Horse Tracks - 9/5/10 - NFL Roster Cuts Edition

Better to have $5 million in dead money that’s not taking a roster spot than $21 million that is. Lmao.

and I made the mistake of reading some of the comments. Man some people are just dumb. No mention of Antonio Bryant by the way. that’s 1 player with more sunk cost than all our cuts combined. Diid Michael Clayton not just recieve a big contract from Tampa Bay? Cut. If I’m not mistaken, was there not a massive amount of money that Bowlen had to eat after he fired Shanny. I mean didn’t he rack up bills on players that weren’t here. What about Oakland? Javon Walker, Russell, McFadden, Gjibril Wilson. I’m pretty sure Al Davis died years ago after drowning in costs.

questioning McX’s eye for talent is BS. It’s easy to point out 2 misses. What about all the hits. Goodman, McBath, Buck, Gaff, Lloyd, Orton, Dawkins, Hill, McBean, moving Doom, etc. Yeah Smith is a high profile mistake no question but isn’t it negated by Cox who is a low profile hit?

I looked into this last offseason. The amount of dead money going to Travis Henry, Boss Bailey, Dre Bly and Nate MFW was insane — and those big names really only scratched the surface, when you think about fat contracts that the likes of Dwayne Robertson and Jamie Winborn had. I would even go so far as to say that the Phonz trade was part of a strategy for managing that mess.

Ten rookies made the team last year. Nine this year. Jarvis Green and Andra Davis didn’t work out as free agents, but Dawkins, Goody, Hill, Buck and Gaff have all been gold. Nobody can look good under the microscope through which McX is viewed.

Cox, Syd’Quan, Willis, Decker, etc? I’m no McD groupie, but I don’t think a lot of coaches would have had the ability to admit a mistake so quickly.

Wow…I just scanned some of the comments at the DP articles…those guys are so absolutely full of BS. Shanahan isn’t around any more because of being so stubborn that he wouldn’t get past his mistakes. McDaniels is quick to learn his lessons and quick to make good decisions. I can see McD being our coach for a long time.

non-salary cap related…just “waste”. Which happens every year.

But the dead money refers to paying Stokley 600k, Green 3,2 million, and then cutting them. No cap hit, but a lot of money that could have been spend on someone else. It happens to every team though. Look at T.J. Houz getting cut by Seattle. He had 7 million guaranteed this year.

Then the headline writers all knew.

we’ll be playing them next year, I think.

Shanny loved receiving TEs who blocked like tight ends but his Broncos could run the ball.
McX loves Blocking TE’s who catch like tackles but we CAN’T run the ball.

Gronkowski? Interesting combination of the two types. I’d like to see McD find a place for a guy like this.

And you’re not alone in it’s belief.

We have the same phenomena here at times, sadly.
I guess you have to take the bad with the good.

Unless it’s in a few isolated, probably underfunded classes. Mostly, it seems critical thinking is discouraged by and large.

And I agree.

Frankly, it’s not that the “press” are wrong for doing this. Sacrificing credibility for buzz is a past time of the media.

The problem are the readers and fans who can’t think logically or critically enough to understand WHY the article was written and WHY it says what it does and WHY the article doesn’t thouroughly put the stiry in the correct context.

For some reason, Broncos fans weren’t AS subjected to this tabloid style reporting as they are now and the reaction was easy to see coming once Shanahan was shown the door. The fans splinterd then and the story line played out perfectly for the press as McDaniels came in with a brashness confidence that was seen as arrogance and ignorance, which splintered the fans even further. Because Broncos fans are so split in their feelings for the new regime, the press plays the fans like a musical instrument. Two weeks ago, after Denver’s beat down against Pittsburgh, the stories all week are cigar smoke and back-pats, but as soon as McD does something unexpected that CAN BE construed as irresponsibe, here they come again yanking the rug out from underneath the coach and his administration.

This is on the fans, because the way this news is presented isn’t going to change.

I agree that we have a lack of depth, however I think we have more depth than what we have had in the last few years. It is hard to get more depth when we keep having to get rid of crap players from previous years who shouldn’t have even been in the NFL, let alone starting for a team.

A response, almost as if called out by name.

McD doesn’t have time to mess around

Because of his 4 year contract, he needs to win now, which is the force behind his aggressive moves. He may or may not be as much of a risk taker as he appears. But because he’ll already be half-way through his contract at the end of this season, he has to take risks in the draft (which we know can be a crap-shoot) and FA.

If you look at all of the good moves vs the mistakes he’s made so far, the good moves outweigh the bad. He’s jettisoned Kenny Peterson, Marquan Manuel, Andre Hall, Selvin Young, Ryan Torrain, Nate Webster, Dre Bly, Niko Koutivedes, Jaime Winborn, Dewayne Robertson, etc. The list goes on. Most if not all of these guys can’t even find a job in the league any more. Those that do, are TC fodder and are cut, (see Torrain and Bly) while the rest are seeing action in the UFL (see Peterson.)

The exceptions are players like Andra Davis, Ben Hamilton, and Casey Wiegmann, whose positions have all been upgraded in the off-season. Mario Haggan, Zane Beadles, and JD Walton appear to all be upgrades (in the long-run) over their predecessors. You also have to include Peyton Hillis, Tony Scheffler, Brandon Marshall, and Jay Cutler in this conversation. Since the impressions these players made on me were that they were less likely to get with the new program, I think it was best to replace them with guys who will buy in and execute the new schemes. It’s impossible to win in this league if some of the best players on the team are not committed to the new regime and play for themselves. (Hillis is the one exception.)

The guys that he’s kept have performed well, if not better than expected. I was convinced Marcus Thomas was going to be let go, but he’s proving himslef to be a valuable part of the D-line. Jarvis Moss? Who could’ve predicted that he’d have such a great TC this year?

And let’s not forget how McX have rewarded the best RFA players recently with contract extensions. None of us disagreed with compensating Chris Kuper, Elvis Dumervil, and Kyle Orton.

His mistakes are trading a future 1st to get a 2009 2nd and get Zo. He wasn’t progressing as expected, but who could’ve expected that both Squid and Cox will come on the way they did this preseason? He made a mistake on what appeared to be a proven commodity in Jarvis Green, but we have to assume the coaching staff saw something that they did not like. Whether it was lack of effort, loss of stamina or speed, he was not going to help the team as originally expected. And I doubt that Wink and Nunnely were not a part of the conversation before this move was finalized.

We should give credit to McX for admitting mistakes and cutting their losses. After all, it would be worse if they pulled an Al Davis and stubbornly remained married to a bad investment, at the team’s detriment. The best players stay to play and the ones who aren’t up to par are released – it’s not a hard concept.

We should also give them credit for being able to bring in depth at positions we all thought were a weakness last year: ILB and OLB. O-line and D-line were in the conversation as well, but were addressed in the draft and FA. The linebackers have me excited. Mays and Woodyard will do well on ST in addition to backing up Haggan and Williams. Despite Doom’s season-ending injury, who would’ve thought McX would bring in a guy like Jason Hunter? He’ll either be in rotation with Moss or take the job away completely. And how about Robert Ayers? What a difference a year makes.

Dead money hurts, but if we remember, Bowlen made his share of mistakes, giving a lifetime "gurantee" to Shanahan, so he knows he’s not perfect either. This year, he still had to pay $3.5M to a coach that was fired 2 years ago. To take McX to the woodshed now would make Bowlen look like a hypocrite, so I think he’ll continue to show patience with this young duo.

Under the circumstances, if we put things into proper perspective, the Broncos are an improved team from 2 years ago. Go Broncos!

Isn’t it funny how we all ‘mostly’ agreed as to the proper approach to building this team from the trenches and then when the trenches were ignored early and often… now ‘most’ everybody here still loves this years draft the way they USED to RAVE about last years!!

There’s much to like in Denver this year and I’m super-stoked to watch it develop but Gawd how the kool-aid still does run thick here @ MHR

That is some bogus stuff…he’s already brought in some depth for TE and RB. He can also snap up some O-line depth too as there were some decent options out there that are better than our current back-ups (or I’d like to hope so at least).

I do agree we need some better guys at those positions, but TE I don’t think will be a huge problem (our scheme doesn’t require them that much anyway). RBs aren’t a worry until our O-line solidifies a bit more anyway. The O-line is going to be painful…we knew this starting the year. It looks very much like they will be good at pass protection and poor at run blocking. This will take some time to fix, but hopefully McD will be able to capitalize using our talent in the passing game. He should be able to…that’s his coaching style any way.

great point. Myopia has been the demise of more than one decent business prospect.