It's Time We Admit It Broncos Fans. Elway's A Bitch!

Word on the street is Osweiler might be available soon. Might
Elway be getting a chance to prove he can actually pick QB's? 

Before I act like high draft picks aren't bestowed certain amounts of space to develop, or that Denver isn't in a unique predicament with a once-in-a-lifetime defense that is ready to win now, I have dwelled on those excuses for long enough, and they are NOT taking away the visual evidence that continues to say- PAXTON LYNCH WAS A MISTAKE.

In the effort to remain fair, I've even conceded to those who've insisted that it is just too soon to really tell if Lynch can play. What I can not concede to is this farce of a quarterback battle in Denver that was designed for, and by, the General Manager and Executive VP of operations, John Elway. Despite the reality that every preseason is a preamble to the regular season- complete with many dozens of new prospects at every position- the Broncos felt they needed to formally announce that the quarterback position was uniquely up for grabs, unlike the rest.

Entering the new year with a repetitious chant of this being a 50-50 battle for the quarterback job was a message to the guy who finished as last years starter. That message was unnecessary because it was inherent to the fact that any 2nd year 1st round selection would probably be pushed to justify the selection. Seeing what we have in Lynch had to be part of the expectations of hiring when Elway selected Vance Joseph to lead this team, but Elway should have also realized that Joseph was beloved by his previous players for an obvious inability to bullshit very well.

While Joseph stammered through multiple press conferences over the course of this competition trying to convince Broncos fans that he was the only reason why things were being done this way, Joseph fell off script in the final announcement of the team's starter by accidentally saying; "he (Paxton Lynch) is just not ready yet".

No one really took that statement for much of anything when it was stated- except Trevor Siemian. To the ears of this team's current starting quarterback, those words mean you are simply here to keep the seat warm until Paxton Lynch can finally satisfy the emotion that must have led to Elway taking the leap of faith on him last year during the draft. In hindsight, his name is way cooler than his game.

In hindsight, Elway was likely lured into reaching because word had it that Dallas was also interested in Lynch. As a highly rated arm-chair quarterback, I personally think Jerry Jones would have easily given a 2nd and 3rd round versus the 2nd and 4th round pick that he reportedly offer to get at Lynch, if he was truly interested in getting Lynch as his quarterback of the future.

Whether Jones realized Dak Prescott was that quarterback is pure speculation at this point....kinda like the notion that Lynch can actually play quarterback in the NFL.

Coach Joseph can try to convince Broncos Nation that he is thrilled to have two quarterbacks out of this battle, but he can't erase the fact that he actually said that one of them is not ready yet. That may not seem like much of a statement, but it doesn't acknowledge the reality that anything- including sickness, accidents or on-field injuries- would force this team to insert a player that is admittedly, not ready yet.

Would a week or two, or three, be enough to get him ready, or was the suggestion by Joseph that "who knows what he will look like in week 6 or 7" a hidden statement about how far away from ready Lynch really is? Does practicing with the 2's offer enough motivation for Lynch to actually get the work in and get better, or will he stagnate from depression as he appeared to do last year when he got beat out for the job as well?

I'm hopeful that Lynch is not a waste of a pick, but not more than I'm hopeful for Siemian, who has already justified his draft slot and then some. Siemian has performed and improved at the rate that we are hoping and praying for Lynch to perform and improve at, yet we keep looking for a quarterback.

I am not at all convinced that our brand new coach is fully bought into the process of diminishing the confidence of the offensive player who needs it the most while continually posturing as a team waiting on somebody else. Nobody needs to be told about the hopes that teams place in their 1st round draft picks. GM's keep or lose jobs all of the time from making or missing on 1st round draft selections. The smartest ones move on sooner than later.

Justified or not, Elway has way more job security than he deserves and ten times that of Coach Joseph. For Elway to toss this spineless decision-making process into the lap of his new coach without standing beside him to help fans understand WHY is frankly a bitch move.

Joseph would not have slipped up and gone off-script by saying Siemian is not ready YET if he were not so damn honest, and if the front office wasn't still pushing to prove they can really pick 'em.

If we hadn't been forced to listen to a world leader tell us things we obviously shouldn't believe, I might be less inclined to hold the Broncos to task for all of this. But Siemian had to do a press conference and probably listened to the words of his coach's press conference as he prepared to do his own. To hear that he won the job because Lynch isn't ready yet kinda means Siemian himself wasn't quite good enough to be what the team wants right now either, or they would have emphatically called him the winner of the job and not just the quarterback who is- by default- ready. If I was Siemian, I could not easily believe that the Broncos were invested in my future as a starter in this league.

Correction. Siemian should not believe that Elway is invested in his future as a starter in the NFL. As for Joseph? He picked the right player and instantly sounded like a coach ready to back his guy- bitch be damned.

Thanks To Freedom, White Supremacy Is Thriving

In the paraphrased news this week, the president said that evil and hatred will not be tolerated, and we must come together to confront the issues that have challenged our nation for many, many years- long before he was ever the person responsible for dealing with it.


Sadly, he essentially said this exact same comment in regards to the hate crime in Virginia and the idiot in North Korea. While I admittedly paraphrased his comments into one generalized view of white supremacy, the options of what to do about James Alex Fields Jr., or Dylann Roof, or the KKK or white supremacy, in general, is about as option filled as our North Korean options. When Trump struggles to denounce white supremacy, every single liberal, and several Republicans, do a perfect job of denouncing and then proceed to offer no real solution to how you rid the world of white people and North Korean dictators with distorted self-preservation instincts?


The right to bear arms and freedom of speech represents sacred rights to Americans on all sides of the political spectrum. Why the right to bear arms doesn't extend to certain weapons and/or certain people who are not American is a bit of a mystery to me. If Americans were truly in favor of humans bearing arms, we wouldn't attempt to limit nations that realize nuclear arms anywhere are a bigger threat to those that don't have them. Similarly, if we were really truly in favor of freedom of speech, we would realize that the same people who lost the Civil War never lost their citizenship even if they probably should have.


Despite Donald Trump's apparent desire to turn our nation into a North Korean type dictatorship, he has no power over the voices that are Constitutionally guaranteed to be as pervasively annoying as freedom can allow- the ones chasing after his job nor the ones fighting to save it. Some of the voices we are hearing have leaked from inside of his own White House while other voices have come from fast talking Italian business men who screamed for 11 days on behalf of the president of the United States and on behalf of all of the voices that voted our national embarrassment into office.


No, not all of Trump's voters are willing to claim an allegiance to white nationalism, but they are certainly unafraid to be smeared with guilt by association, and they are similarly unwilling to speak up when Trump tweet-shames the entire nation, or when he disgraces the masses in order to appease his base.

Duke could try again if Donald doesn't do the will of his kind.

Free speech has been banned by many dictators because it is such a double edged sword. It might have been the reason Putin was able to mess with our election, and it could be the reason we have an unnecessary war that will surely render South Korea the biggest loser of them all. China will not allow for a U.S. occupation of North Korea and would be pulled into the fray just to protect their own national interests.


No president has done a significant thing against North Korea because North Korea maintains a geopolitical force field of sorts because of their relationship with China. Even if China will sign on to keep Kim Jung Un's rhetoric from disrupting the world economy, they are just as handcuffed to stop North Korea's right to bear arms as we are.

In essence, bearing arms and talking tough about what you might do with the arms you bear represents two of America's most sacred rights. They are rights bestowed by God, and no government has the freedom to take away these divine gifts. If Kim Jung Un and white supremacists were smarter, they would both try to do their dirt in silence, although it must be difficult to exercise your freedom to bear arms while fully suppressing the instincts that made you decide you needed it. Eventually, people with big sticks talk like it.


You can't exactly develop a nuclear weapons program without testing it, and you really can't Make America Great Again- as you see it- unless you finally do something more than talk? Actually, the talk is the true power despite the foolish actions of idiots who commit vehicular homicide on a crowd because they are utterly frustrated by all the inaction on his own side. The faces of white supremacy are obviously not old people and clearly unwilling to keep talking about taking their country back like most of the hood wearing old people do. The new recruits are taking this war beyond a bunch of talk.


The Civil War began the dismantling of slavery, but white supremacy has never been dismantled or marginalized even while a lion share of Americans stand prepared to watch the Confederacy lose again if they actually decide to try once more. What's good about America will eventually outweigh any bad that we confront, yet, not always before we allow the bad stuff to erect thousands of new headstones in our cemeteries in its wake.  Eventually, the voices we hear that counter hatred and fear disappear in a month, or a year. WE have grown comfortable with hatred and typically only respond to evidence of it with shame, or with more of the same.


America is uncomfortable with white supremacy, and the fact that they are free to be as evil and hate filled as they want to be in a nation United by freedom of all kinds, especially speech. I would never tell the counter protestors to not do what they believe should be done, but I pray they consider the most effective route to deal with voices of bigotry and hatred and ignorance.


In dealing with despots and angry idiots, we must realize that we are at war with their ideas, not their voices. Their ideas are not bred into their  DNA. What they get to say is more God ordained than an expensive gun, and is based on what they've come to believe, not born to believe. Screaming at them to stop saying what they believe is almost the equivalent of begging our fellow Americans to disappear from the face of the earth and go back into hiding as they were before they removed the hood.

Disappearing from earth will not happen to white people that espouse supremacy, and it shouldn't happen to North Korean humans even if they are currently lead by a fool. Bad ideas must be countered with better ideas. Those who believe in something enough to do something about it must bear the burden for whatever we have done and for whatever we have not done to address racial hatred. Voices have surely united to tell the story of freedom and liberty for all, but peaceful voices speaking peaceful conversations don't improve television ratings enough to be heard, and eventually, they grow weary fighting to be heard.


WE are a nation that ignored the worst of our bigotry until it was empowered enough to remove the hoods. Now, WE appear to be mad at the words they spew, when, in actuality, it's the mirror reflection these uncovered faces provides that is most infuriating.  WE would probably rather deal with North Korea rather than stare at ourselves in the mirror without turning our head or bending our eyes. In reality, resorting to war when all else fails is a natural reaction to a confounding crisis. It is a knee jerk reaction that never shows clear evidence of an exit strategy or forethought really....and it is sort of what keeps happening from the counter protestors, although Heather Heyer may have been the least hate-filled of them all. She was the type of person who lived and died as a true advocate for social change.


Once again, like North Korea, white supremacy had a better chance of going unaddressed if it tempered the bravado (and terrorist killings) and remained just a bit more quiet. By taking off the hood and waving the wrong flag, they give US an assurance that WE are not in that post racial society WE dreamed of, and WE are surely at war, but no longer against invisible combatants.

Denver's Paxton Problem Worse Than Imagined

The problem with Paxton is not his really high draft slot, which in hindsight was too high compared to the quality of talent that went much lower than the first round last season. It's not even the high expectations that come along with high draft slots because, no matter the draft slot, Paxton has to justify his reason to stay in Denver just as every draftee or free agent must do given the history of the good Broncos QB's we've seen in the past. Broncos fans could also find a problem with the slow development if they hadn't drafted him with the expectation of him taking two or three years to develop.

We knew it would take time to
mature, but is Paxton digressing?

As a Broncos fan, I would love to see a problem with such a high draft choice getting beat out by a lower drafted player, but that happens all the time at other positions on the field and no one seems to care that the lower drafted player is doing so well except to take brownie points for finding the proverbial diamond in the rough when low draft picks work out.

In fact, the draft is such a crap shoot that very few General Managers get held to account for the overall quality of the high draft options as much as they are expected to add talent overall. John has had some winners, especially on defense, but in the grand scheme of things, John Elway has not done a great job when it comes to drafting quarterbacks unless you count Trevor Siemian and Brock Osweiler as potential successes. I would say that the jury is still out on both QB's and on Elway as a world class GM too.

So, the problem with Paxton could be an overly sympathetic boss who needs him to work out just to justify that huge contract Elway just got from the Denver Broncos, yet finding quality draft picks and free agent acquisitions can be cyclical. Elway's recent cycle of building this team resulted in a championship victory for Denver. It didn't quite happen from the quarterback position like Elway could be hoping for right now, but it happened, and the cache you build from winning is worth a new contract and a delay of the ridicule you probably deserve.

I am not certain that Elway is really great at picking players, nor do I think his penchant for holding a grudge is helpful to Colin Kaepernick or my Broncos. I won't complain if it turns into another title for us, but I also won't consider my Broncos to be the beneficiary of great leadership if we win either. In fact, the Broncos are shaping up to be the kind of team that other teams will call lucky again if they are fortunate to overcome the quarterback fiasco and finish on top.

All of that being said, none of the Elway stuff is the problem with this team aside from the problem it might become if Siemian can't be just a little better than he was last season when he came one game short of the playoffs. If the Broncos are dedicated to making use of a healthy CJ Anderson as a leader of this team and a lead option of the offense, Siemian will be better by default, and so will this team.

So, nothing about last night's preseason game against the Chicago Bears will prove to be a really big problem except one thing.

Paxton is not only not good enough to beat Siemian for the starting job, he is really not looking good enough to be a viable option at backup either. In a league where concussion protocols are supposed to limit the number of plays that players see on the field, guys who get injured easily are not in a great position to endure a season without missing games. Like it or not, Siemian is good at playing with pain but horrible at avoiding the kind of plays that cause it.

What the Broncos are stuck in the middle of deciding right now is the balancing act between the amount of plays it will take to get Siemian ready to play well enough to limit hits, versus getting Paxton enough nurturing to make him a reasonable choice in the event something does happen to Siemian. As it stands, Paxton is not a good choice to play, period. Which also means he is hardly a great person to be backing up Siemian, who is mostly winning this job because his competition stinks.

Meanwhile, the quarterback that ends up winning this job will not have the confidence of Elway or the Denver community, and, absent a championship victory, will always be the guy that Elway is looking to upgrade from because only a championship can overcome this lack of support and indecision over two players

The combination of Paxton being mediocre and Elway being too stubborn to admit when it's time to go another direction are kind of the same problem; a problem that could reveal itself in the event of a Siemian injury. To the credit of Elway and the coaching staff, that is really the only problem I could uncover after last night, and a lot of luck could leave the Broncos main problem stuck on the bench.

God, Black People, Democrats Must Fix Their Mess

As a Father and a man of African descent, I have come to accept that some messes in this life fall squarely in my lap.

Within the fictional land that we commonly call the "black community" (blacks don't really like each other enough to be communal anymore), there is a mess of spiritual angst against the tenants of Christianity and the behavior of black church leaders seen as exceedingly money hungry and doctrinally flawed in order to intentionally grab said money while simultaneously subjugating blacks, the original man, to whites, the creator of the plan.

I couldn't properly begin to debate the flaws within the Christian Bible well enough to change anyone's problem with Christianity, especially since human perception is a human reality, and Jesus hates religion too.

Besides, this angst of angry black people, pointing fingers at God and rich church leaders, is as legitimate as the angst of the Atheists, who are mad at the notion of God (the leader of all creation) being a man and/or that She (is it better if She created all of this mess?) would allow for a world of so much disarray. If you acknowledge these indictments with your defenses down, you see that angry black believers and Atheists actually have a  reasonable ax to grind. 
Who else to blame but the creator of all things for the existence of all things, including Satan?

While you are debating in your mind whether that comment constitutes blasphemy, I'll double down by conceding the accusation against money grabbing pastors, who clearly exist, even if to the chagrin of the noble pastors. Tough questions of every sort exist for reasons worthy of discussion, and when you aggressively embrace these hard questions, the questions themselves can give birth to the answers.

So, I'll ask again.

If God created everything, isn't She responsible for everything including war and the failure of trickle down economics caused by the unquenchable greed of man? And when does man assume responsibility in this mess? Somewhere in Africa at the beginning of creation or do man's problems begin when white people come to exist?

As a proud God lover and defender of Christ, I humbly concede on the blame pointed at God, as long as my black friends and family are willing to acknowledge blacks as the original man, and also the origin of every subsequent race of man that followed. Assuming ALL races descended from one race, who else can we blame for the division that produced race, religion, and politics if not the original man?

Who Is To Blame When NO ONE Is To Blame?

Will the NFLPA wield leverage to win  guaranteed
money while so many NFL fans stand ready to
boycott over Colin Kaepernick and concussions?

These inflammatory questions are questions with no definitive answers, but I offer them as poignant examples of the roots of the division and the remedy.

As WE struggle to attain agreement politically, our strained personal economies are the only problem we agree about, because economically we all feel basically the same as we've felt for years despite a booming stock market and our government insisting that things are better. Even with better budgeting, WE the People are still being slowly price gouged by inflated housing prices, at the gas pump, or wherever they can get US.

WE have allowed ourselves to be placed on a treadmill to nowhere, chasing a seemingly unreachable dream simply because WE've abandoned one another along with the formula for economic advancement. When our voices spoke loudest, they were collected and poised to bargain, not to beg for rights or wages.


Over the span of an industrialized half century or so, corporations, unwilling to operate in good faith, have tanked our economy more than once while waging their war against the collective body of collective bargaining. The disintegration of the livable wage America once knew is directly connected to the deliberate destruction of unions and of collective bargaining.

Whether you consider the benefits of paying union dues worthwhile, or you consider paying dues to be socialism, the political right has succeeded in pegging nearly every collective human action as the exact same thing as socialism, something mostly viewed as bad in the eyes of the unlearned.

Instead of potentially winning the presidency as a Socialist, even Bernie Sanders fearfully ran from the tainted label and lost while being undermined by a political party he didn't belong to.

The truth is, we'll never really know if America was ready for a Socialist president, nor do we know what exactly Socialist policy looks like even when it's staring us in the face. Whether collective bargaining qualifies as true Socialism is inconsequential so long as the ideology remains demonized and tagged to anything that involves collective agreement among the masses. Haters of capitalism have besmirched its image fairly well too, even though both economic philosophies remain fully co-dependent on one another.

As Democrats take a short vacation from the Donald Trump debacle, they are finally realizing that they represent the haters of capitalism, and it's an image they must shake if they hope to win the White House or a majority in Congress instead of hoping like Hillary that America is too smart to elect deplorable dummies again.

In the annals of gerrymandering, the Democrats are just not in a winning position to overtake Congress. Their popular vote advantage will never matter much so long as poor people pile on top of each other within big cities while begging suburban big wigs for $15 per hour and better ObamaCare. They must improve their economic message and it needs to make sense, even to the average Joe.

I'm not personally in favor of negotiating for fair wages through D.C. mandated minimums, or for waging the wage war through Washington against the same companies that must thrive for the collective to realize their wage demands.  The reality of our wage future is that some companies can afford $15, or more......and some can not.

That is why collective bargaining matters. It forces the books open and finds a wage that is fair, not just wanted. Collective bargaining doesn't beg, nor does it function like two parents divided over proper parenting, allowing their toddler to assume full control in the vacuum created by their division. Collective bargaining and the resurgence of unions is a time tested, reawakened answer to America's wage issue. Most importantly, collective bargaining is not some pointless platitude that progressive voters will tune out. It is also far from fingers pointed in the wrong direction.

While Republicans have never embraced unions, Democrats have almost abandoned them and are not currently promoting any viable plan for our economy that distinguishes them from the Russian-loving Donald or the GOP. Despite the "more of the same" stuff Senator Chuck Schumer is backing as an economic plan, America mostly views mandated handouts (Medicaid, welfare, once a year tax credits) as progressive band-aids on a knife wound that will never stop the bleeding or address the increased cost of healthcare and education worsened by stagnant wage growth.

Happy days for wealthy folks, however, is not really a positive economic indicator or even a point they need to keep mentioning so long as wages remain unchanged. But that doesn't let Democrats off the hook in the least, even though they keep thinking it does. Although no one believes in the trickle-down theory anymore, they also don't expect incremental government handouts from Democrats to close the earnings gap either.

Within any organized community, the challenges you face are the ones you created for yourself via proactive or reactive choices. Hatred, division, and Donald Trump are alive and kicking, in part, because the party for the common man has been way too busy pointing fingers towards who they think is responsible instead of directing the fingers and responsibility towards themselves.

WE- the believers in the power of collective agreement- are responsible for embracing the power of our unified will, or accepting the results of the division WE've allowed. 

God and black people bear a similar responsibility.

O.J. Simpson Finally Paroled. Was Jay Z Right?

     If sufficient remorse was the primary determinant when working on a parole board, you would likely need a lie detector to deal with the magnificent actors of the world. Are we to assume that Bernie Madoff, at 229 years old or so, won't be able to show sorrow for the billions of dollars he schemed away from so many? Even if he does, is there a way to truly trust that a criminal will never do another crime other than helpful determinants like old age and past history relative to the crime you are seeking parole from? Did the guidelines for parole sheet get tossed out in Nevada or what?

     Watching OJ Simpson begrudgingly attempt to show contrition for something he has no remorse for was rather difficult today. Listening to all of the pundits who only wanted to stick it to the black man because they couldn't stick it to him before was quite a bit more difficult.

     Don't get me wrong. I am as much convinced that he was involved with killing someone as I was when he got acquitted by virtue of good lawyering and bad policing.  The disconnect between those who wanted him to pay for the murder and those who wanted him to be proven guilty of the crime is still as vast a divide as it ever was.  There simply is no way to express to someone who has never been racially disenfranchised what it means to beat the system that treats you that way.

     Trump, and a bunch of trigger happy cops, have flipped the US to the tender side of our underbelly, and thankfully, many people who were previously disconnected to the plight of being on the wrong side of our scorching hot melting pot are now graphically becoming aware of the depth of anger that fuels those with disdain for diversity. Never again will WE question the depth of our racial hatred, the unspoken divide that still lives on in all of US or how that divide disproportionately impacts brown skinned folks in America.

Despite a defiant posture and a lack of preparation,
The Juice Is Loose....again.

     Witnessing OJ finally get paroled after almost 9 years of jail time for a strong-armed robbery of his own shit was noteworthy, especially with the struggle that the parole board seemed to have with their decision to release him. They fought against the watchful eyes of an unforgiving nation, their own understanding of justice and a horrible presentation from OJ in order to do what they know was the right thing to do years ago.

     OJ served time for being an asshole with a sharply defiant tongue, and for being a black man acquitted of killing his wife- a white woman. Yes, OJ did time in part for just marrying a white woman, an element that probably set him free when his attorney, Johnnie Cochran, used the racial history of Mark Furhman to taint the potential actions and motives of Furhman as a way of setting OJ free. It was way too easy for a nation formed and fashioned by race to accept Furhman's displaced anger towards a likely murderer, confirmed to like white women.

     Watching so many legal pundits today, with undeclared contempt for OJ the man- contempt that supersedes their love for the rule of law and justice in sentencing- was disheartening. Not because it shows that even lawyers allow their emotions to override their view of justice, but because it accentuates how vitally important it is to get proper representation if you have any illusion of achieving justice in America. And how justice really has little to do with who wins or loses a court case in America if we can not easily determine proper sentencing or whether or not you've served enough time for a crime.

     I am glad it is all over because watching America truly display itself, AGAIN, is emotionally draining. OJ served enough time for robbery and deserved to be set free today. Whether or not OJ commits another crime is not really a concern to me. As long as I think about all the black men that should have never been locked up in the first place, I feel a little less anger for guys that stayed a bit too long.
        OJ is not one of the truly unlucky even if he needed a reminder by Jay'Z, the powers that be and a few extra years in prison that he is still nigga.

Are Black Men Becoming An Endangered Species?

I don't really believe you can use the words, "no offense" without definitely offending someone so I won't offend anyone with that time-honored prequalified cop-out. I will simply say that some deaths are harder to take than others. With so much death and dying in life, we all have to come to terms with it on some level or another. But certain moments and certain people die, and it shocks you to the core.

My friends and family have endured real heartbreak from recent deaths among the category of Americans that could be pushing into the endangered species realm if something doesn't give real soon. I say that somewhat in jest because I don't really believe in an endangered race of humans because the human spirit is naturally imbued with survival level toughness. In other words, all men are made to be as tough as their environment demands, even if they must be melted and tempered like iron to reveal their rigidity.

The famous, 300 years old "Hanging Tree" of Savannah, GA is an
historic landmark from our past. But what memory does it honor?
Isn't this just a different kind of Confederate flag?  

All that being said, I am certain to my core that black men are targeted to a level equal to our immense power. While those words may sound sorrow filled, I am equally certain that we used to be targeted many levels beyond our power to address it. As a matter of physics, a greater opposing force was always needed to thwart the kind of power black men can generate. With the added force of a black woman behind him, black men have survived. One even rose to become president to the chagrin of a lot of people that questioned a black man's ability to do something so immense.

You see, once upon a time ago, it only required probable cause to snuff out the life of a black man, assuming that you consider fear as a probable cause. In essence, nothing has really changed much when it comes to losing our black men. Either we die from the fear of someone else, or we die (literally and figuratively) while running from the power that we possess because making great choices with so much power in our hands can be scary to the point of deadly.

I often say it, but it bears repeating. As a father of 5 daughters (no boys), I am fairly certain that God was giving me the desires of my desperately fearful heart, that couldn't imagine how ugly America would become for my young black son/s while thinking about how tough it had been for me and countless other black men before me.

The damaging impact of the destructive forces against black men can be hard to quantify when reasonable attempts to shine a light on the real face of Alt-Right exceptionalism get criticized as giving the assholes a platform. I disagree with that notion and totally support Megan Kelly's attempt to stick a microphone in the face of the people that made Trump possible, and a mirror to the face of US all.

Name it what you want. Alt-right'ism descends from the same people who killed black men via public display methodology to invoke power through fear. Alt-right'ers are also the descendants of the same people who knew they had to react drastically to squelch the powerful spirit of a black man- a spirit that rarely loses its will and never stops searching for a way. Even our futile attempts to refine and define this mythical concept called Black America feeds into the two separate America's that the Alt-rigt'ers covet so much.

In the first Black Baptist Church in America, you won't easily find their entry points to the Underground Railroad,
because they are built into the balcony stairs. Are the drive and creativity
it takes to be black in America both a curse and a blessing?   

An important and influential plaque that was always displayed
prominently in the home of my youth.

I support Megan Kelly and every real conversation meant to uncover racial hatred, while I moan and mourn for those who foolishly think genocide of Muslims, blacks, Jews or of any idea are even possible. Ideas are like words.  They must die a natural and unforced death if they are to ever die at all.

Evil forces could have already done away with mankind if we weren't so full of ideas for surviving and thriving on a hostile planet. Ideas are the fuel that powers this planet, and as the former president, Barack Obama often said, you have to counter extreme ideas with better ones. And, there is simply no way to change the minds of extremists who subvert black power without first figuring out who they are.

I have an extreme, somewhat ironic idea. Maybe black men are not being killed in massive unexplained numbers, but we are actually being revealed through massive spiritual purifying- somewhat like gold. For, it is from the salt of many tears that the thirst of hope is quenched. With that thought in mind, I encourage my black brethren (and those who love us) to take upon the challenge of our pain with the surety of its purpose. In other words, don't run from the cause of our pain, but instead, let us all run towards it and stomp it out.

Broncos Must Answer, "What's In A Name?"

The name Dak sounds a lot like Pax. Is there a chance that the Broncos accidentally chose the wrong dude just because the names were sort of similar?  Could John Elway comfortably believe that Siemian or Lynch can take over a  job with two Hall of Fame shadows cast all over it? Doesn't Father John always have faith that the right quarterback- young, old or somewhere in between- is always the right answer to victory, or has he been transformed by our Hall of Fame defense? Will the new coach be encouraged to take a chance on a no-name upstart in Trevor Siemian, or roll the dice on the name, Paxton Lynch, who was recognizable enough to warrant a first-round draft selection?

All of that has something to do with the questions that the Denver Broncos must answer as they ready themselves to make the best use of 10 draft selections. Mostly, the names that wear the jerseys- or the ones that select them for that matter- are part of an ever moving turnstile of people. Sooner or later, we will tire of Elway and we will hope that the organization is ready to find the next best name to replace him when that day comes along. His name and every name will always be insignificant compared to the name that's is emblazoned on the front of the jersey.

WHO ARE THE DENVER BRONCOS?!!

What perpetually haunts the Broncos, and every team working to fix the flaws that kept them from winning it all last year, is the reality that every single team in the NFL runs some variation of the EXACT SAME PLAYS, they just disguise the formation and name them something different so as to confuse the opposing defense each week.

In other words, unless you confuse, confound and overcome the opposing defense in an NFL game, defense still reigns supreme.  The defense has reigned supreme since the day the game was created, and few teams without Tom Brady and/or some semblance of a defense have ever finished the season as the one on top. In fact, most teams will always be known for one side of the ball or the other, and usually, it is the team that makes the last defensive stop that will win the Superbowl.

When Manning first arrived in Denver, a team with a defense good enough to win a playoff game with Tim Tebow at the helm was suddenly scapegoated into being the problem as Manning lit up the skies trying to win it all from the wrong side of the ball. Not only did it not work, eventually the Broncos went back towards fortifying that Tebow flattering defense and climbed to the top of the mountain while simultaneously exhibiting some of the ugliest offense in team history.

There!! McCaffrey in a Broncos uniform.
Now get the heck over it because he'll
be gone Broncos fans.

As it stands, we are who the stats say we are, and a defensive juggernaut is not something to be taken for granted. Tonight, (The NFL draft starts on Thursday 4/27, with the Browns officially going on the clock at 8 p.m. ET.)  the Broncos must decide if they will continue to win the game of football with a once and a lifetime defense, or by creating this elusive illusion of balance that never materializes into a crown with those teams that score the ball in a fast a furious way.

You simply can't keep a good defense good without keeping them rested as well. That calls for ball control, wise play calling and a willingness to punt the ball away instead of taking needless chances that result in turnovers, field-position and points for the other team.

As much as each of us Broncos fans would love to see Christian McCaffrey in a Denver Broncos uniform, he is a luxury pick that would ignore the needs at linebacker- needs that were exposed by Kyle Shanahan and the Atlanta Falcons and later exploited by every team that followed. Selecting McCaffrey potentially neglects the struggles of the offensive line as well, but I'm not sure I would reach into the first round to try and fix that flaw.

From my perspective, the issue at linebacker is real while the issues from the O-line are a little tainted by a few seasons of unspectacular play at quarterback caused by the desperate desire to be spectacular at quarterback as a compliment to our dominating on defense.  In other words, the Broncos have pressed way too hard to not be normal on offense while missing the value of normal as it relates to ball control, Time Of Possession and the freshness of our Pro Bowl laden defense. If the Broncos had always shown a stronger commitment towards using the run game, they would already be well advanced at recognizing and beating teams that load up the box to stop the run.

Flashy or Gritty?

As it stands, we have two receivers fighting to be the leader of a team that doesn't really have one right now. Their mere ability to vie for team leadership speaks to the black hole at quarterback and the unwillingness to unequivocally hand that duty over to Von Miller, Aqib Talib and the defense. Any aggressive move to get McCaffrey (or an offensive lineman for that matter) is a sign that says the Broncos are hoping to increase point production and not simply lengthen TOP, Time Of Possession while minimizing turnovers, aka., normal offense.

Critics of the team fail to see that this current offensive line came one game and two inexperienced quarterbacks away from returning to the playoffs last year. Not that the team looked to be a threat even if they had made it in, but the defense is and always will be something that gives Denver a chance to win every game. Unless of course, we fail to draft quality players to compete against the current Pro Bowl players who eventually become too pricey to keep around.

If Denver drafts McCaffrey, he instantly becomes the luxury item that might get overly used simply to justify the reach they must make to draft him. McCaffrey would be marked by other teams as a result of the Broncos desire to justify their selection of him, and he will be instantly forced into a position of pressure not really fair to someone who's father did so much while wearing Orange and Blue.

While I am not that worried about Christian's ability to live up to the hype of his promise, I am concerned about unreasonable draft behavior and that the Broncos and fans might be abandoning the reason for our recent championship for the sake of one player, a player who would never be so desperately desired by Denver fans if his last name were Edwards or Jones.

Nearly every reason that folks in Denver want "The Name" McCaffrey in a Broncos uniform again is selfish and self-serving to the point of concern for me. Whether we look for "some more juice" to our offense as new head coach, Vance Joseph, promised, or we trust the juice we already have (C.J. Anderson and those receivers) to play in a juicier manner, this team needs to understand its identity, and ours is defense. Chasing for the juice has a real potential of getting messy quick.