Confusion Reigns

As is certainly the case with Orton. All I can say is in the bits and pieces I saw of 4 games yesterday, I saw 4 quarterbacks, including Sanchez, who can make throws and plays that Orton can’t. Sorry, I think he’s a great guy, decent leader, smart player, with limited capability. This year, as much as any other, has proven that having an elite QB is still pretty damn important in this league. I honestly do not believe that Orton will ever be an elite QB in the NFL.

I’d like to see how Orton does with another year of this offense under his belt. If we can protect him and he’s reacting and not thinking about where to go I think he could have a ridiculous season. Of course this doesn’t mean I’m completely sold on him but I am definitely willing to see how far he can take us.

Is an apt description of my view of Kyle Orton, actually.

While I think he showed that he can make all the throws and has some fantastic qualities, I also saw some things that— at times— worried me.

I do recognize that not all the pieces are in place for this offense to hum— most notable, an interior line that gives a pocket passer a fair chance, and the lack of a defense humbling vertical threat. Orton rarely had enough time as the season progressed, and even when he did, opposing S’s had the luxury of lurking and clogging the middle of the field. I think even Tom Brady would have struggled under the same conditions. It didn’t help that opposing D’s figured out that they could bully away the Denver running game as the season went on, further complicating things for Mr. Orton…

That all leads me to the conclusion that I have no clue beyond my layman opinion. More so, it leads me to the conclusion that Josh McD and the coaching staff are far more capable of accessing Kyle Orton than me, and if they were to draft a Sam Bradford or Jimmy Clausen, it would tell me what I need to know about their view of Kyle Orton. If Denver doesn’t draft a QB somewhat early this year, it’ll tell me its time to settle in for the Kyle Orton era in Denver. I’m cool either way.

I think the fashionable ‘franchise QB’ idea is complete bunk. I’d point to both Warner and Brees as obvious examples, as both seem great with the right tools, while both have proven ordinary and worse without them. Outside of Peyton Manning maybe, the whole ‘franchise QB’ thing is an expedient fallacy that has died out as the nature of the NFL game has changed.

I think this season was an excellent start for Orton, but I am also one of those guys who believes we need to add someone else to the roster at QB. Ideally it would be a guy selected in the mid to late rounds.

Here’s why:
(1) Orton today is not the long-term answer at QB. However, if given a 2-3 year contract he has a chance to prove himself, to improve. It is my fear that he is alot closer to his ceiling as far as his development, but I would love to be proven wrong.
(2) Bring in another guy to push Brandstater, you let those 2 guys battle it out for 2 years and if you decided to replace Orton down the road, let the better of the two replace him.

So in the end, i am strongly in favor of bringing another guy in for down the road, mainly because Orton is the QB of the next 2-3 years (barring some kind of major regression) but if he is not the guy in 3 years, you want to have at least 2 developmental guys to pick from. as far as free agency and a trade, there is noone out there that is that much better then Orton to justify spending assets to acquire when this team has so many holes

one last note, i see people all the time “mocking” or whatever you want to call it, Chad Pennington to Denver.
to me, that seems insane. Pennington is the exact same type of QB that Orton is, he does not represent an upgrade to Orton, he would require a ton of money to be a back-up QB, he has no intentions of being a back-up QB. Pennington would represent an upgrade at QB to a 1/3 of the NFL teams, he is not going to go to a place where he can’t compete for the starting job, when he can go to a place where he will at least enter training camp with an equal shot at starting.

     I am probably in a minority here but I truly believe that Orton is capable of getting us to the big dance with the proper supporting cast. The term noodle arm is to me ridiculous as I have seen him fit passes into tight spaces when he has had to and with much more accuracy than Cutler. When we first traded for Orton I was confused and disgruntled to say the least because I had heard that term(noodle arm) being used for him and that was all I knew about him(didnt see to many bear games). But instead of completely freaking out and renouncing my Bronco fan-ship I decided to take a closer look at our new quarterback. I watched game film from him in college and for the Bears and what I saw shocked me. Is this the same guy they were calling weak armed? What I see is a guy who can make all the throws he needs to to be successful in this league. In fact I would dare say (ill be crucified for this) his arm is every bit as lively as that of Payton Manning. Peyton is by far the smartest QB to ever play in my opinion and that’s what makes him so incredible but if you were to compare the two based on arm strength alone it is a virtual dead heat.
    With that being said here is the one point I totally disagree with you on. You stated that we had one of the more complex playbooks in the league. In my opinion the play book for this season was nothing but a dumbed down(for lack of a better term) version of the Patriot offense. Now I don’t say this to criticize McD in anyway. The fact is this was the first go around for everyone in this system so things had to be done that way. I have a sneaky suspicion that in 2010 were gonna see a lot more in terms of offensive play calling and that Orton is going to be asked to do a lot more in this offense.
     Good post BShrout and rec.

I advocate bringing a QB in, and the only requirement I have is that he fit the mold for what we are looking for, schemewise. As FA and the draft shake out, we will have different opportunities to do different things, so we shouldn’t make up our minds about what we HAVE to do until we see what those opportunities are, and what we would have to do without to take them.

Regarding Orton, i don’t think we do more than a one year contract, but only because it gives us so much flexibility…it really has nothing to do with how well he plays. More than anything, we need to have a deeper corp. Brandstater is a long term developmental guy, it won’t be pretty if he is the only viable backup. Simms struggled mightily in limited reps. I think we can go into camp with 4 QBs, but if history is any indication, we will only look to upgrade Simms, and go into camp with 3… After that, may the best man win.

I like Orton and want him back for another year or more to see what he is capable of in the offense. I think he did well this year given all the shortcomings of the offense that already have been listed. My only real beef with the guy is his lack of mobility. I know us broncos fans have been spoiled by mobil QBs over the years, but Orton is painfully slow and not agile in the least. There were several times this year that Orton did not convert a third down because he didn’t pull the ball down and run. That’s a great option to have and can really make an offense more dynamic and flexible. I know McD’s offense doesn’t prize this quality, but it is a nice thing to have in a QB.

When doing instrument training, pilots wear a pair of glasses called “foggles” which blur everything beyond 2-3 feet so you can only look at the instruments. This forces you to react to what the instruments rather than the visual clues you are used to. Under instrument conditions, you have to trust the instruments rather than your perceptions, because your perceptions will cause you to smash into the ground.

I think there are a large number of foggles being worn with respect to Orton. His performance is being viewed through the murkiness of his career in Chicago, a place that has made every QB since Sid Luckman look bad. His performance is being viewed through the conceit that the OL is as good as it was ten years ago. His performance is being viewed through a desire to see Elwayesque bombs downfield. And, most importantly, his performance is being viewed through the prism of what we think he was asked to do.

This post does a good job of showing that Orton’s career in Chicago is not a good indicator of what he is capable of. The numbers show improvement every year. Until those numbers show an actual leveling or decline, the instruments say he is improving as opposed to our perceptions of his abilities.

The conceit that our OL is as productive as it ever was has some holes in it. I don’t know who keeps these stats, but it would be interesting to see the average amount of time in the pocket for Orton over the course of the season, and compared to other teams. My (biased) perception is that the pockets collapsed faster toward the end of the year, and it takes a distinct talent to complete passes under duress (cf. Drew Brees last night). Others’ perceptions vary, and until we see the actual facts we won’t know who of us has the plane pointed above the horizon or below.

Our desire for deep throws and the prism of what we think he was asked to do play together. We didn’t see many deep throws, although we saw in several games he is quite capable of it. Since he didn’t throw deep, it is said he checked down. But imagine that the progression is shallow to deep rather than deep to shallow. If that was the case, then Orton was making the proper throws and checking down when he threw deep. Now, that scenario is a little far-fetched, but McDaniels did say the offense would be sui generis and I’m pretty sure a shallow to deep progression would be a new thing. The point here is that you don’t know he checked down, and I don’t know he didn’t. That’s an instrument that I don’t know how to read.

This is getting a bit longer than I intended, so let’s just say we need to check and see if there is a way we can clear our foggles a bit and see what is really there. BShrout has made an excellent start at giving us a way to look at the QB position a bit more objectively.

This is a topic that has been common around here sine the Cutler drama last year. Just what is a “Franchise QB” anyway? I would answer that by stating that a FQB is an elite QB that a team can build around. OK, if that is true, who are the league’s FQBs? Looking at stats and long term quality of play, I would put up the following list:

Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Phillip Rivers, Aaron Rodgers, and maybe Tom Brady. I exclude Favre due to his age and retirement drama.

That’s it. In a league with 32 teams, only about 1 out of 8 can claim a true FQB.

After that group, we have three other classifications of QBs in my mind. First, there are the good QBs, those who give solid play week in and week out. Players like Roethlisberger, McNabb, Shaub, Romo, Warner, Eli Manning, and Flacco. These players are consistent, and sometimes great, and don’t make too many mistakes to hurt their teams. They generally have strong leadership qualities as well as decent athleticism. It is in this group where I would place Orton.

The next group I would call the muddled middle. QBs in this group are also capable of great play, but lack consistency for one reason or another. QBs that define this group would be Hasslebeck, Delhomme, Vince Young, Alex Smith, Garrard, Carson Palmer, and Jay Cutler. Some of this group struggle to stay healthy, while others just run hot and cold.

After that, you have the washouts. This group includes some high profile players like JaMarcus Russell who enter the league early in the draft as well as those who were late round draftees or CFAs who never rise above 2nd or 3rd string status.

Teams with an elite FQB can be successful, but that doesn’t always translate into Super Bowl rings. Manning and Elway only managed to get their rings after years of toil, and others like Dan Marino never made it. Teams with good QBs can be very successful, as evidenced by the Steelers under Roethlisberger. QB play is an important part of making it to and winning Super Bowls, but football is a team sport. Both teams in this years Super Bowl have gotten there because they are complete teams, not just on the backs of their obviously elite QBs. Similarly, the Broncos only won their championships when they put together all of the pieces around Elway.

Our Broncos struggled at times this year, but I would find it had to blame Orton for the teams ills. Our O-Line was a major weakness, opening few holes for the RBs and providing little comfort in the pocket for Orton. While our defense had its strong points, most notably the secondary, they sometimes had trouble generating a pass rush and later in the season were vulnerable to the run. If we truly wish to be a competitive team, and not only reach the playoffs but have success in the post season, we must address our team weaknesses. Many teams make the mistake of chasing the vision of a FQB without recognizing their team faults. I would far rather have Orton under center with a balanced team around him than be in the shape that Chicago or Detroit finds themselves in now.

The man has his own montage on drunkathlete.com. He shaved his beard for his wedding. He drives a hybrid. He never says anything remotely controversial. He improves every year. So maybe he checks down instead of winging it a little too often, get over it. And if TB is truly our future, shouldn’t he be able to go after two years? I can see us picking up a veteran third QB to replace Simms, but we have obviously have bigger issues this off season. Let’s give the man some support. You must learn patience, grasshoppers.

And it sure isn’t going to change. You have used the argument of his year-to-year “improvement” all season. However, his 5 year improvement has yet to land him in even the upper half of the NFL in most meaningful categories.

Using just the stats you use to argue his improvement, the picture doesn’t get much better

- Completion % – 14th (and this in an offense that calls almost exclusively, short, easily completed passes)
- Yards – 11th (and threw the 6th most passes)
- YPA – 16th
- YPC – 16th
- TDs – 15th (tied with 3 others)
- TD % – 20th
- Interceptions – hard to pinpoint rank since it goes in the opposite direction, but it’s right in the middle of the pack
- QB rating – 14th

And some rather important, more specific categories where Kyle ranks in the lower half of the NFL (easily culled from SNY stats)

- % of passes resulting 1st down – 16th
- % of passes resulting in 1st down on 3rd down – 21st
                       - 3rd and long – 23rd
                       - 3rd and short – 22nd
- 4th quarter completion % – 15th (not quite bottom half, but not good)
- Completion % inside the opponants 10 – 19th (wasn’t this supposed to be a strength of his?)
- QB rating inside opponants 20 – 16th (same question as above)

All this points to a QB that in three full seasons of “improvement” has managed to rise to the towering heights of mediocre in every statistic the NFL keeps. No defense has to gameplan to stop Kyle Orton. A game never turns on a spectacular play from him. And he does not elevate the play of those around him (two of the three biggest playmakers from last season saw IMMENSE drop-offs in productivity with Orton under center).

So, again, YES the Broncos need to find a long-term solution. Orton is not it.

I saw some very good team playing a very high level of football. I saw that the Broncos flat out aren’t ready for that level of play, and that’s obviously the goal. But this obsession with Orton is weird – Orton is steady and consistent, as the above numbers – nice comment, by the way – prove. The teams that played yesterday were good teams, top to bottom. Denver has to reach that goal to be effective in the playoffs. Our D has to get quite a bit better too, while we’re talking about the team here.

KO’s ability to improve every season has been very impressive. Perhaps he’ll become playoff ready, perhaps not, but I feel strongly that he’s earned a chance – look at his improvement, every year. My suspicion is that he will be ready, but in one sense, it doesn’t matter right now. He’s learned the major aspect of the system (finally), Eddie Royal had a lousy year (and will improve), and Stokley didn’t have a great year either. Scheffler made too many mistakes at key moments, D graham kept committing the same penalty over and over and quite often, Marshall and Gaffney were our best two receivers. That’s not encouraging. Given the lousy play of the line, we’re still quite a ways from where we want to go. To key in on a couple of players, or just on Orton, misses the picture of the issues that the team has. Watching yesterday showed me that we have a long way yet to travel.

The guy ran a run first and often offense in CHI, bottom line. His numbers went up because his attempts went up. Orton had a fine season – he didn’t light the world on fire, but he also didn’t make us think of Jake Plummer.

He proved to be what many hoped he could be, a better than “just average” QB and now it’s time for him and the time to kick it up a level.

There are more pressing needs on this team to address before throwing Kyle under the Bus. The guy hasn’t had a chance yet and neither has McDaniels. Let’s have this discussion at the end of the NEXT season. I think there are too many people with a impatient and unrealistic expectations.

He is a cog in an engine. Part of the machine.

Kyle is exactly who he is. Right down the middle and I don’t think that’s all bad. Understanding this, he will only take you as far as the system will. With quarterbacks such as this, you need a very strong defense. You can play field position and know that, when the chips are down, he won’t make a mistake. However, he won’t improvise outside the “context” of the offense. So therefore expect sacks or balls thrown away on third downs.

If the Broncos intend to keep Kyle they must build a team that can play monster defense and you need that running game to do the “heavy lifting”. This is the kind of offense the Broncos had under Red Miller, and it got us to a Super Bowl.