Defense is that known quotient that all champions attest to as the reason they walk around with the shine of victory's glory, but its never really the reason we tune in for the show. We appreciated Von Miller being the most reliable entity in all of football this year, but not enough to ignore the bore of watching Manning and Osweiler dink and dunk their way to Superbowl supremacy.
Consequently, the speed at which our local conversation has switched over to draft and free agency in Denver is mind blowing. Come to think of it, we might have been there prior to our Superbowl victory, with our head coach and the backup quarterback (the original backup, not Manning) included in the conversation of people we should retain, or not. For now, most of that Fire Kubiak stuff has died off, yet the backdrop of doubt over the backup who's scheduled to get paid remains, along with quiet skepticism over coach Kubiak's approach and his worthiness to keep leading this great team that Elway has compiled.
The defense played so well, that we don't really know which coach to actually credit for this victory, so let's focus on the compilation of players and coaches instead.
Once again, John Elway has done exactly what people thought impossible, just like he did when he took Denver's under manned football teams to the Superbowl again and again, culminating in Superbowl victories, again and again, to close out his career. Whoever actually won the award for NFL executive of the year needs to take that award and deliver it to Elway, pronto.
This time, Elway successfully pulled the levers, engineered a plan and put it into place by compiling the parts, pieces and the mantra for how it would be accomplished. In defensive era football, you get lucky to connect on the few chances that even great defenses will give you to make big plays in big games. Take too many chances and you are more likely to turn the ball over and suffer defeat at the hands of teams perfectly willing to make field goals and grind it out versus shooting for the stars and getting stuck in the trees.
That was how I viewed things as a pundit of the team I love. But the Broncos remain the team that I love, which means my deep analysis is often just hope masquerading as clear eyed perspective.
In order to gain that clear eyed view when I look at teams and games from the "know-it-all" view of a pundit, I have to tip my hat to the place with the best track record for know-it-all'ism.
VEGAS.
According to the word on the street, Denver was struggling too much with offensive production and identity with the in and out of Osweiler and Manning, whose best production had barely shown glimpses of the kind of greatness that Denver's defense produced regularly. Listening to that same word on the street, I heard that Pittsburgh's offensive production was too much to stop for Denver or any defense. The same unstoppable expectation torch was passed to the legend, Tom Brady, after Ben Roethlisberger and his Steelers couldn't get it done.
The rhetoric was justified and the expectations reasonable based upon the emotional view of the contest and the regular season track record of the quarterbacks being asked to live up to the emotional view of things.
Yet, the Vegas betting lines never matched the emotions.
Sure, Vegas had New England to beat Denver, but they didn't have them to win by the numbers that emotional pundits promised the Patriots should win by. Was Vegas confused and struggling against the trend of emotional bets?
Similarly, pundits had Cam killing Denver, but Vegas had him squeaking out a win by 3.5 points that stretched to 5.5, giving ground to emotions betting habits just to help maintain the ruse. Did Vegas already know what we finally learned?
Let's get this straight once and for all. VEGAS IS RARELY CONFUSED ABOUT WHO WILL WIN.
If you ever start to feel like the fix is in when you watch too much NFL football, it is not because the players have pre-planned some shenanigans, it is because Vegas tells the NFL- and the rest of us- who will win (indirectly) and the NFL believes what they say, even though the rest of us don't listen.
In fact, the NFL listens closely, they try to engineer story lines around Vegas probabilities. What that demands is to understand what Vegas does when they expect a team to be a double digit winner versus what they do when you expect the wrong team to be a double digit winner. Whatever you are thinking about the game, remember that Vegas intends to be the only real winner.
If Vegas ever catches America talking about a blowout from a team they don't even expect to win the game, it becomes a case of betting enticement that ALWAYS ends up with Vegas on top. Keep the line too low, and the bettors catch wind. Push the line too high and the bettors get afraid their team can't cover those points.
Just so you know, Vegas might be at it again.
When the opening lines for next years Superbowl champion came out, the Broncos were nowhere near the top, with 14 to 1 odds of them winning again. By day two, those odds dropped down to 20:1. Did Vegas lose faith in the QB and the free agent uncertainty in Denver, or were there just not enough people biting on the opening line so Vegas had to extend the lure a bit?
Believe it or not, Vegas might they have agitated the wrong bettor this time?
Did the lack of betting line respect for the Broncos final games impact the bite in the dogs from Denver? Did it propel the Broncos teammates into a brotherhood of togetherness unlike we've ever seen in recent championship history? Will Peyton Manning bring that championship trophy over to the Papa John's that is 3 minutes away from my house in Denver, Colorado (where my daughter works) so we can get pictures of it?
I said that partially to name drop the fact that Manning owns the pizza parlor where my kid works, but I am mostly talking about the future for Manning the man. What happens to this legendary champion after all the crowds stop cheering, and he's no longer climbing up the record books? Can Denver find the same passion and inspiration for greatness without their on-the-field coach pushing them to be greater than they otherwise would? Love him or hate him, Manning was exactly that for this team. A reason to do more, and a teacher to tell you how. As a result, he still might be the most important piece of the championship puzzle that Elway has to keep together.
Is Manning really ready to call it a career just because everyone (except his teammates) thinks he should?
That is where my betting hat starts to analyze things. Manning, a generally cocky QB, was perfectly happy to tell the entire world how thankful he was to his Bronco brothers for letting him jump on their back for a championship ride. We understood that he was riding wounded, we just didn't accept what our eyes were telling us. Had Manning finally lost the supremacy that makes NO ONE question him as the best regular season quarterback of all time? That may seem like a slight against his playoff failures, but sports are a funny business, and we fans rarely agree over topics like GOAT, even if we are limiting him to regular season GOAT only.
In reality, no one ever argues that point. He stood right at the gates of being crowned as the true GOAT before Seattle and the Seahawks turned him into another losing donkey two years ago.
Quite frankly, that was the last thing that Manning needed for his already tattered legacy, and most of us Broncos faithful were not terribly happy to be gaining a quarterback with the same underachieving label that we already lived with long before his arrival, despite our back to back championships two score ago.
Functionally, the Denver Broncos have shunned their losing label with their Superbowl 50 win, but Manning has not. Until further notice, he has simply jumped on the back of a team that was totally sick of the criticism over their tainted history with Superbowl's, and said enough already. They said it in such a way that those same shell shocked pundits are now weighing the defensive performance against the greatest defensive performances of all time.
Denver might not have yet gained the title as Greatest D Of All Time (GDOAT), but the conversation hasn't really concluded yet either. We are still reviewing the tape from the Bowl and the season to see what we looked at but didn't understand until it was too late. What we keep seeing keeps impressing us more and more to the point that you are either betting that Denver loses defensive players to other teams, or you are betting they retain them and solidify their place in history, depending on what side of this fan fence you sit.
That entire bet hinges on what happens at the quarterback position. Either the Broncos will spend on their quarterback, or they will spend on their defense, because this championship team can not be retained without a financial sacrifice from several key players. You know, like the sacrifice from a brotherhood of men that bonded itself together to overcome rookie and wounded quarterbacks as well as doubt and coaching criticism against their way of getting it done.
The criticism kind of continues in the lack of expectation for this coming year. Either Vegas doesn't expect much from Denver, or critics don't. The betting lines seem to suggest that critics are to blame just like they were in Superbowl 50, when Vegas knew Denver was going to beat Carolina even though the pundit expectation was for Cam to do a whole lot of dabbing.
I am also searching for some betting odds that Manning will not only stay in Denver, but that he will bring that trophy to our Papa John's so my daughter and the rest of the staff can take pictures and learn what hard work and perseverance can achieve. That speech rings slightly hollow if you were simply along for the ride.
So then he'll take a humongous pay cut just to ride that Bronco one more time, because he has plenty of outside loot with my daughter trying to pump out pizza's like a champion before she heads off to college this fall, .
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| Peyton might have won Superbowl 50, but did he do enough to silence those critical of his post season failures? |
This time will be for Peyton. Bet on it.
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