Mail bag

Here's some of the mail I've received about the Mastermind so far. I'll post every email I get, so long as it isn't vulgar, etc (maybe I will even then). Send mail to Fireshanahan@gmail.com

I'm going to save one message I got to print as a post of its own tomorrow as I feel it summarizes the entire situation very well and will save me the trouble of having to reiterate things I've posted here for three years.

Steve writes:

When Coach Bill McCartney of the Colorado Buffaloes stupidly decided to punt to Rocket Ismail in the 1/1/91 Orange Bowl, he almost cost his team a national championship. Luckily, there was a clipping penalty on the play and the Buffs won and shared the championship. When Shanahan stupidly decided to kick and punt to Devin Hester, it basically cost his team the playoffs, and if there is a God, it cost him his job. Somehow, that night Todd Sauerbraun was Keith Olberman's "Worst Person in the NFL"!?! Shanahan probably called Keith and blamed every kick on Todd, and Keith slurped it up because the media is required to love Shanahan, who should've been fired THAT NIGHT.

Against the Raiders, after settling for field goals as usual (is it even called "settling" with him anymore? he seems to enjoy anticipating Elam's trot onto the field every time the Broncos get to the 40-yard-line) the Broncos cut the score to 24-19 in the 4th quarter. We know how much Shanahan loves FGs, but either he doesn't know the "new" NFL rules, or he just loves watching Elam kick, so instead of attempting to cut the lead to 3, the Broncos kicked the extra point. If the score had been like that in the final seconds, I still think they would've kicked the FG in the last minute to lose 24-23, that's how much Shanahan likes FGs and how stupid he is.

The Broncos have been shooting so many threes this year that even Antwan Walker is embarrassed.

Brian writes:

I've been a Broncos fan since I moved to Colorado at the age of six. I've seen them play over a dozen times, both at Mile High and Invesco. I was at the famous Elway vs Montana game, and have always counted myself quite loyal. Don't live in Colorado anymore, but still watch or listen to every game. I've no come to the conclusion that it's time for Shanahan to go. The one statistic that stands out for me the most is this; it's been almost 10 years since Elway played for the Broncos and we've won a grand total of one playoff game. ONE! For such a storied franchise, this is completely unacceptable. Plus, every other playoff game we've gotten absolutely smoked. Thanks for doing your part to get people talking!

Not only have the Broncos been smoked in the playoffs, they've been thoroughly out coached in almost every game.

"Milehijedi" writes:

I am so with it now.

I once felt and even mailed you my thoughts of how ridiculous I thought it was to fire Shanahan. But this is getting disgusting.

Bowlen has that irish connection with Shanahan I think. idk wtf direction this team is going.

Cutler's development MUST rest in Shanahan's shoulders, as I am sure he will not resign (though I wish he would). idk how much time to give him, but I am sick of watching this team go backwards.

Cutler appears to be on the right track, but that will not save Shanahan from throwing him under the bus if it is at all helpful to save his reputation.

Let's hear from you.

Shoot me a line with your feelings on Shanahan, good, bad, whatever.

Fireshanahan@gmail.com

I'll post them. I'm too busy to point out how right I am at the moment.

It's always the defensive coordinator's fault

Last season the Broncos defense began the season in a dominant fashion, preventing teams from reaching the end zone. They finished the season 8th in points allowed, with 305 and 14th in yards per game.

The offense on the other hand was 17th in points scored and 21st in yards per game.

Mike Shanahan is in near total control of the offense for this football team. In fact, the Broncos did not even have an offensive coordinator in 2006. He passed blame onto Jake Plummer halfway through the season and switched to Jay Cutler with the stated justification that Cutler gave the team the best chance to win. That didn't occur, and the team had the same offensive short coming.

In response to the team missing the playoffs, the organization decided to take the following steps in regards to the coaching staff:

1) Fire defensive coordinator Larry Coyer
2) Fire defensive line coach Andre Patterson
3) Extend Mike Shanahan's contract three years.

Once again reality was ignored and another defensive coordinator took the blame for Shanahan's inability to manage games.

How do the Broncos stack up this year in the aforementioned categories?

Defense:
28th in points allowed (227)
26th in yards per game.

Offense:
28th in points scored (126) -100 DIFFERENTIAL
10th in yards per game

The difference in the offensive rankings of points scored to yards gained is a simple one to explain. The Broncos have terrible special teams and horrible red zone play calling.

The response to last year's offensive problems was to fire the defensive coaching staff. As a result, the Broncos have their worst defense in recent memory.

Six million dollar drops

Mike Shanahan gave Daniel Graham a five year, $30 million contract this off season, with $15 million in guaranteed money. This was one year after spending a second round pick on Tony Scheffler.

I will always have a soft spot for Graham, but I really cannot handle watching him drop the ball on every key play where his number is called. Even if he was making catches, he would still be vastly overpaid.

There is no excuse for tying up that much cap space in a tight end that does not contribute to your passing game.

Cassandratic Equation

On October 7th 2007 Mike Shanahan coached the Broncos to the worst home defeat in over forty years. 41-3 to a San Diego Chargers team that was falling apart less than a week before. Ladanian Tomlinson was sobbing at press conferences, and San Diego fans were clamoring for Martyball. And Mike Shanahan led the team to a 41-3 defeat.

The Broncos are two plays and an upright from being 0-5. The inability to score in the red zone that has been a hallmark of the Shanahan led Broncos over the past four seasons has never been more apparent than it is right now.

Jay Cutler is not yet capable of running the offense Shanahan wants him to run, and yet Shanahan has shown no willingness to simplify the offense whatsoever to allow Cutler to succeed.

The Denver defense is an absolute joke, it's in complete shambles despite using multiple draft picks on defensive line help and signing several more free agents. Larry Coyer was made the second scapegoat of 2006 after assassinating Jake Plummer's career did not magically transport the Broncos to football fantasy land. Jim Bates has now fashioned a laughing stock of a defense.

And the most frustrating part of watching Broncos fans stumble around in complete shock over all of this, is that I've been pointing all of this out on this site for three years.

The fact that this team constantly plays down to the level of its opponents and frequently just no-shows entire games is blindingly apparent this season, as it should have been over the last four. That more than anything else is the sign of a poorly coached team.

This fan base has spent so much time attacking and scapegoating the team's quarterbacks and defensive coordinators yet failed to see that Emperor Shanahan is standing in front of them naked.

Which is why it's so hilarious to see the sudden realizations being had on Broncos sites across the net today.

It's time for a coaching change, it's been a decade since Shanahan won his fifteen get out of jail free cards on the back of Elway, Davis, and the best team by far in the NFL.

The MASTERMIND'S MASTER PLAN

Step 1: Blow all three timeouts halfway through the third quarter

Step 2: Run a QB sneak on fourth and two (even though Marcus Stroud has been lining up over Nalen all day) instead of taking the three points.

Step 3: Go for it on fourth down backed up against your own endzone with four and a half minutes left.

Step 4: ??????????

Step 5: PROFIT


Even if you want to claim Shanahan was forced to go for it on that fourth down, he was only forced to go for it because he's an idiot and wasted all his timeouts and didn't kick the field goal earlier.

The team's offices have moved from Dove Valley to Ravenna

It's became a yearly tradition, hasn't it? The mid-season collapse has came and went. Let's just give a recap.

2002: 6-2 start 9-7 finish
2003: 5-1 start 10-6 finish
2004: 5-1 start 10-6 finish
2006: 7-2 start followed by two losses

It didn't happen in 2005 due to issues of luck I've already dealt with. But it's nice that the team is at least predictable in its under achievement. You can brace for the punch when you know it's coming. You ever notice that the Broncos are always talked about as contenders in the early season and then the media never mentions them after a certain point? All you Denver fans who bitch about the media ignoring us should realize they have a good reason to. With our good coach at the helm we're always pretenders without the combination of Elway and Davis.

Through this time period the Broncos have had two offensive coordinators, two defensive coordinators, two starting quarterbacks, seven starting running backs, with a rotating door in the secondary and defensive line. What has been the one constant class? I won't ask you to get out your number two pencils. The answer is Mike Shanahan.

You can blame all you want on Jake Plummer, but let's look at the problems the Broncos have had through the season. We'll save the quarterback situation for last.

-Rod Smith has been invisible (Can't blame Shanahan here, just age)
-The Broncos have no tight ends who can catch (Shanahan released Jeb Putzier)
-The Broncos cannot generate a pass rush (Shanahan released Trevor Pryce)
-Darrent Williams cannot cover (Why is he still starting after the Indy game?)
-Inconsistent running game (Shanahan traded Droughns, released Anderson)

As for Plummer, he's had some horrible games. But anybody who wants to place any loss other than the St. Louis one squarely on his shoulders needs to catch a clue. He didn't give up 34 points to Indy or allow San Diego to come back from a 17 point deficit. In the KC game, nobody played well and he had zero help.

But a bigger question looms larger. What was expected when this team decided to ignore its glaring holes and trade up to draft a quarterback?

Anybody wanting to blame Plummer or Griese for any of the Broncos past woes needs to also remember that these guys were both handpicked by Shanahan. Jay Cutler will be Shanahan's third hand picked quarterback.

Shanahan's job needs to ride on Cutler's performance. If it doesn't, this organization is doomed.

Where do we stand in the AFC West?

Let's take a look at the other teams in our division and where they stack up compared to us so far in the season.

San Diego Chargers (4-1)
Can anybody think of a more overrated team in the NFL at the moment? I sure as hell can't. Let's take a look at who they've beaten. Tennessee, Oakland, Pittsburgh (when Roethlisberger was doing his absolute best to throw the game) and San Fransisco. You know what, let's just give them the division already. Their front seven is brutal but they have absolutely no secondary. Their offense doesn't scare me, Rivers hasn't had to play under pressure yet and Tomlinson cannot rush against good defenses. They're frauds, pretenders, and they'll be exposed soon enough.

Kansas City Chiefs (2-3)
The Chiefs could easily sneak up on people if they can steal a game or two here before Green comes back. Their defense has finally improved after years of promises from their front office and coaching staff. Herm Edwards isn't the best gameday coach I've ever seen but he is a great presence in the lockerroom. The fact that he's been able to keep everyone on the same page after losing Green speaks volumes to that. Larry Johnson is struggling behind a weakened offensive line, and they don't have any impact wideouts but they could pose a threat if they can hang on over the next few weeks.

Oakland Raiders (0-5)
This is quite possibly the worst professional football team that I have ever seen play. They're completely undisciplined and led by probably the worst gameday coach in NFL history. They do have talent on the offensive side of the ball, excluding their horrible offensive line (Robert Gallery is one hell of a bust. They need to move him back to guard and try to hide him).

Here's the thing about Oakland now. Is beating them even enjoyable at this point? It's not even a rivalry currently, Oakland has no shot against us. I was at the game on Sunday and obviously I along with everyone at Invesco was fired up for beating the Raiders, but in hindsight it just doesn't have the affect that it did when they were decent.

A general update

Here are a few quick bullet points on things that have happened in the season so far.

- I was wrong about Javon Walker's impact. The guy is a complete beast, well worth the second round pick.

- But, I've seen way too many drops as a whole from the receiving corps, and from...

- Tony Scheffler, who was nowhere near worth a second round pick, he has athletic ability, but he cannot block and drops nearly everything thrown his way. (But has anybody noticed that he becomes a beast in your Madden franchises?)

- I absolutely hate Kenard Lang. I think he celebrates successfully brushing his teeth in the morning. You'd think the guy has never made an NFL tackle let alone gotten a sack in his career the way he dances and taunts the other team.

- On the subject of Jake Plummer: Why has Shanahan nearly eliminated the play-action bootleg from the play-calling? It's almost as if he sat down and tore out half the pages in the playbook. Let him play, let him throw, let him run the plays that he is best at. From the second half of the Baltimore game on through the Oakland game he has been looking much more confident he's running the ball more and just generally looking like the leader of the offense.



Why haven't I updated? There are a few reasons, most of you who dislike me are probably convinced it has to do with the team winning. But it has more to do with the fact that the team is playing some of the most boring football I have seen since Trent Dilfer was leading the 2000 Ravens to wins without scoring offensive touchdowns week in and week out. It's more apathy than anything. Our defense is dominant but none of what I'm seeing is getting me excited for the season

Broncos 10 Rams 18: The team is completely unprepared

Note: All post-game updates will be on Mondays this year

In a game eerily similar to last year's Week 1 loss to Miami, the Broncos once again had an inability to get the ball into the endzone on Sunday. It's only Week 1 and the season is obviously not over, but the things that we were shown in this loss give the impression that this team is not a championship contender. I'm wondering what Mike Shanahan does during training camp and the preseason instead of getting his teams mentally prepared to play. They certainly didn't look ready this week and they didn't look ready last year in the Week 1 loss to Miami.

Javon "I just dropped it" Walker, the darling of the Denver media during the preseason must have decided to dip his hands into cement before the game. He looked terrible out there. Wasn't the bash on guys like Lelie and Watts that they couldn't catch balls? Man, Javon Walker sure looked like an improvement in that regard.

As for Jake, I didn't see his first interception. The pick by Chavous was not his fault, as he threw a pass that Todd Devoe should have caught and Devoe just flat out missed it. The ball that was picked by Brown was off of a tipped ball, Jake threw into coverage but sometimes you have to do that when your team is losing. All day Jake had seemingly no pass protection and Leonard Little was running him over like he was behind the wheel of an SUV after a night at the bar. The offensive line and the wide receivers led by all-star-super-offseason-pick up Javon Walker flat out let Plummer down yesterday.

The calls for Cutler to start by his cheerleaders in the press led by Mark Kiszla who has done everything short of proposing to Jay to show his love and affection for The Gunslinger are comical at best. The geniuses at Orange Mane are just as funny and some of the more clueless clammoring for us to trade Plummer to a division rival to get rid of him. The Gunslinger is just flat out not ready for the NFL, nothing he showed in college gives us the impression that he could have done any better against the Rams than Jake did. Especially with the pass rush that was breathing down his neck all day. Cutler threw two picks to Middle Tennessee State for crying out loud. If the games were played in the weightlifting room, if you could win a game by benchpressing, I'd be all for subbing in Cutler but they're not.

The bright spot this week was clearly the play of the defense who as Bill Williamson points out were so good they managed to turn Jeff Wilkins into a fantasy god for the week. If they play half that well for the rest of the year, we'll be in fine shape for the regular season. The playoffs are once again an entirely different matter.