Strictly My Opinion
Poll of the Week - Who is the Broncos Biggest Rival
by John Bena on Nov 19, 2009 6:16 AM MST
in Strictly My Opinion
98 comments
This topic recently came up and I thought I would ask it of the greatest Broncos fans in the world - so guys and gals of Broncos Country - which is the biggest rivalry the Broncos face?? We all know the Raiders are the historic rival, but their lack of success may have dampened that. The Chiefs and Broncos battled for AFC West supremacy in the 90's and early in this decade but they too are now struggling. The Broncos and Chargers are battling it out nowadays, and it appeared Philip Rivers and Jay Cutler were going to have their own personal rivalry going until the events of the off-season.
Please explain your answer in the comments. Call it a little "market research"!
So, I ask all of you -
98 comments | 0 recs |
Shallow Thoughts & Nearsighted Observations
by Ted Bartlett on Nov 17, 2009 6:30 AM MST
in Strictly My Opinion
208 comments
Happy Tuesday, friends, and welcome to another edition of Shallow Thoughts & Nearsighted Observations. Here we are again, with another loss to contend with. This one is worse than the last two, because this one looked like a sure victory when we were marking off W's and L's on the schedule. Of course, if Kyle Orton didn't get hurt, it probably is a W, and the Broncos are still sitting on a 1-game lead over the Chargers. Since that's not the way it played out, we have to do the other thing.
We'll get into the details, from soup to chocolate cake, and make some sense of all this, because that's what we do here. We'll explore what happened, we'll find some things to feel positive about, and we'll have some fun. Out of the echo chamber, and into the fire, y'all. Ready..... BEGIN!!!!
1. There's a certain interconnectedness to a football game, and its outcome, among all phases of the game, and all 45 active players. I've talked about this many times before, and John Bena called the loss a team effort in his postgame writeup. I would call this a team effort whose final score is mostly attributable to the poor second half play of the offense, and mostly, of Chris Simms.
What I mean by that is this. Over the first 6 games of the season, the Broncos led the league in scoring defense. They were especially strong defensively in the second half of games. That trend has been turned on its head the last 3 weeks. The last two weeks, especially, I believe that the main reason why the defense struggled in the second half was that they were on the field for too many plays, due to the struggles of the offense. Each side of the ball needs to help the other. The Broncos have been getting shut down on offense, and worn down on defense, and it's been difficult to watch.
208 comments | 13 recs |
Broncos Thoughts and Musings - The Art of Magical Thinking
by Emmett Smith on Nov 13, 2009 4:30 PM MST
in Strictly My Opinion
56 comments
I have always believed in magic.
From the promise of sunrise to the infinite painted beauty of sunset, our world is filled with magic. A child's smile, the scents in the air after a soft rain, a lover's touch, the mountains' beauty and an infinite number of other phenomena can be understandably labeled as 'magical'. Magic plays with us in our daily lives, often unseen, never far from the moment.
There's another kind of magical thinking, and it touches on our fandom. You see it on both sides of every aisle, coloring the thoughts and perceptions of many throughout our culture and our planet. It's the kind of magic thought and wand-waving that assures us all that if 'X' were just different, all ills would be over, all problems solved and all wrongs righted. It's the kind of thing that gets harder to support, as the Information Age moves forward, because we have access to the facts that show such thinking to often be superficial and frequently erroneous. Yet, the presence of such information is a far cry from its application in rational thinking. You must both find and then make use of such facts, or the discussion, arguments and debates will grow ever more bitter without any hope of resolution. And that bitterness can infect the happiest of spirits, if left unchecked.
I wanted to take a minute to touch on 'magical thinking' and how it might affect our views of the season and the team. Bear with me as we first encounter an area in which magical thinking can make it hard to talk about what really is, and what might be. The first issue is that of the trap that has been formed by the view backwards towards John Elway's career. I recall, several months back, talking to a member about Elway. He'd just looked over his career stats and was surprised by what he saw. This is what came up.
56 comments | 29 recs |
Shallow Thoughts & Nearsighted Observations
by Ted Bartlett on Nov 10, 2009 6:30 AM MST
in Strictly My Opinion
322 comments
Happy Tuesday, friends. After being up late, and watching a hard-fought game go awry, I bet you're pretty bleary-eyed, and grumpy, but let's try to make this a good day. I don't want to think that the Broncos have fallen into losing habits here, and I really don't think that's the case.
Of course, those who speak, but don't know what they're talking about, will start screaming about how the Broncos have been exposed, and they're a fraud, and every other damn thing. A few persistent issues have emerged, but they can be corrected. If anything, losing back-to-back games against good teams can teach you a great deal about your own team.
Let's reflect on this, as I know the coaching staff is, and the players are. Next week, the Broncos face the Redskins, which presents a great opportunity to get back on the winning track. After that, San Diego comes to town. The Broncos still control the AFC West, make no mistake about that.
On the other side of the jump, we'll break it all down. Ready..... BEGIN!!!!
322 comments | 10 recs |
Broncos Comcast Red Zone Report - Week 8
by John Bena on Nov 9, 2009 12:30 PM MST
in Strictly My Opinion
2 comments
This post is sponsored by Comcast and their NFL RedZone channel. Want to see every touchdown from every NFL game as it happens as well as live look-ins to all of Sunday's games in key situations? Then you need Comcast's NFL RedZone.
If we are going to have a sponsorship deal, we might as well find a way to incorporate said sponsorship into something that is near and dear to Broncos fans - the team's performance in the Red Zone. This has been a key point of contention for a long time with Denver - take last year into account - 2nd in Yards, 16th in points.
Each week we'll take a look at the Broncos' trips into the Red Zone and how they fared. Good teams, playoffs teams, score in the Red Zone. If the Broncos want to be a playoff team, they'll need to as well.
2 comments | 0 recs |
Winning the (AFC) West the old fashoned way.....Earn It!
by John Bena on Nov 8, 2009 6:14 PM MST
in Strictly My Opinion
78 comments
A huge shout-out to Tom Coughlin. Hopefully some of you recorded the Giants-Chargers game. If so, keep, duplicate it and sell it under the title, "How to Lose a Football Game When Playing Not To....". It's one of my biggest pet peeves in all of sports, when a coach seems to have his team playing "not to lose". Invariably, by playing "not to lose" you are destined to, in fact, lose, as the Giants did today.
It was a hard-fought, close, football game throughout. The Giants had taken over the game, however, in the 4th quarter and had the Chargers on the ropes. After intercepting a Philip Rivers pass late in game, the Giants had the ball - First and Goal at the Chargers 4, leading 17-14.. The next 3 plays would tell the tale. Run, Run, Run with a holding penalty mixed in. Kick the field goal and the Giants lead by 6 with just over two minutes to go. We've seen this act before - give the Chargers an inch of life and they'll take a mile.
Rivers' game-winning TD pass with 21 seconds to go gave the Chargers a 21-20 win. Coughlin's game management was filled with decisions that stank of fear, from the way the team called those final plays to a couple of 4th-and-1 situations at midfield earlier in the game that the Giants decided it better to punt. For a team playing at home, that has already lost 3 games in a row, showing so little confidence in what used to be a dominant running game was quite troubling, and I'm not even a Giants fan!
78 comments | 2 recs |
Scouting Terrence Cody
by Emmett Smith on Nov 7, 2009 10:35 PM MST
in Strictly My Opinion
56 comments
I've been hearing a lot about Terrence Cody of late. I hadn't really had a chance to make any kind of decision on how I feel about the player and with the onset of a classic SEC LSU/Alabama contest, I thought that this kind of high-stakes matchup would be a perfect chance to find out if this is a player that I'd like the Broncos to consider or not. The week before, I spent some time wandering though the draft sites and the news media to get a little background. These are the things I found.
56 comments | 6 recs |
Shallow Thoughts & Nearsighted Observations
by Ted Bartlett on Nov 3, 2009 6:30 AM MST
in Strictly My Opinion
105 comments
Happy Tuesday, friends, if you can manage one. Welcome to another edition of Shallow Thoughts & Nearsighted Observations. Well, this was bound to happen, right? Since Sunday afternoon, I have been thinking about what the right tone is to take with this week's ST&NO. I still haven't decided, and it's Monday at 5 PM as I write this paragraph. I guess I am just going to go with it, and play it like it feels. We had an ugly loss, and to top it off, there were only 4 late games, and no Sunday night game, so I didn't see a lot of live football, at all. We'll make do, because that's all we can do. Out of the echo chamber, and into the fire y'all. Ready.... BEGIN!!!!
1. The two plays which set the tone for yesterday's game happened at the beginning of each half. On the Broncos' first play from scrimmage, Jarret Johnson came in untouched and unrecognized off the defense's left side, and creamed Kyle Orton for a big loss. As I watched the play happen, I couldn't help but think that the Broncos may not be well-prepared if they weren't expecting a lot of blitzing.
As the second half got underway, Lardarius Webb took the opening kickoff back 95 yards for a TD. That took a manageable 6-0 halftime deficit to 13-0, and essentially dictated that the Broncos start playing come-from-behind football. You see the picture of this play, and I used it because it sticks in my craw (whatever a craw is), and I want it stick in yours, too. I guarantee it bothers the coaches and players. You can't have that happen and expect to win.
105 comments | 18 recs |
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