Moment #13 -- One of the Best

-- Marshall turns back the tide.

When Devin Hester tied the CHI game with his first return for a TD, it was up to the Broncos to find an answer, and try to re-establish momentum.

Cutler turned to his budding playmaker and on the first play from scrimmage following the return, he found BMarsh on a 68 yd that netted a quick 7 points and put the Broncos back in the lead.

The play showed just what Denver had in two of its young players: guys who could step up when the going got tough.  Sometimes the best way to answer a playmaker like Hester is to show that you have a playmaker of your own, and Brandon showed exactly that.  It is a combination of dependability and pure ability, and it amazes me sometimes how Brandon can exhibit it so clearly on the field but somehow shortcircuit and fail to apply the same skill off the field.  Maybe he just doesn't take matters off the field as seriously as he takes his job.  He wouldn't be the first, not would he be the last to lose his job because of an attitude like that.

But its moments like the CHI game when it becomes clear that whatever it is that this kid needs to do, he can do it.  That is going to make for some exciting Sundays for Broncomaniacs for some time to come.

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Moment #12 -- One of the Absolute Worst

--Idiot Punter

Its tough for me to say that Todd Sauerbraun biggest failing was kicking to Devin Hester in the Chicago game.  The reason that it is tough is that we may never be sure who is ultimately responsible for that decision.  Was the decision dumb?  Maybe not the first time, but definitely the second time.  But was Sauerbraun dumb to do it?  Not if he was just taking orders.

Regardless of what the above situation was, the Devin Hester returns were not the reason we lost that game.

The Broncos had marched up and down the field at will against the Bears all game.  The defense had stymied the Bears best offensive efforts all game.  And with only six minutes left to play in regulation the Broncos were sitting on a comfortable 14 point lead.  Hester had returned a couple of kicks for TDs, sure, but up to that point in the game, that was the ONLY thing that CHI had managed to do, and the Broncos were firmly in control.  The only way CHI was going to have a chance was if they had the game handed to them on a silver platter.  Enter idiot punter, who could have pinned the Bears deep in their own territory, forcing them to chew up the majority of the last six minutes with a drive.

And he let them block the punt.

Worse yet, he claimed that he never even saw Charles Tillman, who snuck through the line and straight into Sauerbraun.  Before you can kick it to or away from someone, you have to actually kick the ball, and in a game that saw him embarrassed by Hester multiple times, idiot punter put the icing on the cake by embarrassing himself.  There are no excuses for blocked punts.  It is on the punter to be prepared for the defensive coverages, and to execute quickly if need be.  Not seeing someone is a pitiful excuse.  He should have seen Tillman, that is his job.

That blocked punt gave the Bears the momentum they needed and they would go on to score 17 unanswered points and win the game.  But they couldn't have done it if not for the gift that Sauerbraun delivered so nicely to Charles Tillman.

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Moment #11 -- One of the Best

--Afterthought, Part II

The second player that showed his stuff during the Tennessee game was the unheralded Glenn Martinez.

Like Hall, Martinez had been asked to fill in.  Walker was a no show, and Stokely was starting to show the wear and tear of #1 receiver rigors.

The first thing that Martinez did was throw a beauty of a block that was key to a 48 yard TD by Brandon Stokely.  Obviously, Martinez had shown up to play.  The next thing he did was to jaunt for an 80 yd punt return for a touchdown, the first for the Broncos in four years.  His 4.29 speed was enough to put him in the endzone about 25 yards ahead of the nearest Titan.  When he got there he just arched his back and spread his arms as wide as they could go, like he wanted to embrace the whole world.

The 80 yd punt return fit in perfectly with the theme of the night, which was "no TD less than 40 yds long,"  and it kept the momentum going through a string of games where Martinez pounced on his limited chances.  Because that how it had to be.

What happens when you are a 25-year-old player from Saginaw Valley State is you hold chances close. Martinez signed with Pittsburgh as an undrafted rookie in 2004. He was cut on the eve of the season. He was signed by the Lions in January 2005 and was cut by the Lions six times in 20 months. Add a stint in NFL Europe, and Martinez had been through the NFL grindhouse.

80 yds for a TD doesn't seem that far in hindsight.

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Moment #10 -- One of the Best

-- Afterthought, Part I

The Tennessee game is interesting in that it showcased to young talents on the Broncos who had been overlooked up to that point, and who would go on to be overlooked through the coming offseason.  When Broncos fans break down the roster, or evaluate the positions, these two players are usually considered afterthoughts.

The first player is Andre Hall.

The play that jumps out at you is a beautiful, 62 yard TD run.  Hall would approach the line as the play developed, and then make a graceful cutback that sliced through a perfect running lane.  After that he was off to the races.  The decisiveness with which he hit the hole belied his inner struggle:

"It was big enough to scare me," Hall admitted. "I didn't know whether to hit this, is it a trick, what's going on? I just went with my gut, hit it and kept it moving.

"It was like practice. You know how they set the plays to open up? That's what it did. Exactly what it did. The offensive line watched everybody, and Brandon kicked his guy out, and the hole opened up."

And the reason he struggled with the decision was because he had already made a major mistake earlier in the game.  On only his second rep after replacing an injured Selvin Young in the 3rd quarter, Hall blew a D-gap blocking assignment and was left clutching air as Cutler ate dirt, courtesy of  Titans safety Vince Fuller.

Hall was devestated.

It is a testament to a young player that he can show he is able to overcome his own mistakes.  Hall didn't let the blown play get him down, and instead he gritted his teeth and committed to giving everything he could, in an effort to make things right.  62 yards later, Cutler weighed in on the RB's missed block:

"He made up for it."

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Moment #9 -- One of the Best

--Webster overpursues...the KC endzone!!

Say what you will about how bad KC was/is, they are always tough to beat at Arrowhead, especially when the first breaths of winter are sending shivers through the Chiefs faithful.

So its special, and memorable, to take a home win from them in Arrowhead Stadium, and nothing says that better than a DOOM sack and fumble recovery by Nate Webster.  Webster taking it to the house is just icing on the cake.

It was only the first win there that the Broncos had managed to come by since 2002, and in winning by 16 points it ranks as the third largest margin of victory in what is a historically competitive matchup. 

The play itself, that I am referring to, was part of a 9 second span of time that harvested a whopping 14 points for the Broncos -- more than they scored in 60 minutes vs the Chargers or the Lions.  [Edit: That is approximately 1555 times more potency!--styg]  It started with a nifty 20-yard score by selvin young and ended with Nate Webster overpursuing the KC endzone for 6 easy points.

The 2007 Broncos showed a respectable degree of tencacity in putting SD and DET behind them and going into a perennially tough place to play and flat out dominating the Chiefs.  In some ways you had to feel sorry for the Chiefs.  It was almost like we were taking our frustrations out on them.

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Moment #8 -- One of the Worst

-- "A freak Accident."

Those were the words used by Shanny to describe the loss of Jarvis Moss to a fractured fibula and torn ankle ligaments. 

And it was only the beginning.

A few hours later it would be made official that we could not expect a comeback from Rod Smith who was IRed for the season.  Most could see, though, that it was most likely the end of a career as well.

The loss of Moss sparked a train wreck of events that ended in a smoldering pile of debris that can be called embarrassment at best, malevolent at worst, as the Broncos would go into Detroit and subsequently lose Cutler to a leg contusion, Henry to a sprained knee that would haunt him the rest of the season, and eventually they would lose the game as well.   It was a 44-7 drubbing that had us playing to avoid a shutout before the 3rd quarter had come to a close.  The Broncos made the Lions look like gods among men, as everything they tried failed.  Ramsey replaced cutler only to fumble and have it returned for a touchdown.  So he tried passing only to have it intercepted and returned for a touchdown.  Before the rout had begun, Elvis Dumervil tried to help the Broncos by sacking Kitna on a critical third down, which would have given the Broncos the ball back and a chance to take the lead in the ballgame.  Instead, DOOM was flagged for a facemask, the drive was resuscitated, and Kitna would drive for a Touchdown en route to a 219 to 69 advantage in first half yards and 15-3 advantage in first downs.

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Moment #7 -- One of the Worst

-- Can't finish off a drive.

What most people remember about the loss to GB is the Overtime TD that sealed the deal.  They think to themselves, "If Bly hadn't of gotten burned we could have won that game!"

Wrong.

If Bly had intercepted that ball, we still wouldn't have won the game.  If Curome Cox doesn't bite on the pump fake (its Bly's job to bite, he's the underneath guy, but there is no excuse for the safety biting), Favre probably throws that ball away or the pass is broken up by the safety.  Best case scenario is we have a defensive stand and get the ball back, but what good would that have done us?  The 2007 Denver Broncos could not finish offensive drives!

Case in point, consider the play that put us in that godforsaken position to begin with:

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Moment #6 -- One of the Best

-- Crowder Takes it to the House

We needed the win against Pittsburgh in the worst way.  And we got it in arguably the best.

The "no looking back" moment came when Elvis Dumervil notched his second sack of the game, pulling Roethlisberger down amongst a chaotic mess caused by Marcus Thomas, Tim Crowder and Jarvis Moss.  When the ball popped out Crowder grabbed it up and high-tailed it into the endzone, 50 yards away:

"I just didn't look back," Crowder said. "They always tell me, 'If you run, never look back.' I saw the ball, I scooped it up. Elvis Dumervil kicked it out to me and I just took it to the house."

The great part about this play was it was the reward for what would amount to  four quarters of solid work by the much-maligned Denver defensive line.  The young guys were the stars that night, with Alvin McKinley getting in on the sack action as well, and Roethlisberger spent the evening hurried, harrased and harangued.  After the game, when reporters asked him questions in the visitor's locker room, Big Ben was seen with icepacks strapped everywhere on his body, and he needed help standing for the questions.

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Moment #5 -- One of the Worst

-- Clarked

Fumbling and ending up in Shanahan's dog house go hand in hand.  Matters are only made worse when your fumble becomes the second score in 11 seconds for your opponent who also happens to be your competition for division supremacy.

That is what Brian Clark had to face after spending the first three weeks of the season inactive and the fourth week not even on the roster.  After Rivers escaped the clutches of Crowder to score a walk in touchdown on the previous drive, Carlos Polk put a hat on the ball as Clark was running into the backs of his blockers.  The result was a fumble recovery returned for a TD by the Chargers, and a quick 14-0 hole that was the begining of the end.

The thing is, Denver and SD came into the game playing catchup to oakland in the Wacky West, and so it was known that the winner had an opportunity to do irrepairable damage to the loser.  SD was playing poorly at the time.  Denver had homefield advantage.  In what level of Hell does all of that translate into a 41-3 drubbing that could only be stopped by the mercy of the finite nature of 60 minutes?

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Moment #4 -- One of the Best

-- Denver Broncos Rushing Attack

We were actually hanging with Indianapolis, the defending SuperBowl Champions. 

As the first half ended, Travis Henry pounded forward on first down for 6 yds and then gobbled up another 5 yds on second down.  And that was par for the course.  We had come into the game without Walker on offense, and Marshall hadn't yet exploded into the superstar he was to become.  It was clear before the game that we needed a big rushing game, and as the half closed the scoreboard read 13-14 with only one point separating us from the Colts.  Henry already had 106 yards and was averaging 6 yds a carry.  The game didn't just look competitive, but emminently winnable!

In the end we would close out the day with 223 rushing yards and a loss, but there was no doubt that our rushing game was alive and well and churning out the yards.  Mistakes by Cutler, the continuing ineffectiveness of our redzone offense and defensive struggles were our downfall against Indy, but the vaunted Denver rushing attack did enough to keep us in that game and keep us within a score right up until the end.

We had no idea what sort of tribulations awaited us in the season, but for a moment, we had rediscovered our Broncos identity, and were in the process of establishing it by force.

Return of the Orange Rush in 2008?

What we gave up in Henry was a bruising back that could take punishment, the kind of guy that could take the brunt of the beating on a team's 200yd rushing effort.  The effort to replace him is unique and multifaceted, and allows me to believe that the glimpse of rushing game dominance that flashed in 2007 will emerge full force in 2008.

In person, we are attempting to replace Henry with Pittman and Torain.  One proven, one young, this is the perfect balance of experience and potential that will give us longevity at the bruising back position.  In terms of strategy, we have emphasized our upfront blocking with the addition of an elite draft pick on the offensive line and a solid backup at center, the most pivotal run blocking position.  We also added two young players who can take the brunt of the physical rushing attack in Hillis and Larsen, in a bold move that is typicla of Shanny and his multi-headed offensive threats.

Add to this mix the personal motivation of returning TB Selvin Young who needed to bulk up as a first step towards getting more carries in a game.  This he has done, while showing an invigorating response to the challenge of competition he will face for reps in Shanny's offense.

Together these moves tell me that consistency will once again be a hallmark of the Broncos rushing attack in 2008.  I expect more than the Anderson/Bell days but as always the first requirement will be health.  The renewed emphasis on blockers tells me that we might be able to really protect our RBs for the first time in a long time.  I expect a real rushing attack this year, and with consistency will come red zone production.