Horse Tracks 1/4/10 - Broncos finish 8-8 after KC's Jamaal Charles runs for 259 yards, 2 TDs

I’d prefer Broncos backed up their tough talk once in a while. I actually felt bad for McDaniels for the 1st time ever yesterday. The well paid vets like DJ and Champ told McDaniels they wanted him to play hardball with Marshall, Scheff and maybe a few other guys. But when McDaniels took action, several of our so called captains and vets did what they have been doing the past several years – collected their paycheck and disappeared. Yesterday, I saw a lot of Broncos that were mentally checked out – maybe in in Phoenix or Orlando playing golf or the like.

Yesterday’s game was like watching a general lead his troops out of the trenches towards enemy lines only to notice that that after running 50 yards, none of his troops followed the general.

Denver quit on McDaniels exactly like we quit on Shanahan. They tuned him out. But there was no Marshall, Scheff or Cutler to blame this time. The 45 guys on the field yesterday (well, not Gaffney, Moreno and maybe a few others), but most of the guys yesterday played with no effort or drive.

They left their coaching hanging BIG TIME. It was painful to watch and the home crowd let the team know they didn’t appreciate another sorry late season effort.

 I bet McDaniels didn’t sleep one second last night. And he has to be asking himself what the #### just happened.

If the word “quit” is getting in your way of seeing what happened yesterday, then substitute the word “quit” for “showed minimal effort in a must win situation”. Goodman, Hill, DJ, Clady, Kuper and the rest of them played a lot harder in September than they did in December – it’s becoming a Bronco tradition.

Moreno also played well. I thought Polumbus showed a lot of pride as well. Even thought I blame him for some losses, Berger had a good game.

Mmmm corn chex martini. The breakfast of champions!

If they fel that bad, why don’t they break out the brown bags.
Thanks Doug.

1) Fans boo because that is the only way while in the stadium to really voice STRONG displeasure and disapproval of the team, players and coaches.
2) Bronco fans historically haven’t booed. But they also haven’t had to deal with the stupid crap and drama that has gone on at Dove Valley.
3) Booing does not make them any less a fan than those that don’t boo.

No team will ever enjoy a home field advantage when they elect not to play with indifference. 0-3 at home vs the division?

The excuse machine never ends.. Now we’re on to blaming the season ticket holders… That’s pathetic.

Let’s all try to remember that this isn’t the only team that’s gotten booed by the home fans. I’ve been to games where the crowed booed Big John. Plummer was booed off the field in pre-season one year. It happens everywhere- even here.

It happens and it’s really not the end of the world- wish people wouldn’t take it so flippin seriously.

Of course the crowd was unhappy, and who can blame them.

Schedule doesn’t matter. We should never lose home games to teams as awful as the ’09 Chiefs and Raiders.

If you are torching them for those losses to “inferior” teams, you have to give them props for beating the “superior” teams as well.

Year 1 of a rebuild, 8-8. Disappointing yes, but not too bad for year 1 of a new regime. Plenty to build upon from here.

We beat 3 eventual division winners (CIN/NE/SD), nearly had an epic comeback against another (IND) and lost games — two at home — to bottom feeders. Definition of playing to the level of your opponents.

Now that the dust has cleared, though, it gives us some things to be cautiously optimistic about heading into next year….

two consecutive heart-breaking ends to our seasons… again epic collapses. One heartbreaking loss… ok. But 4 straight to close out the season when all we needed to do was beat 2 inferior teams at home to qualify for the playoffs?! Plus, 3 straight last year when all we needed was one to qualify for the playoffs?!

For some fans, they might want to throw in some of our other fast-start-late-season-collapses during the Shanny era…

Add all of that up and you have a pretty disappointed and frustrated fan. Some fans choose to voice their disappointment a bit louder than others. And though I don’t think I myself would boo my team at a game, I can’t say I blame those that did.

I was at that game—and up until the very end, I didn’t hear any kind of concentrated booing. At all. And I was in the cheap seats, from whence most boos emanate.

I did hear via the wife that Dick Enberg was really playing up the “they’re booing!!!” thing on TV, to which I say, nope, didn’t really happen. But I suppose hearing a few angry fans below the announcer’s booth was enough for him to tar the entire crowd.

I just said I never booed in my 3 trips to the old Mile High (I live in the midwest).

All the way back to when some kid became famous for the ‘Orton Hears a Boo" sign, to the booing in training camp, to starting to boo five minutes into a game…I don’t know. And it really doesn’t matter anymore. People want to blame it on the divisiveness of McJGate and all that, but many of the same people that were eviscerating Cutler/Shanahan on a regular basis have now become loyalists to the old-way. In other words— for a very focal element of the fan base the attraction seems to be hostility— no matter what happens. I can’t relate.

MHR has sort of become the Dunkirk of Bronco fandome— the last bastion of the old days when it was still about loving and supporting a franchise rather than dissing and dissecting it. There is plenty of criticism here, but at least least it doesn’t take on the rancor of a seemingly disaffected sports town. People can call it ridiculous all they want, but the parity in the league is such that heart and emotion play a huge role, and when your fans start making sport of turning on you, it sort of wipes out some of the power of the home field.

The fan base, in general, seemed to change with the instant success of the Colorado Avalanche. As wonderful as those early Avalanche teams were, it seemed to contribute to a sense of entitlement and a lack of understanding how hard and rare being truly great can be. I can tell you that the culture of Folsom Field and Mile High/Invesco changed dramatically when the Avalanche started making elite look like child’s play. The, of course, the Broncos were flat out dominant a couple of years right after that…and the fun of it all went straight down hill.

I know its a whacked theory, but I’m sticking by it.

Thanks for all your hard work over the season, Doug. I rarely say it, but I always catch Horse Tracks.

so it might be in one of the CSG articles above.

The Redskins have Chris Cooley and Fred Davis as tight ends. Cooley is solid and Davis played very well in his place when Cooley was placed on IR. Scheffler is vastly overrated. I am sure Shanahan has even realized that. Scheffler drops far too many passes and can’t block. He was a wasteful mid-second round pick.

I said it elsewhere, but he should’ve learned proper angles in Pop Warner ball during “rabbit” drills. Bad angles = lazy play OR overreliance on being the most athletic guy on the field.

…it was actually your last Post that got me looking. I was so mesmerized by his effort against the Giants that your comments piqued my interest. He just didn’t even look like the same player against KC yesterday— especially in terms of quickness and explosion.

I hope its an injury issue rather than heart/mental. He’s got the tools to dominate, but consistency might be his Achilles’ Heal.

but hobbled his way through the game. Kind of got the feeling he was proving a point to Marshall, no?

Go for it and we still have a chance…Kick and we are essentially done!

Truly not looking forward to the playoffs much this year. Every team thats in on the NFC seemed to have every single prime time game this year, really tired of those teams being on my TV

listening to their fans all year if that happened….

You and I are definitely not on the same page. Not in the same book, same genre or same planet.