Okay, so The Problem is as glaringly obvious as a 325-pound man in tight pants, but unfortunately the answer is maddeningly elusive. It's a well-known fact that Denver has one of the sorriest defenses in the league, and it is widely believed that the trouble starts up front with the defensive line. Of course, they certainly can't shoulder the blame for all of the unit's shortcomings. Plenty of other mistakes contribute to our overall poor showing. Bad tackling by a safety in the alley leads to a big run. An OLB overpursues and loses outside contain or the MIKE can't stuff the fullback busting through the A gap, and suddenly a guy is running free in the secondary with only our laughable safeties to stop him. Help over the top is late getting there and we get burned on a go route down the sidelines. Our corners are forced to effectively play with their hands tied behind their back due to our thick-headed DC and his stupid ten-yard cushions-- and aside from Champ Bailey, our DBs ain't that strong in coverage to begin with. So don't stick the line with the entire load of responsibility for this stinking mess.
However, bottom line, I think we all know that improving our play in the trenches, where everything starts, is the surest way for us to get better on that side of the ball. Not that adding a real werewolf of a middle linebacker, a nasty freak that moves in fast forward and likes to take people's heads off, wouldn't help. It certainly would. That kind of MIKE could potentially change the whole LB corps and really shore up the "D" up the middle. Better run fits, tackling and take-on ability at the point of attack from the 'backers would be a huge step in patching up the run defense, and putting a true stud at MIKE could bring things together nicely.
And finding some safety help is clearly another priority. With the possible exception of Barrett, none of the guys we've run out there this year could cover a bed with a quilt, or tackle a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken in the open field. They're worse than just liabilities, they're bums, plain and simple, and not one of them should be back next year. Even as backups, let alone in a starting role! Maybe Barrett can harness his physical gifts and play at a high level, and maybe Woodyard can make a successful conversion. It's possible. But that's a best-case scenario, and regardless we at the very least need to infuse some more young talent into the position-- preferably with at least one player with quality starting potential. You'd need an enormous spreadsheet to tally all the plays our backliners have failed to make this year, and filling those spots just with competent players would clearly result in significantly fewer breakdowns leading to explosive plays going against us.
We won't even get into the issues of defensive play-calling or all the injuries we've suffered this season. Anyone who thinks Bob Slowick or Rich Tuten have done a good job, raise your hands! Yea, that's what I thought. So once again, don't try to pin it all on the line. I'm the kind of person that likes to look at things from as many angles as possible, to take all available facts into account. In football in particular, I'm really not a believer in hard and fast answers. The truth is, there are a number of different models of success-- if there were only one, everyone would be trying to emulate it, and that's not the case. There's more than one way to skin a cat, and more than one way to land a Lombardi.
With that said, I still think most of us will agree that we're likely not going anywhere until we fix the D-line. At least, not where we ultimately want to go. This is the five yard chuck rule era, the age of multiple receiver sets and spread offenses. First down is as often as not a passing down-- so is third-and-one. If you can't rush the passer you probably can't win, or at the least you leave yourself just about no margin for error. Not the position that a team with Super Bowl aspirations wants to find itself in.
So at the end of the day you can make all the improvements you want to the back seven. It should help in the run game, and better safeties should certainly improve our coverage as well, but we know that even good coverage can get dissected by NFL passing games given enough time. Only two out of eight Super Bowl winners in this decade have finished the regular season with less than 40 sacks. Surprisingly, one of those was the 2000 Ravens, but we all know that they could pressure the QB and were overall one of the best defenses of all time; and the other was the 2006 Colts, who had Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis to bring pressure off the edges and notched eight sacks in four playoff games.
And that, my friends, is the 300-pound gorilla sitting in the room. He's mean, he's ugly, and he stinks, but we can't seem to find a way to get rid of him despite all our efforts in that direction. It's like Morpheus said about the agents, "They are the gatekeepers. They are guarding all the doors, they are holding all the keys, which means that sooner or later someone is going to have to fight them."
Unfortunately for us, that battle always seems to look like Custer's last stand. This is where it gets really sticky. Everything we've tried in recent years has failed. Stock the line with solid run-stuffers and rely on heavy blitzes to generate pressure? That was great until somebody designed a max-protect scheme that shut it down, and then our defense got systematically picked apart while we watched helplessly. Bring in older vets with big reputations? You quickly find out why they were available on the cheap. Load up with high draft picks? Two years later they haven't made a peep.
So what's the problem? Our inability to evaluate talent? Our defensive schemes? A failure of our coaching staff to develop young players, and motivate old ones? Quite possibly all of the above? Okay, problem identified-- now all we have to do is solve it. That's easier said than done, though. A likely starting point would be to can the D-line coach who's presided over one garbage season after another, but high quality replacements aren't exactly lining up on the sidewalk outside Dove Valley. Still, it's time to give somebody else a shot-- it's not like the results can get much worse! As they say, the only way to go from here is up. But even if we find a quality D-line coach he's going to need something to work with. Of course we do still have the young players from our 2007 draft, but can we afford to count on them again in hopes that better coaching can get noticeably different results?
Diving into the free agent pool seems like an easy and obvious answer. . . until you take a closer look. Impact pass rushers are very valuable commodities and tend to bring a premium price, if they make it to free agency at all. Julius Peppers is getting the franchise tag, guaranteed, and Terrell Suggs could also. Albert Haynseworth won't, but he comes with his own issues, not the least of which is the enormous bidding war that's likely to take place for his services. People can dream all they want (like Blondie said back in the eighties, it's free), but with Denver's own core of impact youngsters approaching free agency over the next few years the chances of the team splurging on an elite free agent are about as slim as Callista Flockhart on a crash diet. Don't get your hopes up.
Unless Mike Shanahan wants to go to the well yet again for more retreads, that leaves the draft. The place where we've thrown good picks after bad trying to fix the problem over the years. Further complicating the issue is the fact that this doesn't exactly look like a bumper crop of defensive linemen. And don't forget that even if you do get a good one, they often take years to develop into real contributors. So, do we cross our fingers and throw more high picks at the issue while ignoring our other needs? Bring in some mid-level free agents and hope it's enough? Hold a séance and try to channel the spirit of Reggie White? Or do we simply throw up our hands, admit defeat and devote our energies to building a team that can win in other ways?
I hope not. If we ever want to be the type of elite team that can contend for the Super Bowl on a regular basis, at some point we’re going to have to figure this out. These are the problems facing us. They are guarding all the doors, they are holding all the keys, which means that sooner or later someone is going to have to fight them. So, anybody got any bright ideas?