Once we signed him, we either had to place him on the roster or waive him. No comp picks for waived players, only FAs. Now, given the problems at safety, and the fact that Foxworth had played the position, you could question why we didn’t keep him to play safety, especially since we waived Abdullah. But, you could also question why we let Fergusson go as well. Most of our defensive roster moves over the past four years left me scratching my head.

The Bangles tried for him once. They may have picked him up for free.

He plays well when he is in there and didn’t get made to look foolish anymore than Champ did in a similar amount of playing time. I don’t think we should cut him or try to unload him at cost to us. Just let him try to keep his job in training camp vs. whoever we bring in.

My hangup with him is he doesn’t play enough. Is that because we didn’t want to lose a pick or because he really can’t play more than half the snaps ina game? If I am the new HC I make it clear to him that he needs to play as much as he can, and certainly as much as anyone else. This is the NFL, not a social services lam.

And more than that, we’re missing the superstar performance, too. I may end up sounding a little negative here, but now that Shanahan’s gone I think I can take off the gloves, and it’s hardly news.

We made a lot of FA acquisitions that didn’t pay off. And although it may not be good reading, everyone should take a look at our salary structure.

We relied on a ‘spare part’ strategy in the 90s, which was the early days of free agency. Those FAs helped build our defense and win two SBs, but our success at using free agency ended in the late 90s. I think this was a league wide development, too, since teams appeared to hoard their defensive talent and those who were let go were overpriced, had character problems, or both, e.g., Dale Carter. I think the cap logic ‘evolved’ during this period.

The ‘spare part’ strategy continued in this, the ‘zero’ decade, although it was partly in response to failures in the draft. We also suffered more attrition, and the incoming free agent talent was balanced by players leaving through free agency. We were OK as long as we had a nucleus of players developed within our system, but that group began to age and the FAs were likewise old. The wheels began to fall off after 2005, but it really had been a gradual development, it just didn’t show up till then.

The decline of 2006 prompted the run contain scheme in 2007. That was the wrong response, since the problem was a decline in talent. The revolving door scheme changes led to bringing in talent that was later disposed of, which increased the talent attrition and created discontinuity. And that’s where we are now.

I don’t blame free agency for the Broncos’ decline but it allowed them to forestall a rebuilding until now. They were able to reload on offense over the course of the last few drafts but the defense hasn’t received the resources (except the unproductive 2007 draft), and there were no major FAs signed.