although it’s difficult to figure out the “what if” players they would have drafted. I’m pretty certain they wouldn’t have drafted Ngata. He didn’t fit our system.

Amir, very interesting and thought-provoking. Certainly I would not have preferred keeping Plummer, and I wouldn’t change things now. But it is certainly fun to think about “what if?”. Also, consider what would’ve happened had Shanny convinced Tony Romo to come to Denver instead of Dallas, and say Shanny had worked his QB magic with Romo. Now you’ve got a franchise QB off the UFA trash heap, add in someone like DeAngelo Williams and maybe Kiwanuka…well that makes this a different organization. Then imagine that Green Bay didn’t call back on Draft Day ‘06 and Denver takes Greg Jennings (as they were just about to do) rather than trading the pick. Followed by Brandon Marshall (again, they were set on picking up 2 WR’s in the draft, one of them turned out to be Javon).

So now you’ve got Tony Romo throwing to Greg Jennings and Brandon Marshall or handing off to DeAngelo Williams or Joseph Addai, depending upon the choice. WOW.

Though I rec’d ya for giving me something to think about I had never really thought about, I must disagree that we’d be better of now if we had used those picks on other players. Plummer would be about ready to retire right now, or perhaps already would have when Kubiak left. We’d be a talented one dimensional team starting God only knows who. Patrick Ramsey anyone? We could very well be the Oakland Raiders….talented running attack and defense, but no real threat from the passing game. Playoffs are nice….I want dynasty! I just feel we need a franchise QB to ever hope to become a dynasty. :) Thanks for the brain wakener…gotta go get ready for work now! :)

So thank Shanny for wanting to win it all so much that he sacraficed a few years of winning to get us a Franchise QB and hope for the future.

I’m not sure how to take that…is it critical of Shanny or in defense of Shanny? Isn’t the whole point of playing to ‘win it all?’ Who plans on coming in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th place?

however I am glad we got Cutler, who will be he longer than Plummer had we kept him and not drafted Jay. I don’t deal with “what if” scenarios because it is easier to look after the fact and say we could have gone another route.

You have to build for the future and looking at the last couple of drafts we have the offense in place. Also, Shanny wasn drafting well and he certainly isnt’ a defensive guy, so I think McDaniels and Nolan will be able to get better defensive players in here and not have to focus in the offense.

was that after coaching Manning in the Pro Bowl Shanahan realized that Jake was never going to be able to get the Broncos back to the Super Bowl. No matter how many games we got out of “Good Jake” sooner or later, usually at the worst time, “Bad Jake” would melt under pressure (see 2005 AFC Championship). That’s why he pulled the plug when the 2006 season started going down hill. As long as we were in the thick of it Shanny was willing to stick with Jake. But after the KC game he figured he might as well pull then plug thn and there. I remeber at the time thinking it was very courageous. Most coaches would have settled for the WC and a one-and-done playoff appearance but we’d already been there in 03 & 04.

Shanahn didn’t belive that Plummer would either get us ther or win it if he did, and at that point he felt that he had to make the change

I have to say, this is a great post and a very interesting thread, whichever side you come down on!

However, the toughest position to fill is QB. Cutler, from what we have seen, is definately a franchise quarterback. Not too many of those around (maybe 8 to 10 in the whole league). Plummer, on the other hand, was not a franchise QB. He just wasn’t big and strong enough to see over the line and rifle passes into small windows. His arm was fairly weak and, although I agree that Shanny made some very bad personnel decisions, he would never have gotten us any farther than where we were in 2005. Moving up to draft Cutler is in the top 5 personnel decisions made by Shanny, with the drafting of TD in the 6th round obviously being in first place.

That after the AFC title game Shannys thinking had changed. He saw Denver could not win a title with Plummer. Now if Denver goes to and wins Super Bowl XL i do think Plummers stays and Denver uses their 2 #1’s that year for Bronco players. But Plummer was awful in both playoff games. Against NE it was turnovers and the defense that had Denver beat up the Pats. Ironically enough it was turnover that cost Denver the game against the Steelers. (just think if Champ catches the pass that went thru his hands in the 1st qtr in that game, if he does Denver goes up 7-0 and who knows what happens, but Ward catches it for a first down and everything there on out sucked) So I look back and think his idea to get a franchise type of QB started after losing the AFC title game