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Gimpygod
10-01-2009, 06:11 PM
I have begun writing a weekly column for Vic and Gary.com, the guys from CBS sports in Denver, associated with ESPN radio. Feel free to come by the website and give me the business or hell or whatever you would like... encouragement would be cool but that's crazy talk!:cool:

Vic and Gary website (http://www.vicandgary.com/)


Defense? Toughness? You don't say...

By Lance A. Carr
(Special to vicandgary.com)

The last several years our defense has been softer than a chocolate bar on the front dashboard during the Fourth of July. Heck, our entire team completely lacked that gritty fortitude good football teams seem to muster every week. Players were coddled and pampered during the off-season and training camp so as to "avoid injury" and to "treat them like men instead of children." This strategy resulted in guys breaking their hands in waffle house brawls, falling down the stairs while tripping over their dog and some sort of medical anomaly that had players pulling hammies like their tendons were made out of wet toilet paper.

Them days are over! There is a new sheriff in town, played by Josh McDaniels, and he's turning our Broncos into a nasty, roughhousing bunch of real football players... I'm skipping the part where, during the off-season, he displayed the decision making capability of a binge drinking college freshman partying on spring break vacation until another column (assuming I'm invited to write another after this column's shenanigans).

Let's look at the contrast between the performances of our defense over the last several years with what they are doing now. The manner in which we used to go after the ballcarrier was a lot like the way the cast of "Le Cage a Faux" would react to finding a mouse in their dressing room. A lot of screaming and running around in all directions, much hand flapping and, finally, someone would finally close their eyes and take a swipe at the sucker. The only difference being the acting troupe would be a bit mollified afterwards whereas Nate Webster would storm around the field, sans helmet, thumping his chest and screaming like he had just defeated the Persians all by his teeny, tiny self after stopping the running back for a nine yard gain.

Not this team! Nobody catches the ball completely open; there is always a defender right there trying to break things up. Even if a pass is completed or the ball is handed off cleanly, the Broncos converge immediately on the offensive player. I haven't seen this kind of swarming since I watched, "Winnie the Pooh and the Killer Bee Fiasco." (Great movie but I wouldn't take the kids) Yes, this defense is coming along nicely and the fellas are a joy to watch.

Surprisingly, the offense is showing some toughness as well. Kyle Orton is playing some astonishingly mediocre yet functional and mistake free football with a major finger injury on his throwing hand. I mean, the bone went through the skin after being dislocated! Holy smoke! That injury would make most people more wobbly than that desk Vic Lombardi stands behind during his sports broadcast and yet Kyle is able to be amazingly boring yet functional and effective. (I know it sounds like I'm being just a smidgen mean to the quarterback but, seriously, he throws the ball away faster than my mom throws away green fuzzy food she finds in the back of the refrigerator.) Determination and punishing physicality is permeating the entire team. Knowshon Moreno delivered a stiff arm to number 34, Safety Michael Mitchell of the Raiders, which was absolutely awesome. It wasn't so much a stiff arm as it was a judo punch to the throat that would make Stephen Seagal curtsy in his plus sized kimono in admiration.

The current state of the Broncos after an off-season of tremendous upheaval can best be summed up by a conversation I had with my Dad after the game against the Raiders this Sunday in Oakland . "So Pops, what do you think of that defense?" I asked trying to get him to say something nice about the Broncos because he had been so mad during the entire off-season. "They are salty as hell!" He responded enthusiastically. "How about the offense?" I said and after a pause for contemplation he answered, "Well, they don't piss me off."

The 2009 Broncos thus far, a great defense with an offense that doesn't piss you off.