Last season has come and gone (I think), and a new season has begun for the expectant Denver Broncos and their fans. Two seasons ago, it was a bird from Baltimore that poked us in the tail feather just when it appeared we had overcome those pesky Ravens. Last seasons massacre by the hands of a different bird has almost erased the memories from Baltimore, but its possible that Bronco fans have never forgotten anything. Could that Jacksonville Jaguar defeat from the Elway years still be fresh on the brain of some?HOPE AND CHANGE
While spending holiday time with family recently, we found ourselves embroiled in the typical, preseason Obama campaign that happens across the NFL called Hope and Change. This is where teams begin the season hoping they can figure out why they did not win it all, and changing as much as needed to be the last team standing. In preseason, every team is a potential champion, at least in the eyes of the fans who support them. With that in mind, preseason arguments are usually the best of them all. Everybody has a pretty good point at that point of the year. Sadly, I could hardly mount a credible defense for my team during this recent family tirade. Even with a few family defectors in the house (a Cowboy and a Raider fan at that) I still couldn't jump and scream for the home team because I was also feeling some of the same pain that sent those other family members over to the dark sides they now inhabit.
Last season just wasn't what I had hoped for, but hope was certainly in the formula. Many have been calling for a change in the way that we do business in Denver for a long time, but no one seems willing to tell Peyton Manning. Everyone must subject themselves to the constraints of a system, but as of yet, the only system that I can decipher from the Manning lead Broncos is the same system that Manning has incorporated for the entirety of his career. The evidence of the guy that our team pays to fulfill the role of offensive coordinator remains hidden behind the audible leaning Manning, who seems incapable of getting out of the way of his immediate boss, the offensive coordinator.
I was watching the Rocky Mountain Showdown game between crosstown rivals CU and CSU. Entering the second quarter with a 7 point lead, the CU Buffaloes had marched down the field with an abundance of run plays and bubble screens to one of their hard running receivers. When the ball had moved all the way inside of the CSU Rams 5 yard line, CU proceeded to run the ball 4 times in a row, but had to settle for a field goal as the Ram defense held strong. Despite their failure, the Buffs and their offensive play caller had established an identity of unpredictability that will bode well as the season progresses. Should they have allowed the quarterback to go back to what got them up the field so well? If CU were the Broncos, I can guarantee you we would never see the ball completely removed from the hands of the quarterback. In fact, it is more likely that any defense facing Manning will employ a formation designed to stop the run, trying to lure Manning to call the audible against it. He still might burn you, but he certainly doesn't leave you baffled as to what branding iron did the job.
The art of being unpredictable is what makes an offensive coordinator stand out in the crowd. In a game most typically described as a chess match, predictability is never a positive trait. Considering all of the things that Peyton Manning is, unpredictable has never really been one of his traits. If the Broncos are to rise to the top of the mountain, they need to destroy the Manning blueprint that every team in the league (not just the Seahawks) seems to own a copy of. If they can't stand to do it during the regular season, then they had better plan to alter the image a bit come playoff time.
 |
| Ouch! Its getting hard to be a long time Bronco fan. |
Much of what made the Broncos great during the championship years was the ability to consistently give the ball to the running backs, since no self respecting team could ever take their focus away from John Elway, the trigger man, even though his trigger had obviously started to rust over.
Manning could be in a similar state of decline, but he may not have the humility to adjust. This is why good teams employ great coaches to make the kind of decisions that great players could never make for themselves. Legends don't place themselves out to pasture and they rarely adjust their temperament. That is typically done for them or to them. For Elway to finally sip from the cup, he had to humbly revert to the quarterback that played under Dan Reeves for so many stifling seasons; resisting audibles and continuing to pound the rock so that the Mike Shanahan/Gary Kubiak roll out, play action play could have its greatest impact. Whether it worked or not, and it usually did, we had an identity and it was clearly one that was NOT oozing from the pores of its team leader and quarterback.
 |
Who is this guy, and why don't we know him more? |
This guy, I mean, Adam Gase, is the only problem that I see with the prospect of a Superbowl championship for my team. Elway has assembled a Peyton proof defense that will likely give Manning all of the chances he needs to triangulate his laser sharp approach to dismantling defenses. Even with all of that to look forward to, I could only sit quietly and listen to family members who's butts still ache from being kicked by the Denver donkeys that should have won so much more, but have a resume of failure that is bigger than the legendary career of John Elway. Elway authored most of those failed attempts, so even his legacy remains tarnished by the losing. Failure can foster humility, especially failure in the last game of the season, so Elway has ample reason for the changes he forced upon himself in the waning years of his legendary career. Manning knows failure, but most of it happens before the final game of the season is ever played. The rub on Manning has been how infrequently he's even made it to the final game of the season.
And so......will the real Adam Gase please stand up? Three years into his tenure as offensive coordinator and we still have no clue about what represents Gase football. We wouldn't catch his face in a crowd or recognize his voice if we heard it. This man is an utter mystery, and the fact that we still do not know him will be the reason the Broncos storm through the regular season and the playoffs, only to be outwitted by an NFC defense (they all are good) that knows the true offensive coordinator is Manning.
Maybe, just maybe, the Broncos have a crafty plan to keep Gase bottled up for another regular season and unveil him in the playoffs so that teams do not have enough time to decipher whose play calling nature will bear fruit for the Broncos and their leery fan base. After all, if you have waited this long to get to know your community, then it doesn't make sense to give away your secret identity now and allow opponents to bank some highly tactical information.
If Gase is too small a man to impart his will, and his system, then I am disappointed that I have wasted this post on such an insignificant figure. As the Broncos continue along the path that Manning has established since coming to town, Gase needs to consider sharing his paycheck with the Hall of Fame QB since he has already given Manning all of the credit for Denver's offensive glory. Even the blame for the Superbowl meltdown has eluded Gase who was responsible for making the fix, yet never received blame for the fix that did not arrive.
Of all of the new faces in the crowd of the 2014 Broncos, 3rd year offensive coordinator, Adam Gase is the newest of them all. Gase has been in Denver since 2009, a former QB coach hold over from the Josh McDaniels era, so the man has tenure that even
precedes the coach he works for, and still we don't know who he is.
This season, that will change.....I hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment