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Former Denver Broncos general manager Ted Sundquist wrote an interesting piece about what led to the Broncos’ decision to trade up in the 2006 draft to select Jay Cutler.

There’s some good insight, particularly when Sundquist shares his first-hand knowledge about what the Broncos looked at and how the pieces fell into place. One item Sundquist mentions is really worth considering.

Enter Mike Heimerdinger. Dinger was a longtime friend and college roommate of Mike Shanahan’s and had previously been in Denver as wide receivers coach from 1995 to 1999. We brought him back as assistant head coach in late January 2006, about three months before the draft.

…

He immediately began lobbying for Cutler.

There’s more on top of that, but I’ll let you read the piece. I will, however, present a “what if” scenario for everyone to consider, while keeping in mind that, sadly, Heimerdinger passed away in 2011 after a battle with cancer.

WHAT IF… Mike Heimerdinger had not left the Broncos after two seasons and, after Mike Shanahan’s dismissal, been interviewed by Pat Bowlen and subsequently got the head coaching job?

Lost in all the talk about the Broncos great defense and sluggish offense is the third area of importance to any NFL team: Special teams.

In my rankings yesterday, I wondered why certain teams ranked low in Football Outsiders DVOA rankings for special teams. FO has a detailed breakdown of special teams and what they look for in each area.

To summarize, FO compares how each team does compared to the league average for all 32 teams. You can follow the link above for detailed explanations, but there are a few things that are worth keeping in mind.
Continue reading So How Are The Broncos Special Teams Faring?

OK, this time around, the Not-So-Scientific rankings are running late. Andrew Mason’s power rankings came out late, so these were delayed, too.

This go-around, I’m using five rankings, taking a suggestion made last week to include another. The rankings are, in order, and with links provided:

* Pro Football Focus power rankings

* Pro Football Reference Simple Ranking System

* Football Outsiders DVOA Rating

* Five-Thirty-Eight ELO Playoff Probability Rankings

* Andrew Mason’s power rankings

In some cases, when you look at the numbers, you will no doubt find some that don’t make sense. Again, that just demonstrates that everyone’s ranking system looks at different criteria, and my exercise is to see if I can illustrate a clearer picture.
Continue reading The Not-So-Scientific Team Rankings, Week 6

Good news for Kapri Bibbs fans: He cleared waivers and is back on the Broncos practice squad.

And the Broncos aren’t done trying out players. Most of the players in the list Nicki Jhabvala shared are likely looked at as practice squad candidates or players to sign to future contracts after the season.

The Broncos tried out these 10 players Tuesday: pic.twitter.com/DzV8xMdNmh

— Nicki Jhabvala (@NickiJhabvala) October 21, 2015

Football Outsiders’ Scott Kacsmar has his weekly Clutch Encounters column up, in which he discusses observations about Week 6, and he does discuss the Broncos’ win over the Browns.

I direct you to it, though, for what else he has to say, particularly about the Seattle Seahawks. Considers this tweet he shared.

This play is basically the difference between Seattle being known as an almost dynasty vs. NFL's biggest chokers pic.twitter.com/RGdk2g8gTX

— Scott Kacsmar (@FO_ScottKacsmar) October 20, 2015

Read Kacsmar’s column to understand why he said this. It’s an interesting observation that begs the question as to whether that Seattle Super Bowl really was the sign of a dynasty in the making.

Hello Bronco fans! There’s been a lot of activity here at Thin Air and, regardless of where anyone stands, it’s great we can have lively yet civil discussion about the Broncos. And considering they are 6-0 and feature a top-three defense but have plenty of issues on offense, there’s been plenty to discuss.

I’m a bit early with this edition of Midweek Musings because there are a few things that need to be understood with regards to what decisions the Broncos had to make this offseason and what the Broncos need to focus on now that they are six games into the season.

A lot has been discussed about Peyton Manning for obvious reasons. I do want to touch briefly on a couple of items, though, that would not necessarily have been solved by saying goodbye to Manning during the offseason.
Continue reading Midweek Musings: OMG QB Controversy~!

You smell that? That’s the smell of 6-0, or your own farts. One of the two, or both. The media still can’t stop talking about how horrible our offense is. Yet, we had 21 first downs, 36:44 of possession, and 442 total yards. Sure, you could talk about how poor the Browns defense has been this year, but I like to focus on the positives. Our defense made a clutch stop at the end of the 4th quarter and in overtime, while the offense made a clutch win. You can’t ignore that the offense traveled 72 yards in the final series of the game to setup the game-winning field goal. Moving on…

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

Injuries that Denver Broncos players suffered against the Cleveland Browns were not serious, although Shane Ray will miss a couple of weeks.

OLB Shane Ray’s knee injury was not as severe as initially feared. Kubiak confirmed that Ray suffered a sprained medial collateral ligament in his right knee in the second quarter.

Ray will miss some game action as a result of the injury, since MCL sprains usually require a multi-week recovery.

Lerentee McCray is expected to see more snaps and Kenny Anunike could see time at OLB as well.

Emmanuel Sanders and Corey Nelson are considered day to day with a shoulder and a knee injury, respectively.

According to the Broncos official site, Kapri Bibbs was waived and TE Richard Gordon, which was just released over the weekend, has been re-signed to the roster.

Continue reading RB Kapri Bibbs waived; TE Richard Gordon re-signed

Via Ian Rapoport:

The NFL announced today that it will conduct public hearings later this month in Oakland, St. Louis, and San Diego as part of the league’s procedures for evaluating possible franchise relocations.  The hearings will take place on October 27 (St. Louis), October 28 (San Diego) and October 29 (Oakland).

The purpose of these hearings is to provide an opportunity for fans and others in the community to ask questions and express their views directly to the NFL before any decisions are made about potential relocation of a club or clubs from a current market. Members of Commissioner Goodell’s executive staff will be in attendance to listen to comments and answer questions from the audience.

If you’ve ever watched John Oliver’s takedown of stadium financing boondoggles, the portion starting at 13:52 is highly relevant to how I think this will go down.  Rapaport also says these hearings will be streamed live.  If so, October 29 should be some must-see streaming, because, although Raiders fans are typically lacking in many types of characteristics, one area that they decidedly don’t lack in is passion.