I Can't help but be impressed by McDaniels.  He is young, he is confident, and there is no doubting he is in complete control.

The thing that impresses me most about him however is how he can't  help but follow his convictions.  Now, whenever you follow convictions as faithfully as McD does, you end up with people who strongly dislike you (usually because their convictions don't align with yours).  And McD sure has his share of people out there who have nothing but venom for him (Clayton, some Broncos fans, etc..)  But he also has his share of people who respect him as well (Lombardi, Bowen, some Broncos fans etc.)

However, lately there has been two areas in which I believe McD deserves a ton of credit and simply hasn't been getting it.

1. The whole Culter saga-----McD was absolutely ripped to and fro when this all went down.  They claimed he was a giving away an elite QB and ruining the offense for a mediocre game manager in KO.  Well, here we are at the beginning of the 2010 season and I think you could find many people who believe KO is simply a better QB than Cutler.  So not only did we get the better QB, we received 2 1st round picks to boot!  Are you kidding me?!  Where are all the MSM members with their tails tucked between legs owning up to how way off they were??  

2.  Phonz.   No debating that this was a flat out miss by McD and X. They reached for a player they loved and were way off, bottom line.  But what kills me is that in all the criticism now flowing towards our front office and McD for this pick is that no one also points out that one of the reasons we had to cut him loose was that our draft this year was so solid.  So while we made a huge mistake one year, it seems to me we may have potentially exposed that mistake by how effective we were the next year.  The msm wouldn't even be talking about the Phonz cutting right now if the same front office they are criticizing so acutely hadn't gone out and rocked this years draft!

All that being said, McD's confidence is a little unnerving for me.  I still see quite a few holes in our team and really have no idea how we will do this year.  It kills me how everyone is rooting for a 9-7 year when that is the record that every crappy team's fan-base seems to shoot for!  But despite all the holes there is McD, as confident as ever.  Do I trust that confidence???

I want to, but there is also this annoying voice at the back of my mind that keeps pulling me in the other direction.