Would you have stayed until the end?

I could rip the Broncos and Josh McDaniels after yesterday’s nightmare loss, but what would be the point? It really wouldn’t have mattered if Denver had beaten Kansas City yesterday with the way the Jets played against the Bengals. IT IS WHAT IT IS. 32-32 for the past four seasons. It is not necessarily bad, and it is not anything good. It is just mediocre: IT IS WHAT IT IS!

As a Denver Broncos fan, I would never claim to be any better than any other Broncos fan–or any other NFL fan for that matter. We have a tendency to question the fortitude of certain fans’ support. Don’t get me wrong; I am not a fan of the fickle-minded fan who starts to talk about burning his jerseys or getting rid of his season tickets when things don’t go well. Those people are not fans. A fan, to me, is someone who loves his team, cheers for them no matter what, and wants the absolute best for his team.

Here are some reasons why I feel like I love the Denver Broncos:

• I eat up any kind of information on the Denver Broncos. I love denverbroncos.com, MHR, bleacherreport.com, and any other kind of media related to the Denver Broncos.
• I have devoted myself to writing a blog about them. I will continue to update this blog at least two times a week regardless of  the depressing outcome of the season.
• I have paid hundreds of dollars just to sit in the nosebleeds at Invesco Field after an 18-hour drive to Denver, and, let me tell you all, it was one of the best trips of my life.
• When my wife and I started dating, we were both hardcore Broncos fans. Eight-and-a-half years later, our two oldest kids (4 and 2 1/2) get excited when they see the Broncos emblem because they know that they are mommy and daddy’s team. It is a huge part, though not one of life or death, of our family.
• Since, I live out of the market, I mute the Seahawks games on the TV and tune in to KOA online to listen the Broncos games when they aren’t televised here.

Those are a few of the ways that I feel I show that I love the Broncos. I also will cheer for them no matter what:

• The past four seasons have been very hard for me. The Broncos seem to get my hopes up every year in the early parts of the season only to lose it at the end. I will still follow them and support them.
• Often times, my evening mood on Sundays or Mondays is heavily influenced by the way the Broncos perform. I will never yell at my wife or kids because of it, but it definitely affects me whether it be positively or negatively.
• I get sick of the MSM’s endless campaign to make the world doubt the Broncos. I am more of a believer in taking things a week at a time rather than jumping the gun on assumptions and predictions. My team doesn’t have to get all of the love the the Patriots, Steelers, Giants, and Chargers get from the media for me to love them and believe in them.

I may have negative things to say about the way they are peforming, but that is my passion getting the better of me. I want the Denver Broncos to win. Period:

• I do not know more than the coaches or players. I promise you that I would lead an NFL team into the grave if I was a head coach, coordinator, owner, or GM, but does that keep me from being opinionated? Absolutely not!
• Fans are a huge part of professional sports. The money and the time we invest to support our favorite teams and players certainly do not entitle us to run the show, but we see what is going on and, therefore, have thoughts and reflections on how things are going.
• I appreciate the job Mike Shanahan did winning two Super Bowls for the Broncos, but I was ready for him to go after last season. Many people accused me of hating my team for wishing for such a thing. I am sure a bunch of those same people will say, “Be careful what you wish for. McDaniels didn’t do any better.”  Well, I have certainly made negative comments about Josh McDaniels as of late, but McDaniels hasn’t been with the Broncos for over a decade like Shanahan had been. McDaniels deserves a few years of patience to get things figured out.
• The reason I was negative about Shanahan was that I felt like he cared more about what was best for Shanahan, not what was best for his team. Some might say the same thing about Josh McDaniels, but only time will tell. I want the coaches and the players who will help the Denver Broncos be the best team that they can be.
• The Broncos always show flashes of brilliance, in my humble opinion. They did it in Shanahan’s last three years, and they did it this year. When that starts to fall apart like it has the past four seasons, I get frustrated. I will compare it to the teacher who gets upset with a student who is just flat out intelligent and capable of doing quality work, but for whatever reason, time and time again, that student underachieves and never does anything to realize her potential. That is what I see in the Denver Broncos. It is not them that I hate, it is a hatred for them not doing what they are capable of doing.

Now that I have explained the last two ways that I am a fan, I want to talk about the fine line between supporting one’s team rain or shine and wanting the best for your team. Many fans seem to blur this line. I am not trying to personally attack anyone, but I find a lot of Denver Broncos fans are intolerant of people who have anything critical to say about the Broncos. If you criticize the coach, you hate the team and are a pompous, arrogant fool who probably lives in your mother’s basement and is unemployed. Maybe that person just wants to see his team do what it is capable of doing.

I think we all have a right to an opinion. So, I want to offer my sincere respect to those who love Josh McDaniels and would never venture to say anything negative about him. I don’t question the strength of your passion for the Denver Broncos because we reflect on things a little differently. In fact, I don’t know most of you personally, so I feel like it would show immense weakness of character for me to turn something like some banter about football into a personal attack. Too many people don’t think before they type.

I want to make sure that I show respect to people as human beings when I type things on this blog unless I am talking about Jay Cutler, the Oakland Raiders, or the San Diego Chargers. We are all human beings, but not all can be considered human beings.

I am, as always, very proud to be a Denver Broncos fan. I am happy to have the opportunity to write and interact with passionate fans like myself, and I wish all my fellow Broncos fans a happy 2010 and offseason. Please check in with the blog as often as you would like. I will be around.

I have viewed the press conference when Josh McDaniels addressed the media regarding his decision to deactivate Brandon Marshall from the Broncos’ final regular season game, and I have also read Marshall’s response to what happened. I must say that I do not have confidence in this decision by Josh McDaniels, and, surprisingly, I find myself sympathizing with Brandon Marshall.

Josh McDaniels was less than forthcoming in his press conference, giving very vague explanations as to why he took such a drastic measure. He kept talking about “accountability” and putting the 45 guys out there who are willing to give their all, but he never got into any specifics as to how Marshall was being unaccountable.

Marshall seemed to shed more light on the subject in his response, stating that he believed McDaniels was responding to his hamstring injury which he suffered at practice on Wednesday. Marshall feels like he can’t play in his current condition, Josh McDaniels feels like he is exaggerating the injury and should be able to play.

So, was it absolutely necessary for Josh McDaniels to deactivate Brandon Marshall? I will never claim to know more than the coach does, but I think this was a huge mistake.

First, it makes McDaniels look like an egomaniac. Maybe he is one. I am pretty sure I would hate his guts if he coached any other team, but he is the coach of my beloved Denver Broncos. If all that was going on was that Marshall was complaining about his hamstring bothering him and doubting if he would be ready to go on Sunday, McDaniels’ move is a complete overreaction. It’s a little too late for him to be trying to send a message to his team. With a 2-7 streak, any move that could lower morale or hurt team unity is ridiculous. To me, it looks like Josh McDaniels is desperate, trying so hard to pass the blame to his players for the late season meltdown. He seems to be trying to send the message that he is in control when, in reality, he lost it somewhere around the bye week.

Second, deactivation completely eliminates the possibility that Marshall could play. Why not list Marshall as doubtful or questionable for the game against the Chiefs? With Eddie Royal possibly out of the picture, why deactivate yet another receiver? What if Marshall ended up being well enough to play? Hasn’t he contributed enough this season and fought hard enough to deserve that chance?

Third, it could potentially destroy any hopes of what seemed to be a happy reconciliation process between Marshall and the Broncos. We all know where Marshall was at the beginning of the season, and he seems to have taken gigantic steps to improve on his image and attitude. His immediate response to the deactivation seems fair and mature–more mature than the actions of his head coach, if you ask me. However, I wouldn’t blame him if his attitude resoured (if that’s even a word).

McDaniels has not yet proven to be the genius that he would like the media, his players, and the rest of the NFL to believe he is. This is definitely a gutsy move, but I am having a hard time seeing any positives that can come out of it. If he is trying to send a message, it is a little too late in the year.

I really got annoyed with all of the doubters among Bronco fans and the dipsticks in the media saying that Denver wouldn’t win five games in 2009 going into the season. I was thinking 7-9 or 8-8, possibly a small step backward from last year. My hopes were really set on the 2010 season. After six games, I was so happy that I was wrong. The Denver Broncos were on a roll.

Well, it seems that I wasn’t wrong. One more loss this coming Sunday, which is not completely out of the realm of possibility, and the Denver Broncos will finish at .500 again.

To me, this is a complete disappointment of a season after the hot start. I mean, which team are they, the 6-0 team, or the 2-7 team from the past nine games. Are they the team that falls behind 27-10, or are they the team that comes out with lights out defense for four or five drives while the offense rallies to tie the game? Are they the team that squashes teams like Cleveland and Kansas City or the team that loses to the likes of Oakland and Washington?

My biggest beef is that going into week 17, the Denver Broncos seem to be a team without an indentity. After six games, there definitely appeared to be an identity, but after the past nine, they are bipolar at best.

So, I am honestly not even interested in writing about the playoff scenarios right now. The season has turned out to be yet another disappointment, and it would have been much easier to take if it hadn’t started with such promise.

I’m tired of seeing Knowshon Moreno get stuffed at the line of scrimmage time and time again.

I’m tired of watching Mitch Berger struggle to punt the ball 30 yards after the Broncos struggle to move the ball 1 or 2 yards on third down. (Can we please stop complaining about Peyton Hillis not being utilized? He got stuffed too).

I’m tired of the undisciplined style of play. This is on the players as well as Josh McDaniels. Brandon Stokley was a complete idiot for ten seconds yesterday, and it cost him and hurt his team for three quarters of a ball game. In an earlier drive, Brian Dawkins got away with some illegal contact, so it goes both ways; there is no excuse to get up in a refs face and shake your fist at him.

What can I say? I am tired of a lot of elements of the Denver Broncos. I would like to believe and be hopeful this week, but the Denver Broncos need a lot of help. It’s too bad that they haven’t been able to help themselves these past nine games.

Wow! I knew the Broncos shouldn’t have taken the Raiders lightly. How do they go from busting the Chiefs and Giants in the mouth and competing with Indy to getting upset at home by the Raiders? How do the Broncos let the Raiders run the ball the way they did? How did they let JaMarcus Russell convert on 4th-and-1? How do they keep letting Oakland beat them at home? How do the Broncos have a 1st-and-goal at the 2 and only walk away with a field goal.

I have so many questions. I am flabbergasted. I could take comfort in the fact that Oakland beat Philadelphia earlier this year, which might mean that we have a chance with the Eagles too, but I am not so sure.

I love my Broncos, but I am getting sick of these meltdowns year after year. This is Josh McDaniels’s team with a few of the older fellas, so the failure to convert red zone trips into touchdowns is a McDaniels thing, not leftover baggage from the Mike Shanahan years. All of the penalties on third down, though they did seem to happen a lot with Shanahan, are a reflection of an inconsistent, undisciplined team coached by an inconsistent young head coach.

Coach, I will be patient with you, but this is extremely frustrating. The Broncos got outplayed by one of their biggest rivals, and that really shouldn’t have happened looking at the stats coming into the game. Losses like these were one of the things you were brought in to change.

Now, I am going to be eating a bunch of crow for my trash talk to the Raider faithful this week, and that is not fun. Now I am going to have to give it to them that they seem to have our number the past few years at Invesco. Now I am going to have to acknowledge that they play better than us when they have nothing to lose and we have everything to gain by winning. Now I am going to have to keep my mouth shut, and not make any excuses for this depressing loss because I am not the type of fan who makes excuses and desperately tries to defend himself and his team.

I am sick of this feeling, but I will endure it because I am a diehard. I want the best for the Denver Broncos. What happened today was far from that.

For the few people who visit this site, I want to apologize for how long it has been since I posted something. I will never give up on this site, and I even plan to do regular posts during the offseason.

I want to say that I am happy with 8-5. It is not the best place the Broncos could be, especially considering San Diego is now two games ahead in the division, but it is not the worst either. The beatdowns the Broncos gave to the Giants and the Chiefs were very refreshing to me, and they were a reminder of where we are headed under Josh McDaniels.

Now, even though the Indy game did not go very well, I did see some positives. The obvious one would be the way Brandon Marshall played. But, I was also impressed with the way the defense fought and fought after being down 21-0 and 21-7 for a large portion of the game. The offense seemed able to move the ball, but they couldn’t capitaize on the majority of the opportunities. If they would have avoided some of the sacks, penalties, the missed field goal, and that awful interception, they really could have taken the lead. Also, how often do you see Peyton Manning throw three interceptions.

Brian Dawkins celebrates one of his two picks against Peyton Manning and the Colts

Indianapolis is, in my opinion, the elite team in the NFL this year. That Denver was able to mount a comeback at all should definitely give them confidence as they face their last three opponents.

I am officially over the fretting I used to do at the end of the season when we played weaker division rivals like Oakland and Kansas City. Shanahan always found a way to have his guys unprepared for those seemingly insignificant games. Well, all three remaining games are significant. Josh McDaniels seems to know this. Hopefully, we will see the Broncos offense firing on all cylinders when they host the Raiders this Sunday.

Out of love for my team, I am going to criticize my team today. I named my site Broncos Culture because I wanted it to focus on the culture change taking place under Josh McDaniels. Sadly, this past pathetic loss has seriously made me question how much the culture really has changed with the Denver Broncos. Here are some thoughts and observations:

1. Denver is doing what they have done the past three years. The Broncos get all of their fans excited with a hot start, and then they fall apart. They lose to teams whom they have they have no business losing to like the Redskins this year and the Bills and the Raiders last year.

2. All of the critics have said that the Denver Broncos are a fluke this year. Many have said that they won’t make the playoffs. I hate to quote the elder Jim Mora, but I’ve got to ask, “PLAYOFFS? Don’t talk about playoffs! Playoffs? I just hope we win a game!” When we lose to the 2 and 6 Washington Redskins, we deserve all of the criticism we get.

3. Some of the haters among Denver Broncos fans got their wish on Sunday when Kyle Orton was injured. How did Chris Simms look to you haters? Are you happy that our “awful” starter was finally out of the way? Is anything really better than Kyle Orton? Be careful what you wish for next time. Orton was one of three players who did anything positive for the Broncos in Washington on Sunday afternoon. Simms was awful. I like Simms, but he is clearly not ready to start in the NFL again. He was missing simple screen and checkdown passes for crying out loud!

4. Our special teams is a joke. During the first six weeks, I paid so much respect to our coaching staff’s ability to make adjustments during halftime. Therefore, it baffles me that nothing is changing with our special teams. We keep giving up punt and kick returns and, now, gadget plays where the freakin’ punter rolls out to the right with absolutely no pressure, throws across his body to the left, and hits a wide open fullback with no defender within ten yards. Something needs to change. That play turned the momentum and gave a weak team all of the confidence it needed to beat a team it should not have beaten.

5. I have praised the defense a lot this year. The new attitude on defense was the most refreshing change to me in weeks one through six. In weeks eight and nine, they seemed to be letting up late in the games. Sunday was indicative of a bend but don’t break defense that has changed into a bend and break one. Ladell Betts ran like any running back who played against the Broncos in 2008. Ladell Betts! It was a nightmare. It is time for a gut check for these guys because San Diego, New York, and Indy are ridiculously better than the Redskins.

6. I was happy with Knowshon Moreno’s performance on Sunday. I have no idea why they had Chris Simms throw up that prayer in the third quarter to Brandon Marshall when we were driving down the field. That interception was another huge momentum shift in favor of the Redskins. They should have kept running the ball with Albert Haynesworth on the sideline.

7. We have been outscored 58 to 14 in the second half during that last three games. What an awful change this is. I want to know what our coaches are going to do to turn this around. We are being outplayed and outcoached in all facets of the game. The Broncos are not giving it their all for the full sixty minutes.

8. With all of that said, I am not abandoning ship. I love my team. I will support my coach. They are facing adversity that they must find a way to overcome. Maybe the 6 and 0 start was a little misleading as far as determining how far our team could go, but we still did it, and this shows that we have the ability to hang around and win games against decent teams. Because of that start, anything less than ten wins is an absolute failure. Not making the playoffs is an absolute failure. Losing to San Diego at home after socking them in the mouth in SoCal is an absolute failure. Losing to the Washington Redskins with San Diego, New York, and Indianapolis on the horizon is an absolute failure. Josh McDaniels was not brought in to fail. I do not want my team to fail. However, I am afraid that there are some among us who want nothing more than for Josh McDaniels and Kyle Orton to fail so that they can feel justified for protesting Shanahan’s firing and Jay Cutler’s trade.

9. I have looked for positives as much as I can in weeks past. This is not one of those weeks. I would no longer call myself hopeful or optimistic, but I would say I am fully supportive. Rain or shine. Win, lose, or tie. Let’s go Broncos. Turn back around.

I know a lot of Steelers fans, and I don’t have anything personal against them, but there really is something that just bothers me about them collectively when it comes to football enthusiasm. Maybe it is that there seems to be so many of them. From their perspective, maybe there is too many of us. Anyways, this is not the time to discuss that.

A Steelers fan posted an analysis comparing Denver’s numbers from this year to last year’s numbers on www.milehighreport.com. I have to give mad respect to a Steelers fan who is willing to not be so myopic and actually give respect where respect is due. Check it out.

http://www.milehighreport.com/2009/10/22/1096321/surprise-team-of-the-nfl-checking

Below are the words that Pat Bowlen wrote to all Denver Broncos season ticket holders and those on the waiting list after the infamous Jay Cutler fiasco. These words, in my opinion, reflect an owner who is passionate about his team, his fans, and the direction of the organization. The culture is definitely changing in Denver, much to the joy of the most passionate fans in the NFL. I have italicized two parts of his letter for emphasis:

“Dear Broncos Fan,
I am writing this letter today because I feel compelled to give our community and our fans an explanation regarding the Jay Cutler situation.
One of my directives to Josh McDaniels upon his hiring was that he consider everything possible to return the Broncos to the level which you and I both expect, and this certainly includes making a fair evaluation of every opportunity presented to us which might improve the team. He and General Manager Brian Xanders have had my complete support throughout, and they have it now. It is important that you know that at all times we represented ourselves to Jay with honesty and integrity.
I assure you both Josh and I made repeated attempts to reach out to Jay, and I can not speak for him as to why he chose to limit his response. Ultimately, given his unwillingness to speak with either of us directly in the last 12 days- at the same time his agent clearly stating to us Jay’s intentions- it became very apparent to me personally that he no longer wanted to play for the Denver Broncos. As such, we elected to trade him.
Understand this: it remains about team. Our franchise has gone to the Super Bowl six times, with three different coaches and with many different players. It has never been about one player, and it never will be. Coach McDaniels shares this vision, and everyone in the organization—players, coaches and staff—must understand and accept this unconditionally. If anyone does not, that person will not be a part of this franchise.
I am extremely proud of our franchise, its accomplishments, and the region and fans that we represent. We have an illustrious history, one which we are all anxious to add to, and if someone does not wish to be with us as we head in this direction, then we will move on, and move forward.
Over 96% of our season ticket holders have chosen to renew their tickets for the 2009 season. This is once again a compelling statement of support and trust by the greatest fans in the NFL, and I assure you my only goal is and always will be to compete at the highest championship level.
The Denver Broncos will move forward in 2009 as one team, united with the most loyal and passionate fan base in football, towards the only goal we will ever pursue.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and for your understanding and continued support.
Sincerely,
Pat Bowlen”