Reviving the second ranked offense

By Jon

The coaching carousel continues to turn, but one of the hot candidates was taken off the market when the Broncos reached an agreement with former Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels last night. While he was certainly a hot commodity and a chic candidate for several coaching vacancies, Denver's decision seems to be more than a little curious.

Let's take a look at Denver's regular season team stats, shall we?

Team offense (NFL Rank in parentheses)
Overall rank: 2
Total yards: 6333 (2)
Yards/game: 395.8 (2)
Total rush yards: 1862 (12)
Rush yards/game: 116.4 (12)
Total pass yards: 4471 (3)
Pass yards/game: 279.4 (3)
Points/game: 23.1 (16)

Now without even looking at the defensive numbers, you know they are going to be atrocious. How does a team ranked 2nd in team offense finish with a losing record? Terrible defense, that's how. Just for kicks, lets take a look at the defensive side of the ball.

Team Defense (NFL Rank in parentheses)
Overall rank: 29
Total yards allowed: 5993 (29)
Yards/game allowed: 374.6 (29)
Rush yards allowed: 2337 (27)
Rush yards/game allowed: 146.1 (27)
Pass yards allowed: 3656 (26)
Pass yards/game allowed: 228.5 (26)
Points allowed/game: 28.0 (30)

Now, common sense should tell everyone with half a brain that the Broncos need someone to come in and shore up the defense. Apparently the Denver brass missed the memo. McDaniels' defensive experience? Two years as a "defensive coaching assistant" in New England, for what it's worth.

According to Chris Mortensen at the WWL, Denver owner Pat Bowlen wanted a fresh, young face to take control of the team, but if you were planning on hiring someone with an offensive background, why did you fire Shanahan in the first place? His offensive approach seemed to be working quite well. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Therein lies another gripe: McDaniels' age. He's 32. He looks like he's about 23, tops. Now, I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say that the seven players on the Denver roster that are 32 or older may have a bit of an issue taking orders from their peer, especially after playing for one of the most respected coaches of all time. When Mike Shanahan took over as Denver's coach, Josh McDaniels was 18. I'm just sayin'.

Maybe Bowlen wanted some of the Belichick magic to rub off on his team? I mean, that's worked out for other teams hiring Patriot assistants, right? Oh wait ... no it hasn't. The Belichick coaching tree isn't exactly Walshian, now is it?

Maybe McDaniels will succeed. Maybe he will hire some hotshot defensive coordinator that will make all of Denver's problems go away. But are you sending the right message to your fans when you fire a future hall-of-famer that has been at the helm for fourteen years and replace him with some young punk with far less impressive credentials? Probably not.

Don't worry Broncos fans, at least he's not Dick Jauron.

Correlation Station

by Ryan

During the Panthers/Giants game NBC had a graphic that showed how Jake Delhomme performed throughout the Panthers season. The announcers seemed mildly surprised to find out that Jake played very well in the Panthers wins and struggled during their brief losing streak. The crazy thing is that I've seen this graphic at least a half dozen times this year, and every time the announcers seem to find this a complete coincidence.

I mean, really? You're telling me that the idea of quarterback play correlating directly with a team's win percentage has never occurred to you before? That's borderline amazing, because even the most casual of football fans understand how important a quarterback is. Most good teams start with a good quarterback, and every elite team has a great one.

Is it any wonder, then, that the Buffalo Bills are a completely different team when their quarterback is Trent Edwards? Of course the proper implementation of a solid run game and some timely defense is a part of it, but the fact of the matter is that the Bills look and feel like a completely different football team when he's at the helm.



If there was anything we can take from the last two games this year it would be that Trent Edwards isn't completely broken. What we saw in the second half today was Trent Edwards pre-Arizona, and that's exactly what we wanted. It wasn't perfect, but a 17/25 193, 1TD line looks downright stellar after the last few weeks of Losman.

This wasn't the most fantastic of victories, and its only real significance will involve draft picks, but you have to be satisfied by the effort. Denver did a lot of things wrong today but they didn't drive the Bills down the field, and they sure didn't lay an egg in the numbers department. Looking at the boxscore it's almost amazingly one sided, yet it was the Bills getting that final touchdown to keep the champagne on ice at Mile High.

There isn't much to play for these days but the usual cliches of pride and maybe contract incentives, but the Bills took care of business against a "playoff bound" team. I have no idea if it means anything, and maybe they go out next week and get killed in order to keep that 7-9 streak going strong. Still, it was nice to see Trent looking like a promising quarterback once again.

This season may be a complete failure, but hey, there's always the next one.

Gameday Prep: Bills @ Broncos

by Ryan



It may be all over but the crying, but are you really going to stop watching now? Didn't think so. We're all in this pathetic display of football together. Consider this your Gameday Prep.

Announcers: Ian Eagle, Solomon Wilcots (Courtesy of Awful Announcing)

Game Distribution Maps: Courtesy of the506.

Depth Charts: Broncos, Bills

Stats: NFL.com, ESPN, or Yahoo Sports all do a good job. If you have fantasy teams through Yahoo, you're better off paying the ten bucks for "stattracker", it's a lifesaver.

Things They've Been Saying:
- Did Roscoe get snubbed for the Pro Bowl?

- Simmons on the Jauron extension:

Put it this way: If the Bills' fans were Ralph Wilson's children, and Wilson did the everyday-life equivalent of giving Jauron a three-year extension after that Jets game -- whether it was giving a Buffalo real estate developer $30 million for a condo project downtown, backing Vincent Gallo for "Buffalo 66 II: Electric Boogaloo," spending $10 million on a backyard stage so the Goo Goo Dolls could come over and rehearse, or announcing at dinner, "Good news, I just bought eight courtside seats for the Buffalo Braves!" -- the Bills' fans would be scouting nursing homes for him right now. It's true.

- Here's the game preview from NFL.com

- Unless two quarterbacks get maulled by bears, J.P. probably isn't playing, so I won't be writing explitive-laden posts this evening. That's probably for the best.

Song that Makes Sense to Listen to Today: "Rocky Mountain High", John Denver





Fun Facts:

- Once again the Bills play against a big player on my fantasy team, which is in the championship game this week. This time it's Brandon Marshall. This could be... interesting.

- Hey there was a football game on last night. I was going to write about all that yesterday but then the Gauthier thing happened. Maybe sometime this week I'll get back to a few points on the Thursday/Saturday night games.

- Here's the current playoff picture

- KSK finally gets around to talking about Dick. No, not that kind.

Okay, that's it. Game time. I'll be around all day, so if you have a thought drop a line. Comments, email, or our AIM: GoosesRoost28.



Go Bills.