My Off-season To Do List

As the Tebow bomb fell to the ground, we as fans began our off-season (I felt like our 2nd overall pick was floating in the air)  Sure, the playoffs and Super Bowl will go on (may Eagles fans suffer heart-break, no Terrible Towel success, and nothing but NFC West SB victory); but for us Broncos fans, we begin the cold winter of off-season speculation over new Head Coaches, mock drafts, free agent acquisitions, and attempts to understand all the CBA drama.  So with that in mind, I’m noting my off-season "honey do list" (hat tip to all the married folk).

1.       What we know: Bowlen, Ellis (ugh), Elway (insert week of celebratory welcome #7 home talk), Xanders (he's not going anywhere) and the hunt for a new head coach.  Power to the people for all their mocks and FA talks, but the first order of business is finding a new head coach.  Whatever role or say he might have, fact is he will have something to say about the direction of our team.  If it’s a coach only, then it might be minor, but if it’s a big wig, then he'll be listened to.  So first stop on the off-season shopping list:  Commence wild speculation over who our next head coach will be.  For my money, I want Jerry Glanville.  But that’s only because I’m not sure if he ever existed or if he was a figment of my imagination.

2.      Hot damn, we have a new head coach!  Well once this takes place, then we get to sit back and "arm-chair quarterback" all the coaching staff decisions.  I love this part because outside of the know names, this is where we fans are really in the dark and (pardon me) stupid on who’s hot and not around the league or in the college circuit (not saying they’re those of you in the know, but jimmy cricket, I just cited Jerry Glanville as our HC for crying out loud.  What the hell do I know about running back coaches, physical trainers, and the guy who squirts water into players mouth when they come off the field (I want that job!).

3.       Okay, HC in place, coaching staff rocking and rolling and now it’s (we interrupt your regularly scheduled MOCK DRAFT EXTRAVAGANZA for CBA nonsense!!!!).  Okay, for all the smart CBA fans out there, please help the rest of us navigate the stormy road ahead.  Though my kids are all past the "binky sucking" stage and are potty trained, all I can think is DON’T TAKE AWAY MY NFL!!!!   I was too young to understand the NFL strike back in the 80s, but I do know that the MLB and NHL strike killed whatever love I had for watching those games and the NBA only gets a pass because I love the hoops and can’t get enough Kobe and Wizards action (yeah, I said it! John Wall is my Tebow in basketball).   For the love of all that’s orange and blue, I think this will be a major story that makes the "unknown" even more unknown.  So mock to your heart’s content, but for  my money, I want resolution and I want resolution now before I start to throw a 2 year old tantrum! WAAAA!!!

 4.      Okay, we finally get to that glorious Combine/Mel Kiper et al mocks/MHR awesomeness and the 3 day event where we watch grown men call other grown men’s name on 3x5 cards and drink lots of beer and act like we know anything about that LG from Utah.  I love it!!!!

 5.     Phew, we’re high off of that and then we start getting even more "high" off the draft picks or we start to drink ourselves into Alphonso Smith/Richard Quinn oblivion as we "grade" the draft.   I love reading MHR during this part of the off-season! We know nothing, but we declare our inner Todd McShay from the mountain tops!  YIPPPIE!!!  I refrain from posting my draft grade until 2030!!!

6.       Oh boy, then we deal with the Sahara desert as we pine for mini-camps, training camps and pre-season games.  We wait for the MHR gurus who feed us Intel on our team.  How did Tebow look today?  Did Coach Glanville sacrifice a goat before Patrick Peterson returned an INT for TD?  Inquiring minds want to know!!!  Truth be told, us fans hate the gap period.  We have to endure golf and baseball and NBA / NHL Final that last way too long into the summer.  We have to wonder why LeBron won’t admit he’s really a 39 year old man from Dominican Republic!  Ugh!!!  Give us football!!!

 7.      Preseason football!  Yippee ki-yay, MF’er!  This is when we buy cases of good beer, we go from a team that’s 4-12 to a team that will go 13-3!!!  Love it and enjoy watching all the rooks, UFA’s and Elway sightings!  For all it’s worth, 2011 will have a different feel to it than anything we’ve experienced in quite sometime.

 8.      Lord Football returns and we commence what we do best: telling those front office weenies, coaches, and players how to do it best!  Because at the end of the day, what makes sports and football so damn awesome is US: the obnoxious, know-it-all fan who devotes more energy, tears and money than any gifted Tebow, Elway, name your favorite athlete will ever know. Seriously, we fans rock!  For all the Tebow/Elway passion, nobody and I mean nobody brings more passion to sports than fans do!  So like the Hobbits we are, let's drink, sing songs about our team and get ready for what will be yet another crazy and fun and always debatable Broncos off-season!!!  We are beautiful!!!

 9.     Oh yeah, in between that, mulch my wife’s garden, take out the trash, repaint the living room, etc…

 10.   Go Broncos!!!