Josh McDaniels: Building Bronco's History

It's an exciting time to be a Bronco fan.  

With the exception of the couple years we had our brains bashed in by Indy in the first rounds of the playoffs and perhaps the AFC Championship run of 2005, our reflections of season's past at this point in the season have been to wistfully look back on the times when greater fortunes had befallen our beloved franchise.   Looking back there is much to be proud of - The Drive, The Fumble, The Drive II, XXXII, XXXIII - even diving into the history books and learning about the '77 season...  Nevermind the individual achievements of the greats that have made watching fun.... 

For the last decade we have all sat back and pointed to our dusty Superbowl and AFC Championship trophies and said to one another - "we were a great football team....  Man, we were something...."  Then when our  (pre-McD) franchise put a watered down version of greatness on the field we still reveled in our cursory connection to greatness - noting each step of the way as we lost players from our Superbowl runs.... Sharpe, Rod, McCaffrey, Elam (etc).... Until we suddenly looked around and the greatness was gone and all we had left was a man who had not only lost his fire, but his team as well.  The last three seasons were agony because we were a sub-par team wearing the uniforms of a once great team.  We were happy to reflect on the Elway (and Morton) SB years to ease the pain of being a tragically flawed football team.  What had our great team done lately?  Nothing. 

We were alarmed, but not surprised when Mr. B pulled the plug on Shanny... We were crushed when the boy wonder was shipped out of town to Chi... We were confused by the draft that heralded a running back with our first pick overall - a running back?  The handling of B Marsh being a whiny malcontent.... The institutions we'd grown accostomed to - a rocket armed QB, 15 scripted plays to begin the game, the naked bootleg bomb, were being stripped away before our very eyes by this young secretive New Englander (New England!? I F'n hate New England!!!)... This for sure was not going to go well...

It only seems fitting that in the first game of the new coach's career  was to get a name - The Immaculate Deflection.  Then the pasting of Cleveland and Oakland... Then the incredible victories against Dallas and now New England.  We are 5-0!  Commentators and some on this very site have noted that when the Broncos are 5-0 we go to the Superbowl.   Could it be that a new coach, new players, new schemes all add up to what we've been waiting for all this time?  Sure Superbowls and AFC Championships are what I'm talking about, but in the bigger picture what we're looking for is "NEW LORE".  New things to toss in the face of Raider and Charger fan.  New highlights akin to Atwater stopping Okoye to pull up on YouTube... New exciting points in our history that we can look back on like all those dusty trophies.    

What Bowlen saw when he looked at our 8-8 Broncos was a conglomeration of people content to look backward and not forward - led by Mike Shannahan.  He lacked the hunger... The drive to do whatever it took to get back to where we needed to be.  Hubris interfered and we lost some really great players along the way - Trevor Pryce, Bert Berry, Jason Elam.... The Mastermind was fine to get rid of these stars because who was anyone to question him - he brought greatness to our franchise. 

McD was 23 years old when Elway won his first Superbowl... Many of our rookies weren't even old enough to see a PG-13 movie. Those days are in the distant past now.  What we have is firey young coach who's dedicated to building his own storied legacy with players who enthusiastically share the same goal.  Let's still enjoy our great times and the glory of our younger years, but let's look to the rest of this season and revel in it's unexpected awesomeness.  For the first time in a more than decade the Broncos are building new history lore - pushing to re-establish themselves as the premier franchise that we all remember them to be and had hoped they would be.  What's next?  Who's going to write the next page in the hallowed book of Denver Broncos lore?

It's an exciting time to be a broncos fan.

J