WHAT A GAME! WHAT A TEAM! Sure does feel good to be a Denver fan right now, huh? It's late, I'm physically exhausted from all the tension and the hollering and jumping but there is NO WAY I am going to sleep right now so I'll just throw out some things I noticed during the game in hopes of generating some discussions as I LOVE the intelligent ideas that get born daily here at MHR. I'll start with the other sideline first and save the best (Denver) for last.

Some things I noticed about San Diego;

1) I have felt for awhile now that the Bolts are a rather pompous and arrogant team. You will find this very often in individuals who have amazing natural gifts. They take things for granted and rely on their gifts to pull them out at the last moment. You can see this in all walks of life. There is just alot of people like this. San Diego is a TEAM of these types. 3 years of starting out slow in the season then turning it on when they finally have to finally has caught up to them. The only real reason they have been so successful (IMHO) has been the weakness of the AFC West. Those days are gone and San Diego just had a rude awakening to that fact. Make no mistake, they are not out of the playoff hunt, but I believe it will take several years at best before they really stand a chance of reclaiming the AFC West. Again, just my opinion.

2) Cromartie saved his job tonight. I heard that they had considered benching him for Cason during their bye week. Well I guess he didn't like that idea. He played a GREAT game. He gave MAX effort from what I could see. He seemed to always be around the ball, he had several pass break-ups and he made quite a few important 1-on1 tackles. If I recall correctly there were also two plays where the Denver receivers made good plays to break-up what surely would have been Cromartie INTs. Good game for Cromartie.

3) Norv Turner. Aaahhh, Norv. Your team had REALLY better put the pedal to the metal for the rest of the season for you to come back next season. And even then I doubt you will be back. I will say however that I feel there is just NO WAY Norv gets axed during this season. I have already heard the rumblings, but I just don't see this happening. First off, SD is still very much in the playoff hunt and you can believe those players are going to be playing their best for the rest of the season. Second, there are a lot of good/great coaches who will be available next year. The list includes Shanny, Holmgren, Cowher, and probably Gruden. There will also be coordinators who will get offers including, I'm sure, Mike Nolan. One of these guys will be coaching in SD next year. My money would be on Holmgren.

4) San Diego's O-Line is in miserable shape. The only time I saw them opening gaps was on passing plays and instead of LT darting through the holes it was the Denver D. Terrible performance by them.

5) I don't care what Rivers' persona may be off the field (douche?), the kid can play football. When he drops back I get nervous. But even his skills couldn't hold up to the pressure Denver brought down on him tonight. Hell, Manning wouldn't have been able to do much with that. I'm sure that someone will post the numbers of hurries/hits/sacks here in the next 24 hours, all I know was it was A LOT!

6) Speaking of Rivers, that little pregame "beautiful mind" segment was such a load of self-serving BS I almost threw-up in my mouth. I mean, c'mon! The guy is standing in a glass box with dry-erase marker all over the glass pretending to be calling out pre-snap reads. That was stupid. It was acting. It was Hollywood. It goes right back to my "pompous" comment in my first point. Can you EVER see Orton doing that? Hell no! And that's why we love him, "Neckbeard of Victory" and all.

7) I don't know about you, but when I saw San Diego players come up to our team during warm-ups and basically try to start a fight, I got REAL happy. To me that didn't speak of confidence and swagger. That spoke of fear and lack of discipline. I KNEW B-Dawk and the boys would use that. Our problem has often been that we come into a game thinking too much and too amped up and we have to get settled in. I had a feeling that display of vulgarity by the Dolts would help Denver immediatly get into the zone and show their confidence and discipline. Dumb Dolts.

Now The Goods:  Our Denver Broncos!

1)  6-0!!! Nothing else really needs to be said, but I'll say it anyways cause I'm still amped and want to talk.

2) Our O-Line is the best in the NFL. Period. I'm sure during these next two weeks stats will be posted to prove this point but I think we can all see it already. Orton had all day to let his receivers get open. Clady gave up another sack. That's 2 in 2 games and it's good to know that he is, in fact, a human being and not a genetically altered science experiment gone horribly right. I believe that now officially will make 2.5 sacks in 22 games. WOW ! Our big boys up front were making holes, firing out into the second level of the Defense, pulling, blocking, flippin pancakes like they worked at IHOP, anything and everything you could want an O-Line to do. I mean, did Merriman actually play in tonight's game? I saw him in warm-ups. I saw him pushing and talkin smack during the "scuffle", I saw him takin his helmet off on the sidelines, but when the ball was snapped he was like Houdini. Just dissapeared. Oh, wait, he was that powder blue shape wrapped up in Clady's man-hands all night. That's right.

3)Is there anyone alive who still thinks Orton is a bad QB? Or even just a mediocre QB? Noodle armed QB? The guy was throwin darts all night. He was putting the ball in tight spaces. The few times I saw him "miss" a throw, he put the ball in the only place it could go and the receiver was just unable to make the play. Kyle was makin smart reads, playin safe when there was nothing available, and just playing truely solid football. Kyle will be our signal-caller for years to come. Count on that. And he is only 26!

4) My god! The half-time adjustments on this team are just absolutely awe-inspiring. I got to watch the game with my Mom tonight (She got me into football when I was 5) and I kept telling her through-out the first quarter "Relax. We only get better as the game goes on. Watch what happens after we make our second half adjustments." Know what happened? Domination. I don't have any stats in-front of me but if I remember correctly we gave up 1 third down conversion in the second half. And that was on a PI call. 1!!!! And that was 1 more then we gave up the prior 2 games before this! UN-F'ing-REAL!

5) This defense gets it done. They knew that SD is a vertical passing team. They don't dink and dunk. They go big. So how do you stop that? You don't give the QB time to make those big plays. And Denver brought the heat. Career high 5 sacks for Rivers. During one of their last 3-and-outs Rivers picked himself up off the ground (yet again), looked around for a second like "WTF?", and then just walked off the field smiling. There was nothing else he could do. That kind of pressure is insurmountable.

6) After getting his butt vigourously chewed out last week during the NE game, Mike Priefer brought his A-game this week. Did the special teams make mistakes? Absolutely. Did Prater's kick-offs suck almost all night? Absolutely. Did the return game suck like it has been all season? HELL NO!

7) Game-changing performance by a WR who didn't catch one pass. Outstanding job Royal! I am a BIG fan of Royal's and I love seeing him have success. Something about him just says he deserves it.

8) Speaking of which, did you see the clip of McD talking to Royal after that first return TD? McD is in Royal's ear. Royal looks very serious as if he is getting play information. Then his mouth opens up into that extremely warm, genuine smile and you can see the pride swell in his eyes. It reminds me of the look my daughter gets when she has been trying something for awhile and has been continually failing, then she gets it right and I tell her what a great job she has done. Same look. And this team is chalked-full of that kind of genuine desire to be great. Really just makes you feel good about rooting for this team.

9) Anyone catch that smashing block BMarsh threw on that short-gain screen? I don't know who he hit, but whoever it was is gonne be S O R E tomorrow. Did you also catch the next SD defender right after that grab Marshall's leg as he was falling and twist it? Maybe it was just me, and I don't want to accuse anyone of dirty play, but that looked like an intentional attempt to hurt Brandon. Brandon was slow to get up after that. It was also the same ankle that he was limping on earlier in the game. I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin....

10) Great game by Sheff! GREAT catch for the TD. What a match-up nightmare that guy is for opposing Defenses. You already have to game plan for Marshall, Royal, Stokely, Moreno, Graham and others. Then you throw in this 6'5", 255 lb beast who gets off the line in a hurry, runs exceptionally fact for a man of his size and has hands of gold. What can you do against that?

I could go on and on and on. There was just so many great plays, both individually and as a team. So many great stories! That's one of the best things about this team this year in my mind. So many great stories of overcoming difficulty, of dedication, desire, the will to succeed. I LOVE THIS TEAM!

I look forward to hearing your comments and reading your posts. And just a quick thank you to Guru and Co. for creating and maintaining the best fan site in all of sports. Excellent job!

So many great stories...