And now... The most controversial post of the off-season

well written article but i’m not sure i get the point. is mcD an all or nothing proposition? it’s a bit like the folks who persistently rip on shanahan’s drafting (in)abilities but seem to have forgotten the winning percentage and the superbowls. there’s good and bad in any coach and any organization. heck, even if mcD is the total proverbial sightless squirrel, he had to have found a nut here and there just by sheer dumb luck. i do agree that tebow hasn’t done anything yet but he’s shown me enough to at least allow me to hope. and as a charter member of the non-mcD fan club, i’ll also be the first to give credit to the man if guys like tebow, thomas and ayers pan out, without ever feeling remorse that he’s gone.

Honestly, very well written. Even if Tebow succeeds, and as a Bronco fan I certainly hope he does, I still believe McD’s legacy in Denver will be one of incredible failure and humiliation. From 6-0 to the worst season and a half in franchise history. Covering up Spygate II. And all of the horribly blown draft choices and player acquisitions.

He has been annointed a genius by many due to his success mostly as a QB coach in New England. It will be interesting to see if he ever achieves real success on his own away from Belicheat and Tom Brady.

who really knows what he’ll be. Trading that much draft capital for a project player (truth hurts!) was certainly bold, but also reckless give all of the other obvious holes. For his bet to payoff, Tebow, IMO, will need to develop into a “plus” QB and sustain it for a number of years. We don’t even know if he’d ready to start yet, muck less lead us out of the basement.

But to your point, if Tebow does end up to be The Second Coming (hee hee), then I will be the first the say “Thanks” to McD, but there is no way that “thanks” would turn into “I miss you”.

No matter how Tebow turns out, I DO NOT want to ever see McD part 2!

As evil Chucky dares Josh to trade a valuable draft pick to his mentor, McDaniels laughs as Bill Belichick uses the force to dump a worthless Laurence Maroney off on his young Paduwan.

Orton is Ted Lilly. Lilly was capable of being a very good starting pitcher for the Cubs, but no matter how good he was (or is now), he always needed way too much run support. For whatever reason, no matter how dominant the Cubs were offensively, it was always Lilly who failed on the other end, and mo matter how good he pitched, the team was hardly ever around to rally around him and give him run support. I don’t know if that’s still the case with him in LA, but that’s how it has ALWAYS been for Orton, no matter where he’s gone.

Orton is capable of putting up great numbers, but no matter how good a game he has, the Broncos’ defense doesn’t play well enough or the running game isn’t good enough. No matter how good the running game or defense is, Orton’s game is not up to par. Orton can put up the numbers, but he’s not a star quarterback and he doesn’t have star quality.

Tim Tebow does, regardless of how irrational anyone thinks it is. Whether or not you believe Tebow has the coaching, mechanics, etc., etc., he owns a quality that is rare to professional athletes—forget just NFL players. Tebow has an innate ability to get first downs and score points. THAT is what the Broncos need above anything else, which includes at the moment: A pocket passer, a robot quarterback with flawless mechanics, et al. The Broncos need someone who can put them not just in position to win, but push them to the winner’s circle.

  First let me say that I’m sure you’ll probably achieve your goal of generating a controversial post simply by mentioning Tebow. You’ll also stir things up by simply listing McD’s mistakes as many here do not believe that trading Cutler and Marshall were mistakes when you consider their current status and what was received in return. However the reality (what will never be) of the McD fiasco is that we’ll never really know if his mad scientist approach to the game would have produced a winning team or not. By most NFL experts analysis it takes anywhere from 2 to 4 years to determine if a player will boom or bust in the NFL and there’s just too many examples of players that develop in that span to deny the logic. I think we all (most anyway) agree that Mcd needed to go and hope that he never comes back, however his legacy of players traded and acquired will never be fully realized since they were drafted with his schematic in mind.
     Now, on to the “what is” part of the equation. IMO the biggest error in your post is assuming that Thomas will be a bust. Pre-injury most people who observed Thomas in TC and pre-season raved about his combination of speed and skill. The only question in my mind is whether he will fully recover from his injury and we’re a long way from determining that. Your statements regarding Tebow are convoluted. On one hand you say that you always wanted a player like Tebow and then you flip and say that he’s merely relief and that if Ayers, Moreno, Mcbath and Cox don’t turn out to be superstars there’s no reason to believe that Mcdaniels was correct in drafting Tebow as if it’s an all or nothing equation. The NFL draft is not all or nothing, every year even the best teams miss on some and hit on others.
  I’m afraid you may fall well short of the “Most highly controversial post of the offseason” but considering the lack of much else to read and talk about it was an interesting read, thanks.

That being said I am glad that we have a more experienced coach in John Fox to run the team!

There must be checks and balances in a football team and that’s what got us in trouble during Shanny’s last few years. The NFL draft is a double-edged sword and McD coming in knew he had to fix both sides especially when he and Cutler didn’t hit it off. What did he do? He went to the well of free agency for the defensive side of the ball with trying to impliment a new scheme. He went to the draft to fix the offensive side starting off with Moreno who most said was a good choice at the time. When he drafted Ayers to play a different role it gave me the impression that he thought he could do anything with the team to make it successful. The experiment failed at least in that scheme…

Knowing that Marshall was gone the WR position was a position of need and he decided on D Thomas rather than Dez Bryant. A move I highly approved of because I feel Bryant will eventually be a prototype of TO…Now the young man hurts himself in the offseason and has been hurt for most of his young career. Too early to give up on him yet I believe. Decker was a brilliant move and will pay off in the long run.

Tim Tebow a was gutsy move for McD and a move that has caused more debate than any other in the 2010 draft. I admired McD for the guts he had to make the moves to get Tim. Sure Tim is raw and so are the other quarterbacks who have been drafted the past 2 years. Tebow will lead this team to championships soon and then the mouths of all of the Tebow haters will be shut forever…

Orson Welles is better known for his radio ‘lie’ to the people that stirred wide spread panic, “War of the Worlds”.

How do you know Tebow isn’t ready? He has exclusively been taking snaps from under center and it wouldn’t shock me if he straight up beat out Orton out for the job! TD said it perfect – when you look at Tebow’s greatness, you don’t have to look at just him…. watch the team around him play their guts out. That is the sign of a true franchise signal caller. When will it be “acceptable” to say Tebow might be the real deal?

P.S. for the record, even though I disagreed with a few McD moves, I loved a lot of them as well. The young O-Lineman, Robert Ayers, Cox, Moreno, etc., etc. McD messed up by putting too many irons in that fire.

Citizen Kane sucked.

2nd off, I see your point against the blind Tebow lovers, but at the same time the kid showed in 3 games what we wanted from Orton all season: gutsy, all on the line performances, moving the ball, and SCORING! He did all this with the same lack of D and running game Orton had.

Tebow is far from a finished product, sure. The best way to see what Tebow can be is to actually play him on the field. Sure, we can point to Rodgers and Palmer, but ask any football player/coach and they’ll tell you the best way to learn is on the field.

To keep Tim Tebow as a backup while Orton plays is a waste, we know what we got in Orton, and it led us to a 3-10 record. With Tebow we don’t know what we have, and in a rebuilding season we might as well find out now instead of later down the road. I doubt Orton will be a Bronco past next year anyways, so to start him in a likely losing season next year gets us NOWHERE. I’m not saying Tebow should be handed the starting job, but I just don’t see the benefit in starting Orton over Tebow for the long term.

A lot of bluster but I don’t think there are many valid points here.

There are a lot of people that thing McD made wrong moves in different ways, but I don’t know anyone that thinks he did everything wrong (even aside from Tebow). This is basically taking down a straw man in a rather dramatic way. And I don’t get the movie comparison, why not compare him to Neil Armstrong or the fourth musketeer or something else equally random.

You don’t have any data at all behind your Tebow points, other than your assertion that everyone thinks every move outside of Tebow was a mistake… and then you later disagree with that assertion anyway… and then you talk about Citizen Kane more… man, I gotta close the laptop, I just spent five minutes on this.

…you confused me at time, but I agree with the overall message. It’s so easy to judge with insight.

But I remember when McD would make a trade, I would usually think it was a good trade. Not knowing what the future was going to bring, I thought we had got good to excellent compensations for those guys. With maybe the exception of Tony Scheffler because we didn’t get much for him, but he wasn’t seen as a huge lost anyway.

In fact, I was curious about what people thought about the trades when they actually happened, so I want back to all the original post from John Bena on trade day and found that most people were thinking just like me. Over 70% thought the Broncos won in the Cutler deal and 68% about the Marshall deal. As for Peyton Hillis, most of you that commented said it was a “no risk trade”. I’m not making this out, this is our (we broncos fan) comments. Our reaction when it happened.

2 years later, it’s very easy to judge and say how McD just cleaned the house. But I personally think he work hard to make this team better (had his vision) and everytime he made a trade, he was going that way. It didn’t turn out the way we wanted and now it’s time to move on. We have the same hopes with the new staff and if you think Elway is the savior (again), don’t forget that McD opened the door to Elway to come back…remember that game against the Chief? Well…the first one anyway…

That said, as I was reading older posts and comments, I found a comment from scottwchicago written after the Jay Cutler’s deal:

“Denver may have to waste more than 3 draft picks to find a decent QB……. It is a lot harder to find a superbowl type QB than any other position period!”

He was right on that. 3 drafts pick is what it took just to get Tebow…hopefully we don’t need to use anymore.

Wade Phillips is no longer the worst coach the Broncos ever had. I think McDaniels will be a good head coach. I will never trust him not to be a cheater. I am glad he is gone.

The man understood the passing aspect of the game better than anyone else I’ve ever seen.

He had no idea how to balance it with a Run Game or defense but he could create a pass happy offense.

I think if someone would have given him a little less control or acted as a balance to all of his decisions, he could have been very successful. Now I don’t know if he didn’t have the support cast to offer him advise or he did have it and didn’t heed them due to arrogance etc. My personal opinion is the latter, atleast based on siezing control of defense from Nolan and eventually parting ways with him. And the way he took a great running scheme\OL and demolished it despite having some great coaches on staff.

if McDaniels was angry he got caught instead of actually feeling contrition for the wrong he did, he will not change. Nevertheless, everyone deserves a second chance and we’ll see how he does with the Rams. Oddly enough, he is in the STL after the Patriots reportedly cheated to beat the Rams in their first Super Bowl. Irony has a great sense of humor! I’m just glad my Dallas Mavericks are NBA champions, let’s see this happen for the Broncos now!

The hiring of McD was Divine Intervention that ensured Tim Tebow became a Bronco?

:) j/k

If it wasn’t for filming the walk through thing I don’t believe he wouldn’t been fired. I would’ve given him atleast a year or two more. If Tebow was ever going to be a good QB I think we kicked his best chance out the door by firing McD

…..thus far.

Some of you already know that I think Josh McDaniels is battling an inner demon that makes him open his mouth and say things that cause bad results for the Denver Broncos. I’m sure you’ve seen photos and press conferences of him trying so hard to keep his little trap shut that his lips and face turn white. Well in this shot he has both his eyes and trap shut. What do you think that little demon was telling him to do?

and the guy we SHOULD of hired behind him.

I appreciate the work and good writing but I’m not entirely sure what you are asking us to do or think. Like you, I’m also a McDaniel’s fan. I understand in hindsight his struggles with drafting, personnel, and most importantly winning football games, but I did think he was getting the Broncos onto the right track. Unfortunately we will never know what the case may have been and since he’s moved on, so have I. I wish him the best of luck in St. Louis and look forward to seeing what he is able to accomplish with Sam Bradford.

However, I’m also a Tebow fan. I don’t think that Tebow is a great player because McDaniel’s drafted him. I don’t think anything about Tebow in regards to McDaniels. Two separate people, two separate fates. No doubt on this blog you will see a predominate opinion against McD. It might on a good day be considered anger, and on every other day hatred. He was the face of this franchise when we were at our winningest worse. It’s not hard to understand how that went down. McDaniel’s will always be, like Belichick in Cleveland, nothing more than a what if debate.

I really got lost here:

Let Richard Quinn be the greatest third tackle in the history of the NFL and Knowshon Moreno run for 2,000 yards and Robert Ayers sack a quarterback ten times in a season… Darcel McBath become the next Brian Dawkins, Perrish Cox, the next Champ Bailey… Let it all happen, because if it doesn’t then my dear friends there is no reason at all to feel like McDaniels was correct in drafting Tebow.

Tebow will be successful if Tebow can go out there and perform. That’s it. It has nothing to do with McDaniel’s anymore. McDaniel’s is the past… and the tough past. Tebow is part of the future and the future is always brighter. Being a fan of Tebow doesn’t mean anything in the McDaniel’s conversation anymore. Nor should Tebow’s future success or failure validate any side’s argument in regards to the McDaniel’s debate.

When it comes to McDaniels… haters gonna hate. That ship has sailed.

There’s still hope for many of the rest of McD’s old draft classes.

Every single move McDaniels made has been criticized ad nauseum by fans of the Denver Broncos.

Except one:




Tim Tebow.

Hated that pick.

people forget that it was the cheating scandal that got McD fired not his decision making. He embarrassed the Denver Broncos Organization and he was fired shortly after.

had to go he shouild have kept the 4-3 he pass way too much and was too simple to gameplan against not that J fox is m martz but he knows how to comete 11 might be a down year but if tebow keeps getting better and we can build a D by 13 we will win the AFC West

I don’t really have time to go through the 200+ comments to see if this has been said but I agree with you. I think McD was a good coach and made some good moves (although a lot of his good moves were negated by the shocker that brought Brady Quinn in). I think he will be a good head coach but it became obvious towards the end that it wouldn’t be in Denver.

The one thing that irks me most? If McDaniels would’ve come into the organisation this year with Elway and a stronger front office who would’ve been able to say No to him with the support of the owner then I wonder if he’d have been better.