Month: December 2016

Why You Can’t Always Count On Trades

I’m planning to get something up later in the week about where things stand with the current Broncos roster and what to consider about an offseason plan, but I wanted to get another topic out of the way first.

That deals with one of the means of acquiring players: Trades.

When one puts together an offseason game plan, you first need to ask yourself which pending unrestricted free agents of your own should be re-signed, which restricted free agents should be tendered and at what level (regarding exclusive rights FAs, they are almost always tendered because there’s no risk to do so) and which players must be cut for performance reasons, cap reasons or both. Once you have those in mind, you consider how to fill holes through, in order, the draft, free agency and trades.
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Midweek Musings: Broncos Philosophy Isn’t The Problem

In recent days, there’s been plenty of discussion about what the Broncos need to do down the stretch and whether or not Gary Kubiak isn’t being flexible enough with his offensive schemes.

Some of this seems to go back to the thought process surrounding coaches who strongly believe in their schemes but didn’t have success in recent years and that this must mean that a “scheme trumps talent” mindset doesn’t work. Then we hear about coaches who “adjust their schemes to fit talent” and see them win and we think that’s the answer to the Broncos’ problems.

I know somebody brought up a couple of weeks ago an article that our good friend Ted Bartlett wrote about differences between coaching philosophies, with those who believe “talent trumps scheme” and those who believe “scheme trumps talent.” I know Bartlett used the former to describe John Fox and the latter to describe Mike Shanahan and Josh McDaniels. It’s easy to say that because the latter two did not succeed in their most recent years as head coaches that “talent trumps scheme” doesn’t work, but I don’t believe that was Bartlett’s point. If it was, the likes of Bill Belichick and Andy Reid wouldn’t be having success.

Now, I know what some will say about Belichick and Reid, but the truth is they do subscribe to the “scheme trumps talent” philosophy. They are willing to adapt, but not in the ways you think they do. In order to understand the two philosophies, you need to take a deeper look at what they are really about and what they really require.
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