Thread: You Better Win J-MAC

Armstrong: Gosh, Josh, you had better win

By Jim Armstrong
The Denver Post
Posted: 03/26/2009 12:30:00 AM MDT
Updated: 03/26/2009 12:32:48 AM MDT


At the risk of telling you something you already knew, the Broncos have produced more than their share of soap operas through the years.
Daryl Gardener punching out a Waffle House patron. Gerald Perry impersonating a cop.

Rick Massie's fear of flying. The adventures of Brian Griese and his faithful dog, Bella. Big-name veterans walking past picket lines during the 1987 strike. Jake Plummer's ambidextrous exploits on the field. And, of course, John Elway vs. Dan Reeves, the grandaddy of all Broncos soap operas.
Until now.

Never have we seen the likes of the Jay Cutler-Josh McDaniels spat. Not when you factor in the part about McDaniels having only been on the job for a couple of months. So much for that honeymoon period, J-Mac. If these two are already going at it, how are they supposed to co-exist five years from now?

Of course, we don't know if, to put it in Joshspeak, the coach or the player will be around in five years. But there is one thing you can be sure of: McDaniels' only way out of this mess is to win and be quick about it. Take it from Reeves, who once went to war with his quarterback.

"Believe me, there's so much pressure on a coach to win," Reeves said. "I don't care if you're 32 or 52, the pressure is there and you have to deal with that. And that's under normal circumstances. I think he's a really good coach and, if given the chance, he can be a really good head coach. But he's certainly off to a rocky start."

McDaniels basically has painted himself into a corner. Seldom if ever has a rookie head coach been under the kind of pressure he must be feeling. Until further notice, he'll be viewed with a cynical eye by media, fans and, for all we know, a certain owner who hired him.

If he loses, like all those Bill Belichick disciples before him, he already has written his coaching obit in Denver. Essentially, it would say that he came in and screwed everything up. He infuriated his quarterback, alienated part of the Broncos' fan base and didn't get the job on the field.

Ah, but if he wins . . .
Then there's peace in the Valley of the Dove. Whether Cutler is here or not, everything works out and everyone is happy. You know the drill. The spin doctors will say it was all a big misunderstanding. It was blown out of proportion by the media.

It was all about selling newspapers and getting ratings, not telling the truth.
So how will it play out in the end? I have no idea, but it sure is going to be interesting to watch.

Pretty spot on...

Although I wonder how things would have played out in the media with John and Reeves if the media was the same then...

Thanks for the post.

I think the last paragraph speaks about 90 of the issue ratings ad vertising and the rush to get the scoop.

Mistakes happen, I just hope he's big enough to learn from this.. If he is he will come out of this a better coach..

He is a rookie and I think sometimes people forget that.. Sure he is supposed to be a leader of men and we expect him to be qualified for the job. But we forgive rookie players for making mistakes, I think the fans will forgive him as long as he's man enough to do whatever it takes to fix his mistake..

Originally Posted by LordTrychon

Pretty spot on...

Although I wonder how things would have played out in the media with John and Reeves if the media was the same then...

Thanks for the post.

Ain't that the truth ....................

It's only in the last ten years or so I've been able to listen to every game/press conference and read the local press..................

It's only the last five years that I've been able to watch them all.....................

24 hour, negative spin media community

Hell, last year I got a book of Drew Litton's cartoon's on Elway's career..................some of them were....................brutal

Originally Posted by LordTrychon

Pretty spot on...

Although I wonder how things would have played out in the media with John and Reeves if the media was the same then...

Thanks for the post.

Yeah I think a lot of the greats would have looked less great in the information age.

Nothing goes unseen and reported now days. I was reading an article in the San Fran paper about this situation.. 20 years ago that simply wouldn't have happened.

Because of all the available information, the majority of the fans today are more educated on the game then they were back then. Therefore there are more people looking over your shoulder and pointing out your mistakes, not to mention there are more fans in general.

I can see McD being taken to the Colorado border if a trade does happen (I don't think it will but if), and they have a losing season. The fans will ask for his head!

I don't agree with the article.

Even with the debacle that's going on that makes both Cutler and McDaniels look bad, I don't want to lose a potential good coach because he "blew up" an average organization over a 3 year span.

We don't know if he can coach yet, but the decisions he's made to make the entire organization stronger is already significantly better than Shanahan's approach of building the offense and then patchworking the rest of the team, which clearly didn't work.

He was not hired to win right away. He was hired to build a lasting organization that competes for SuperBowls on a yearly basis, not playoffs.

If it doesn't work with McDaniels, then we're right back where we were in January. No where with an average football team.

Every coach is hired to win right away.

All Broncos fans wanted out of the deal was a new defense.

Don't assume that Denver is suddenly going to become a patient town because of McDaniels. He hasn't done anything as a head coach--or here in Denver.

That's just reality. McDaniels has to turn the team around in the next couple of seasons. With or without the Cutler drama, people are expecting McDaniels to fix the defense and win.

Originally Posted by bud

Every coach is hired to win right away.

All Broncos fans wanted out of the deal was a new defense.

Don't assume that Denver is suddenly going to become a patient town because of McDaniels. He hasn't done anything as a head coach--or here in Denver.

That's just reality. McDaniels has to turn the team around in the next couple of seasons. With or without the Cutler drama, people are expecting McDaniels to fix the defense and win.

If Bowlen wanted to immediately win, he wouldn't have hired a 32 year old offensive coordinator.

I'm not saying he's going to get 2-3 years to rebuild, but Bowlen isn't going to fire him after this next season regardless of how the team does.

Originally Posted by silkamilkamonico

If Bowlen wanted to immediately win, he wouldn't have hired a 32 year old offensive coordinator.

I'm not saying he ist going to get 2-3 years to rebuild, but Bowlen isn't going to fire him after this next season regardless of how the team does.

I disagree.

Disaster could end McDaniels' days in Denver before he even gets started.

He needs to show improvement this year. If the Broncos win less than six games, fall apart on offense, and don't improve the defense--McDaniels will be on the hot seat.

He's got to give a reason to believe.

Originally Posted by bud

I disagree.

Disaster could end McDaniels' days in Denver before he even gets started.

He needs to show improvement this year. If the Broncos win less than six games, fall apart on offense, and don't improve the defense--McDaniels will be on the hot seat.

He's got to give a reason to believe.

The improvement he needs to show will be staying competitive, not winning and losing.

If Shanahan can have underachieving years consistently, coupled with the yearly blowouts to pi$$ poor teams, I don't see why anyone needs to come in and be immediately better, especially considering the terrible state of the organization Shanahan left it in.

Originally Posted by silkamilkamonico

If Bowlen wanted to immediately win, he wouldn't have hired a 32 year old offensive coordinator.

I'm not saying he's going to get 2-3 years to rebuild, but Bowlen isn't going to fire him after this next season regardless of how the team does.

Actually, Bowlen mindset in his previous interviews is that he's always looking to win the superbowl each year. Maybe someone can find a link to that article. He won't be content with the Herm Edwards approach; that's just not his philosophy. That's why Shanahan fit his ideology for so many years, because Shanahan thinks the same way.

McDaniels expects to win right away, and that is his selling point to veterans he tries to get this offseason. Again, there's a link for that too, where a veteran (maybe Dawkins) said that was the selling point of going to Denver.

I'm pretty sure Bowlen expects and believes McDaniels can win right away; by what McDaniels has been saying when he tries to get veteran FAs, he probably believes that too. At the same time, though, no way will Bowlen fire him in the unlikelihood that McDaniels has a bad 1st season.

Originally Posted by silkamilkamonico

The improvement he needs to show will be staying competitive, not winning and losing.

If Shanahan can have underachieving years consistently, coupled with the yearly blowouts to pi$$ poor teams, I don't see why anyone needs to come in and be immediately better, especially considering the terrible state of the organization Shanahan left it in.

That's the thing.........................too many times over the last few years, when things haven't been going well, the heads start to drop and any appearance of heart, orginisation and desire's gone out of the window................

Originally Posted by Den21vsBal19

That's the thing.........................too many times over the last few years, when things haven't been going well, the heads start to drop and any appearance of heart, orginisation and desire's gone out of the window................

That's what I'll be looking for.

Can McDaniels field a team that is resilient enough to want to play hard and stay in games. If so there's no reason to think he can't be successful once he gets his players for his system.

If not, well I'm not sure what's going on with the near future of the organization.