rush couldn’t take over this one because the Chiefs don’t much like to pass. Even in a loss, they ran the ball more often than they threw it. Former Bronco Brady Quinn was accurate early (nine of 11 in the first half) and familiar late (four of 14 and an interception after intermission).

Despite 107 yards rushing from Jamaal Charles, Del Rio’s unit held the Chiefs to 264 yards of offense and kept them out of the end zone all day.

It may not have been a work of art, but it wasn’t an Arrowhead horror movie, either. The Broncos will take it, happily, and move on to the next one.

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

November 18, 2012

‘Von Miller is the next Lawrence Taylor, plain and simple’

By Dave Krieger

On at least one San Diego third down Sunday, a third-and-10 early on, Broncos defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio dispatched two defensive linemen, two linebackers and seven defensive backs.

If five defensive backs is a nickel defense and six is a dime, I’m guessing seven is a quarter, or possibly a JFK half-dollar, considering the effects of inflation.

As defensive tackle Kevin Vickerson pointed out afterward, Von Miller wears a linebacker’s number (58) but he’s generally rushing the passer, so maybe that was a 3-1-7 alignment rather than a 2-2-7. Either way, let’s just call it Del Rio’s freakout package.

That’s what it did to Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, who was under pressure because of Miller and looked downfield to see nothing but the Broncos’ alternate blue uniforms. Symbolizing the frustration he showed much of the day, he threw the ball away into his own bench.

“I’ve never been a part of a team that’s shown this many looks,” said cornerback Champ Bailey, now in his 14th season. “It’s funny because every guy that comes out there could start. It’s not like we’ve got a bunch of guys we’re just trying to get playing time. These guys can play. I’ve got to give Jack a lot of credit for trying to utilize all the guys he has around him.”

Do all those different looks — pretty much every coin in the change machine — confuse opposing offenses?

“I sure hope so,” Bailey said. “I think it does. But I think the most important part of our defense is that front. They’ve been getting it done and that’s what’s really enabled us to play better.”

Good as the front wall has been overall, the difference maker is Miller, who took over the NFL lead in quarterback sacks Sunday, adding three to his previous 10. He became just the fourth NFL player since 1982 to record at least 11 sacks in each of his first two seasons, joining the late Reggie White, Jevon Kearse and Dwight Freeney.

“I told him today, he’s a beast, man,” Vickerson said.

“That boy works his butt off and he plays with a lot of confidence and I see him doing it for a long time,” Bailey said.

“Von Miller is the next Lawrence Taylor, plain and simple,” said safety Rahim Moore. “No lineman in the country — born, not born, past — can block him.”

With the inquiring minds, Miller takes his lead from Bailey, returning the compliment.

“I think it all starts in the secondary,” he said. “I don’t think our guys in the background get too much credit. We got Champ Bailey out there, Chris Harris, Rahim Moore’s been having a great season. I think that’s where it starts.”

The media scrum around Miller afterward was almost as deep as the Broncos’ defense. He used the word “relentless” relentlessly to describe his mindset, citing other dominant defensive players who play with that attitude, including the Cowboys’ DeMarcus Ware, a two-time league sack champion who had 19.5 a year ago and has 10 so far this year, three back of Miller’s league-leading total.

“He’s explosive, he’s fast, he’s a savvy football player,” Chargers center Nick Hardwick said of last year’s defensive rookie of the year. “He uses his hands and feet well and ties his moves together.”

“It’s probably his speed,” said San Diego guard Rex Hadnot. “He probably runs under a 4.4 (40-yard dash). He’s really fast and plays pretty physical.”

For the second week, the Broncos’ defense took the lead. The offense ended up scoring 30 points, but 17 of them came as a result of Chargers turnovers (a Wesley Woodyard interception, a fumble forced by Miller on one of his sacks, and a punt blocked by Nate Irving), giving Peyton Manning and the offense short fields.

Manning’s streak of 300-yard passing games came to an end — he managed only 270 — although he did throw for three touchdowns again, becoming the first quarterback in Broncos history to do that six times in the same season. And he still has six games to play. The previous record was five, set by John Elway in 1997. Still, the story was the defense again, and Manning knew it.

“Anytime you have a change in the defensive coordinator and you have some new players, it’s going to take time forming a little chemistry and getting on the same page,” he said. “I think they just continue to get better each week, understanding coach Del Rio’s system, and those guys are playing at a really high level right now. It sure is fun to watch.”

In fact, the offense sputtered enough that someone actually asked Manning if he felt more happiness or frustration after this one.

“Happiness,” he replied. “We won, didn’t we? Are you not happy? Strange question . . . strange question.”

The defense surrendered a couple of late drives that made the final score closer than the game actually felt, but the Broncos’ growing confidence on the defensive side is a propitious sign for the postseason.

And, yes, although they can’t talk about it, we can start talking about that now. With a record of 7-3, they lead the Chargers by three games with six to play, and effectively four since they swept the season series and own the head-to-head tie-breaker.

In the process, they stretched their string of third-down denials to 26 over three games, the longest such streak in the NFL in 10 years, before the Chargers finally converted one into a first down. San Diego finished three of 16 on third down.

“It’s the best defensive team they’ve had since we’ve been playing against them,” said Rivers, who has been playing the Broncos twice a year since taking over the starting job in San Diego in 2006. “This is definitely as good, if not the best defense they’ve had that I can remember.”

Bailey, of course, was having none of it.

“You look at the fourth quarter, they had two drives that we just can’t give up,” he said. “We’re better than that. We’ve shown we’re better than that. It’s just being consistent. We’ve just got to find a way to keep pressing on the gas throughout four quarters.

“Never become complacent. That’ll put you on your couch.”

It’s now five in a row since they came back from a 24-0 halftime deficit in San Diego on Oct. 15. On both sides of the ball, the Broncos are on a roll.

Leave a comment | tags: Champ Bailey, Jack Del Rio, Peyton Manning, Rahim Moore, Von Miller | posted in Broncos/NFL

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Tag Archives: Peyton Manning

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