"Payton Manning"
"Payton Manning"
"Payton Manning".
Are the Broncos that one-dimensional, or is local coverage of the team better than what comes from the national press?
Heh. It's better locally.
The offensive linemen really are great but have held a couple of decade tradition of not talking to the press much, started long ago when they decided to play as a unit and ignore any hype about individuals.
The team also had a bejillion injuries throughout the season, so as guys would come and go, the press couldn't really stick to hyping any one particular player.
Started early with Champ Bailey going out and just kept taking different players out on and off.
(Champ's story is such a bummer. He's getting too old to do this stuff and no SB ring. Really was incredible in his prime. I wonder if he will be dropped if he can't get healthy.)
Welker of course is covered for leaving and coming here. We finally have a couple of decent but not great running backs, an area where Denver is almost always weak.
The two Thomas', Eric Decker, and the ever-present (he's getting old too) Matt Praeter who almost never misses... And got that 63 yarder in the record books this year, all covered locally. Woodyard gets little coverage, interestingly. Stokley also. They basically gave Peyton a huge pile of targets and then tried to build plays where they'd put in a bunch of them and use most of them as blockers or decoys for whoever was really receiving the ball.
The whole hand signal thing kinda makes sense if it's true. Peyton calls a lot of changes and it wasn't common to charge up the center with a running back because you'd have to swap other guys to even get any mass out there to push with, when you have a bunch of skinny wide receivers and tight ends on the field.
What bugs me the most is that both Fox and Del Rio are defensive coaches by original experience and their defensive guys make really annoying mistakes in fundamentals like proper tackling and rarely push for turnovers.
Definitely not Joe a Collier's "Pick snd Strip" defensive strategy out there these days. It's one of the reasons I still don't think Fox is head coach material. He should be all over Del Rio's ass for that. It's stuff Fox knows.
The local press pushes Manning pretty hard but not as hard as the national press.
On Defense Rogers-Cromartie and some others are kinda green but coming along.
What I thought would have been interesting would have been if they had made Kubiak an offer to come back here as an offensive coach and Fox had jumped on Del Rio and worked on defensive fundamentals.
They got really sloppy, bottom line. But they were kinda embracing sloppy fast-paced play.
