Thread: Locker Room Finally Fractures

The defense did their part, the offense, coaching and even Elway didn't. The OL has been garbage for two years now, this should have been addressed. The play calling was awful and Kubes fielding Norwood should cost him his job. Inexcusable.

Originally Posted by broncofaninfla

The defense did their part, the offense, coaching and even Elway didn't. The OL has been garbage for two years now, this should have been addressed. The play calling was awful and Kubes fielding Norwood should cost him his job. Inexcusable.

They attempted to address it. It just didn't work. Okung and Stephenson were both signed to help the OL and they are both under performing right along side the other OL that are playing terrible. Our RT position is trash right now, nobody we put in at that position has played better than Schofield did last year.

Originally Posted by gregbroncs

They attempted to address it. It just didn't work. Okung and Stephenson were both signed to help the OL and they are both under performing right along side the other OL that are playing terrible. Our RT position is trash right now, nobody we put in at that position has played better than Schofield did last year.

May be time to start looking at the system/coaches, playcalling, things around those players. Hopefully something is at least done about the coaches "teaching" them everyday.

Originally Posted by tripp

O-line was garbage last year too, I suspect the only thing that stopped the defense from snapping last year was the fact that Peyton Manning was in the locker room. We lack leadership on Offense. DT will never be the leader of the Offense, that's not who he is. Trevor Siemian is too young and too inexperienced to be that guy. Offense is lost, and Kubiak has not solved the problem. Every week I think to myself, is this the week we find our offense and score 24+ pts? Nope, we retract.

This is what Stink was saying on 104.3 The Fan today "this would have happened last year except for the awesome respect due to Peyton Manning." Last year Peyton was the unquestioned leader of the team. Everybody knew he wasn't producing because he was injured, but he was an obvious Hall of Famer career, only 2 years removed from setting all the NFL Passing records and taking the team to the SB, so nobody could say anything.

There is nobody on this offense who can say that. There's no point even discussing it. Four of the five OL will be fired after the season. Just like last year. Just blow it up and start over. Maybe Matt Paradis sticks around because his performance is due to a hip injury he's toughing out. But, what was Russell Okung doing trying to address the team? Okung will be one of the January cuts. He essentially has a 1 year "prove it" deal and he proved he sucks - just like Chad Brown was saying in July.

Brown apparently worked with Seattle during the off-season and said Okung was beaten like a gong by Seattle defenders. That's why they let him walk rather than re-signing him.

"Max Garcia was awful yesterday. Just awful. Donald Stevenson was awful yesterday. Awful. They already took out the sacrificial lamb. They benched Stevenson, but it only empowered him. Last year you cold look at the OL and point your finger at Michael Schofield. But this year it's all four of them. They tried Ty Sambrailo at RG and he was terrible. Benching a guy as a motivation factor only works if you have someone behind him who can play better. But Stevenson can say "you want to bench me? What have you got behind me? I'm still your best option."

Matt Paradis looked like a 100 year old man out there. That dude can't walk. He literally cannot move with that hip injury. If you get on his edge you're gone. It's like when Randy Moss used to say "if you're even, I'm leavin'" If a defender gets to the edge on him, he's hitting the QB. And it shows you the lack of depth on OL this year." -- Stink

Originally Posted by Northman

Pretty much my feeling. No one has taken charge of that offense and normally QB is where you go to look but if that guy isnt that type of player than someone else needs to step up but i just dont see anyone on offense willing to be that guy.

Sounds like Okung was willing to be that guy until he got dealt with.

Originally Posted by silkamilkamonico

May be time to start looking at the system/coaches, playcalling, things around those players. Hopefully something is at least done about the coaches "teaching" them everyday.

Time to start?

We've been blaming the system/coaches/playcalling for two years.

Originally Posted by Jaded

Nobody wants to hear that passed (past?) the high school level, especially if it's coming from a position that is so thoroughly inept.

Btw, speaking of Okung, if you want a good laugh go watch the that holding call on him that put Denver in 2nd and 18 on the opening 3rd qtr drive. It's criminal to make that call, but such is NFL Officiating.

Especially when on the next series the Pats olineman had Sylvester Williams around the throat doing circles with him and they didn't call shit.

Originally Posted by Northman

Technically, Denver could win their 2 remaining games and still make the playoffs so not all hope is lost. Frankly, im surprised NE didnt beat us by a bigger margin but i can understand why the defense is a little more than frustrated at this point.

As critical as we are, yesterday was a completely winnable game against a SB-caliber team. If Denver could get its shit in a sock, the team has a puncher's shot at the title.

Originally Posted by GEM

Especially when on the next series the Pats olineman had Sylvester Williams around the throat doing circles with him and they didn't call shit.

Oh GEM, watch the replay of that game (I'm assuming you went to the game again), there were so many legitimate calls that went uncalled. The P*triots OL started holding the defenses by the collar, that's a new one, it'd be interesting to see if the Broncos would be called for that if they tried to copy it.

Miller got a holding call that was weak af, he gets far worse than that on every single play. I still can't find the defensive hold on Sylvester Williams. It's worth noting that most of these penalties on the OL negated big plays.

Originally Posted by Cugel

Okung will be one of the January cuts.

No he wont be.
As average as he has been for us there is NOT, repeated NOT ANYONE CLOSE on the market to his skill set. So if you think he sucks then be prepared to lube up your backside because all of the other LTs that are available are worse. By a lot. It is not even close. Okung is here to stay. Get used to it. We will probably draft an OT or two, but he will be retained.

Originally Posted by underrated29

No he wont be.
As average as he has been for us there is NOT, repeated NOT ANYONE CLOSE on the market to his skill set. So if you think he sucks then be prepared to lube up your backside because all of the other LTs that are available are worse. By a lot. It is not even close. Okung is here to stay. Get used to it. We will probably draft an OT or two, but he will be retained.

I hope you're right, he's not the problem.

Let's be honest about this problem, Broncos fans. The entire offense has simply not worked at all since mid way through the 2014 season. Since then they've blown up the offense, and substituted a run happy offense for the Peyton Manning Offense, then when that only led to a 1st round playoff loss to the Colts, they blew up the OL and started over, adding guys like Paradis, Schofield and Max Garcia. Last year the offense was pretty bad and a real drag on the defense.

The Broncos won the SB with great defense and virtually no offense at all. That kind of thing is non-sustainable as we're seeing this year. The defense isn't as good against the run as last year without Malik Jackson and Vance Walker. So, the offense would have to be substantially better for them to make a run at a playoff berth. And its worse, not better.

Then they blew up the OL again after the SB, dumping the entire starting week 1 OL.

Now the offense is worse than ever so they're going to have to do it all over again. Rebuild the OL from scratch for the 3rd year in a row.

On a normal team they would FIRE OC Rick Dennison and OL coach Clancy Barone. But those guys are Kubiak's friends, so he won't let them be fired. And they desperately need new talented coaches at those positions, because they aren't getting the job done.

In the NFL it's performance based. You can't have guys who can't do their jobs and yet can't get fired due to nepotism and being pals with the Head Coach.

underrated29
No he wont be.
As average as he has been for us there is NOT, repeated NOT ANYONE CLOSE on the market to his skill set. So if you think he sucks then be prepared to lube up your backside because all of the other LTs that are available are worse. By a lot. It is not even close. Okung is here to stay. Get used to it. We will probably draft an OT or two, but he will be retained.

I would say that you're right about everything you've said about Okung. My perspective was thinking about his contract. His contract was essentially a one-year, non-guaranteed contract, with some serious contract escalators for 2017 and subsequent years.

2017 Contract details by year: Base Salary: $2,000,000 Roster Bonus: $9,500,000 Option Bonus (automatic if the Broncos pick up his contract option for 2017): $200,000 Off-season workout bonus: $1,000,000 TOTAL: $11,700,000

[QUOTE]

The contract isn't guaranteed, so Okung could be cut loose. The team would prefer to keep him for lack of a better option as you say, but at $11,500,000 for 2017? That's elite LT money, and he hasn't played to remotely that level.

To give you a comparison, Hall of Fame LT Joe Thomas (who the Broncos refused to trade for when they could have) is making $9.5 million in 2016.

If he sticks around for all five years of the contract, Okung could earn $31 million in salary, $20 million in roster bonuses, $1 million with the 2016 workout bonus and another $1 million with the 2017 option.

The team is going to have to tell Okung that they are re-doing his deal to something more in line with his talent - which would be around $5-6 million, not $11 M.

How's he going to respond? If the Broncos decline to exercise their option and guarantee him $11M for 2017 he could walk.

He might stay and accept less $, but he might not. There are Broncos players who have left in FA rather than accept less $, even if they weren't worth the $ they were offered. Ryan Clady is a perfect example. He's getting $5,500,000 from the Jets for 2016, and that's all he's guaranteed. He would have gotten more than that in guarantees from the Broncos, but taking a huge pay cut was too humiliating for him so he walked. He would rather play for less $ for some other team than take a cut from the Broncos.

It's a pride thing. I was thinking Okung could well do the same thing. Hopefully not, but he could.

The Broncos could also bite the bullet and trade for a veteran OL, even if that means giving up a draft pick. They've tried drafting guys and it hasn't worked at all. Ty Sambrailo now looks like a busted pick.

[QUOTE=Cugel;2570550]I would say that you're right about everything you've said about Okung. My perspective was thinking about his contract. His contract was essentially a one-year, non-guaranteed contract, with some serious contract escalators for 2017 and subsequent years.

The contract isn't guaranteed, so Okung could be cut loose. The team would prefer to keep him for lack of a better option as you say, but at $11,500,000 for 2017? That's elite LT money, and he hasn't played to remotely that level.

To give you a comparison, Hall of Fame LT Joe Thomas (who the Broncos refused to trade for when they could have) is making $9.5 million in 2016.



The team is going to have to tell Okung that they are re-doing his deal to something more in line with his talent - which would be around $5-6 million, not $11 M.

How's he going to respond? If the Broncos decline to exercise their option and guarantee him $11M for 2017 he could walk.

He might stay and accept less $, but he might not. There are Broncos players who have left in FA rather than accept less $, even if they weren't worth the $ they were offered. Ryan Clady is a perfect example. He's getting $5,500,000 from the Jets for 2016, and that's all he's guaranteed. He would have gotten more than that in guarantees from the Broncos, but taking a huge pay cut was too humiliating for him so he walked. He would rather play for less $ for some other team than take a cut from the Broncos.

It's a pride thing. I was thinking Okung could well do the same thing. Hopefully not, but he could.

The Broncos could also bite the bullet and trade for a veteran OL, even if that means giving up a draft pick. They've tried drafting guys and it hasn't worked at all. Ty Sambrailo now looks like a busted pick.

I get you now.
Yes, the way I see it he will have to be paid less and I do not think any other team will pay him nearly close to what he thought/wanted when he did his deal. Id sure love Joe T!

I get you now.
Yes, the way I see it he will have to be paid less and I do not think any other team will pay him nearly close to what he thought/wanted when he did his deal. Id sure love Joe T!

You're right, no other team will pay Okung $11M, not after he sucked for the garbage Broncos OL. But, like Ryan Clady, he could well choose to walk. His deal was ridiculed by NFL Agents as being absurdly team-friendly. He didn't have an agent and negotiated his own deal - which had ZERO guaranteed money.

He was betting on his ability proving his worth to the Broncos, who would then pay him elite LT money like he wanted (and which Seattle refused to give him when his contract expired).

Well, will he accept that he's mediocre at best and that he's only worth about 1/2 the money he's due under his contract for 2017?

That is not automatic. He could very well decide to walk. After all, he came here to win championships, and the Denver Broncos look a LONG way from competing for a championship.

The team has an elite defense, but for how long? And how long will it take to get the offense straightened out?

We don't even know if Paxton Lynch is a quality NFL starting QB, let alone an elite QB who could lead this team to a SB. He might be a bust for all we know. I could barely stand watching him this season. Of course he could do much better with more experience, so we can't give up on him.

But, this could be a mult-year rebuilding effort for this offense. Who knows how long?