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From Albert Breer this speculation.

Most believe Peyton Manning will hang ’em up after this season. Well, there’s also a widely held assumption in NFL circles that — with all the turnover expected to come across the league in January — Manning could well re-emerge as a leading executive in 2016.

The most obvious parallel is Peyton’s current boss John Elway. What Elway did, stepping in as head football operations executive with no previous NFL front office experience and being immediately successful, is pretty remarkable. Elway had the benefit of an existing front office infrastructure in place and an existing GM who was willing to take a subservient role. Peyton would need a similar scenario to have a good chance of success. What is certain is that Manning would instantly go from being one of the oldest and physically weakest players in the league to one of the youngest and fittest high ranking executives.

In other news, Peyton’s ribs are now injured too.

The Broncos injury report lists Peyton Manning as limited for Thursday’s practice. While Manning has frequently missed Wednesday practices this season, this is the first time he has been reported as limited on Thursday. The Denver Post reported positive news for his status based on the portion of practice open to the media.

Quarterback Peyton Manning returned to Broncos’ practice Thursday and did not appear to be limited by a right foot injury that kept him out of Wednesday’s session.

Manning moved well on three- and five-step dropbacks not showing any favoring to either of his legs.

However, some of head coach Gary Kubiak’s comments were more equivocal:

Continue reading Peyton Manning injury status more significant UPDATE: Manning probable, Sanders questionable

We know that Peyton Manning will break the yardage record this Sunday against Kansas City. Mike Tanier talks about Peyton and other quarterbacks who were known for putting up numbers but all shared a similar trait.

They lacked what so many people want to declare is the be-all, end-all of what makes for the greatest quarterback of all time: RINGZ.

Manning has coped with a weird denier movement for his whole career, and not just from Patriots fans. Manning bashing practically spawned an industry. Modern media sports coverage—midday talk shows, blogs, comment-thread arguments, Bleacher Report—all grew up around the conceit of tacking Manning, the top draft pick with the famous name and gaudy stats who couldn’t even win the big game in college, to the ceiling like a pinata and taking lazy swings to knock him down as “overrated.” Manning provided the template for how we treat everyone from Jameis Winston to LeBron James, making the job easy by falling just short enough just often enough to keep the fire perpetually stoked.

Just remember, Broncos fans: Regardless of what happens this season, know how lucky you’ve been to had one of the all-time greats on your favorite team, and that the Broncos will eventually become one of those teams to have had two Hall of Fame quarterbacks take snaps for them.

Robert Klemko at SI.com has a good read about Denver Broncos LB Shaq Barrett, discussing how he helped improve his performance, in large part, by changing his diet.

“In college I put sugar on my spaghetti or lasagna,” Barrett says, drawing out the ‘ah’ sound in ‘college’ in a manner specific to Baltimore’s inner city, where he grew up. “That’s why I have to stay away from pasta, because the only way I can eat it is with sugar.”

Ok, but how much sugar?

“I think I used to put like seven packs of sugar on spaghetti to make it taste edible.”

Oh no.

“Yes.”

Barrett’s high body fat (24 percent) may have been the reason why he went undrafted.

But if you want another reason to thank those who run the Denver Broncos, ensuring players got proper nutrition would be another one.

That Barrett landed on an NFL team with the proper resources to remedy his particular shortcoming was something of a dice roll. By Snyder’s count, only 12 teams have full-time dieticians on staff (the group meets at each combine, when schedules permit). When Snyder got the job in 2009, the Broncos put Snyder in a small office far away from the cafeteria and continued to outsource meals to local caterers for five years, until the team built a kitchen space and hired chefs during the 2014 season.

“Before we had our own kitchen, we would lose guys,” Snyder says. “By November, 10 or 15 guys would be getting fast food for lunch. This year I’ve only seen outside food brought in one time, and I think it was a make-the-rookie-go-get-food situation. The credit goes to [team president] Joe Ellis and [GM] John Elway and Mr. [Pat] Bowlen to free up the resources to do it right.”

My previous article covers my thoughts on the game, so let’s get right to it:

Continue reading Broncos at Colts: The 10 Things I Liked and the 10 Things I Didn’t

One would think with the Broncos sitting at 7-1, 2-0 in the division, and the Chiefs sitting at 3-5, that this week’s game at Mile High would be guaranteed a Broncos win, right?

Not so fast, folks.

No, this isn’t because the Broncos took a tough loss to the Indianapolis Colts. It’s because the Chiefs really aren’t that bad of a team and haven’t dropped off that much with the loss of Jamaal Charles for the season. Even if you took the Broncos’ weaknesses and made them strengths, the Chiefs are still in a position to challenge the Broncos because they are doing some things well.
Continue reading Midweek Musings: Don’t Look Past The Chiefs

Jason Fitzgerald projects contracts that quarterbacks set to enter free agency in 2016 are likely to get. One name should be familiar to Bronco fans.

Brock Osweiler, Broncos
…
Ryan Mallet signed for $3.5 million last season and Chase Daniel, who simply backed up Drew Brees for a few years, signed for $3.3 million so it would seem to make sense to slot Osweiler in that same range. Like those players he would probably land in a similar situation which is in a competition for a starting job on a bad team or backing up a veteran. If he can only land a backup job, sticking in Denver would probably be the best long term choice, provided they will allow him to start once Manning hangs it up.

There is, of course, another consideration: What if Peyton Manning retires after this season? Osweiler could re-sign and be named the starter.

Also of note are the veteran backups who won’t command a lot of money but will be looking for work. Matt Schaub is on the list and he knows Gary Kubiak’s system, but Drew Stanton could be an intriguing option if he doesn’t re-sign with Arizona.

Here are this week’s Not So Scientific Rankings. Following the rankings, you will have my insight on who I see as the best candidate at this point for the year-end awards. Regarding those awards, I see one in which a candidate is starting to pull away, and one in which it’s really a two-person race, but the others have quite a few worthy candidates, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see disagreement.

I group the teams within categories, noting which teams are bordering on moving up into a higher category or falling into a lower one. But it’s becoming clear who are the playoff favorites and who has the best chance of reaching the Super Bowl.
Continue reading The NSS Rankings And My Midseason Award Picks

From a football knowledge standpoint this film study with Joe Thomas is gold.

If you’re the least bit curious about offensive line play, a conversation with Thomas is like a personal Ted Talk.

From a Broncos fan perspective it makes one think of what might have been. When the potential trade was being discussed someone asked about Thomas’ experience and ability in a zone scheme. This answers that pretty well and explains the strong interest from the Broncos. In fact, Thomas specifically mentions Kubiak and Shanahan when discussing scheme.

From a Browns fan perspective, how maddened must it have been to see Thomas go on the block? How angry would we have been if McDaniels had tried to trade Clady or Bailey when the 2010 season started to go bad?