Horse Tracks 1/2/10 - Marshall out; Graham, Royal questionable; Law, Larsen probable

The 2006 class (Cutler) did score the Broncos a few extra draft picks.

I like that Ted Bartlett guy. He really knows his stuff.

The Zebra Report is a good source for learning about how the rules are enforced.

nice to put it all into perspective.
I here the weather for the game is improving, the Storm Clouds of
yesterday are moving off. The forcast is Sunny, with shades of
Orange and Blue. = -)

I kept seeing both ends of a pass play.

On the receiving end you have Marshall, who the coaching staff obviously believes is willing to bow out of the biggest game of the year and is not as seriously hurt as he seems to think he is. (I am not saying he is or isn’t)

On the other end of that pass is Kyle Orton, a guy who played the season opener with a glove and split finger and then played a the game after tearing up his ankle vs. Washington after we got off to a quick start.

Now I am wondering, who would I want to follow into a big game? Brian Urhlacher knows.
I wonder which guy that BDawk would run through a wall for.

Note above that Ty Law and Spencer Larsen practiced.

Do you think Rod Smith would have let a little hamstring issue keep him out? How about John Elway?

Guys like Brandon and TO will play through injuries when it suits them.

Guys like TD, Rod Smith, Elway, Al Wilson, played through injuries to win.

The best counterargument would be that the class’s talent was undercut but glaring deficiencies elsewhere on the team. You could even start on offense. That class came on-line as the offense’s long-time cornerstones — Nalen, Lepsis and #80 — hit the end of the road. And as Hamilton started his descent via concussions and deteriorating ability.

No fair reminding us of Greg Jennings. That’s excruciating.

On defense, you could argue that the class was undercut by a ridiculous decline in defensive talent. You could furthe rpoint out that Doom was the only defensive player in the class, and that he was used inefficiently for the first 3 years of his career. I don’t really think these arguments hold water, but to be fair, they’re coherent and they’re out there.

To me, the most disappointing player is Tony Scheffler. Words that immediately leap to my mind are: uneven, mercurial, inconsistent, and too frequently invisible. I said this on the thread yesterday, but knowing what I know about the coach, I’ll guess that his attitude problem looks something like not making many plays and standing around while Asante Samuel makes an uncontested grab on a contestable ball.

In the end, the top-notch talents from ‘06 are Marshall and Doom. One is a headcase I simply can’t trust. The other is an undersized guy whose staying power is in question if he keeps playing with a high motor against bigger guys. Breaking the bank to keep a nucleus like that together is nuts, even if I have individual attachments to all of the players.