Alright, we’ll start with the game I guess. It was disappointing. I think most of the people surrounding the team and most of the fans were very disappointed in the game in Indy. There’s a lot of things that we need to work on and improve upon. While we are disappointed, we are not discouraged for the rest of the season. We’re only a quarter of the way through the regular season and we’re 2-2, so we’re pretty optimistic about the rest of the season to come and hopefully the fans can get behind us. I appreciate all the fans who left supportive responses about team and myself, and the fans who aren’t so supportive, it’s OK, I understand, I guess. But we will be getting on track real soon.
I think we have a lot of talent, a lot of good players, a lot of proven players and a lot of proven coaches. Combine that with the amount of effort that we give on the field and the accountability that each player has on the team, and I think we are a recipe for a very successful team. I think accountability is one of the things that’s most important. There’s been a lot of mistakes made so far in the season, but one of the good things about it is there’s not any finger-pointing, which is something that goes on in teams that aren’t successful and teams that eventually implode. But people here are taking responsibility for their mistakes and improving upon them. If everyone improves and tries to correct their own mistakes, it helps us all as a team to play better and eliminate our mistakes.
I’d say one of the things right now we’re really lacking and we’re working on is just experience with each other. We have a lot of league experience, but this is the first time for a lot of us working together, and that type of experience and continuity is very valuable. I’d say comparing us to some of the teams who are really successful right now in the NFL, that’s the major difference. A lot of their players have been able to stay together for a long time and build a level of continuity, understanding and trust out there on the field. While we trust each other and we’ve been working together, we’ve had a lot of changes. We have a new defensive coordinator who has been extremely successful in the league throughout the years. We have pretty much an all-new linebacking corps, even with D.J. Williams switching positions. Our D-line is almost entirely new, full of rookies and free-agent signings, and we’ve added a brand-new corner in Dre’ Bly. We’ve added a ton of talent, but just the continuity in working together is something we need to improve upon and just be able to trust that each other is going to be where we need to be on particular plays.
So like I said, we fully expected to win the game against the Colts, but we didn’t. We’re looking forward to another opportunity to play this weekend against the San Diego Chargers. It should be a really intense game because it appears they are also a very talented team that’s not living up to their own expectations right now. I’m sure they’re going to come out playing as hard as they possibly can, just as we are, to try to get that win.
Despite our rocky start, we’re still in a great situation. We’re tied for the lead in our division going into a division game against the very talented, defending AFC West champion San Diego Chargers. While we’re disappointed in a lot of things and working on improving a lot of things, we still have ourselves in a great position to make a push when all our pieces start to operate a lot better and work well together. We’re all excited about entering the second quarter of the season and growing as a team and starting to play better and better together.
Last week I was filling in for John Lynch, as everybody may or may not know. I’m kind of a utility guy in our secondary. If anyone goes down, I go in at all positions — safety, corner, whatever. So last week I filled in for John at free safety. I have two sets of pads that I take to every game, and so last week I had to take my safety pads, which are a little bigger, because the first time last season I had to fill in at safety was against the Seahawks, and hitting Shaun Alexander with the small, flimsy corner pads, I paid for that for weeks to come. My shoulders were numb and I got stingers, it was painful. Nick Ferguson came up and told me I needed to change to his pads, so he got me a pair of the pads that he uses, and since then I carry both pads to every game. In the preseason, sometimes I had to go from corner one series to safety the next, and our fabulous equipment staff was able to take care of that and switch pads in between series. Fortunately last game I was just at one position, safety, and put on the big pads and had to bang heads several times with Joseph Addai who is a big, tough runner. There’s always pain in a football game, but fortunately it wasn’t as bad, thanks to Nick Ferguson’s shoulder pads.
Against the urging of the Blog Master, I decided to liven up the blog a little last week and talk politics. I’m glad a lot of people responded. It was fun, so I’ll just respond to those comments and we’ll stay off of politics. I found a new subject to throw in and liven it up in weeks to come. I think we’ll talk about how great the Rockies are. I can add that in instead of politics from here on out.
But just to address some of the things that people said. I remember a few people relating Ahmadinejad to Hitler and said that was the reason why he shouldn’t be allowed in the country and we shouldn’t have listened to him speak and we shouldn’t have asked him questions and shouldn’t have had him anywhere near the United States, just because of the things he’s been accused of and he’s responsible for and the hate that he has, all those things. People have related him to Hitler and said that we never had those type of conversations or introductions to the country with Hitler, and I think that’s all the more reason why we should have him here and talk to people like that. Ignoring and isolating someone with that much hate and that much power is definitely not a good idea, as we learned from Hitler. We isolated him and ignored him until we couldn’t anymore and ended up in a World War. I think communication is definitely a step in the direction of avoiding that. I think a lot of times in politics and life in general, people should try to look at other ways to defuse issues other than ignoring and destroying, which seems to be the way that a lot of countries try to approach issues — just act like it doesn’t exist until it gets big enough that you can’t ignore it, and then you go to war and a lot of people die. There are definitely other ways to go about it, and I think having an open dialogue, even though that guy is responsible for a lot of horrible things, allows us to get into his head and at least gives us the opportunity to understand where he’s coming from and have a communication and try to avoid things like that.
Also, I made the point that an oppressed group has never been freed from its oppression without the groundswell support coming from that oppressed group itself. I think someone replied with the Civil War as an example and the slaves being freed. That’s something that I really disagree with. I’m not sure exactly, but I’m pretty sure most historians would agree that the Civil War was more about economic differences more than it was about moral differences between the North and the South. Even in the North where most of the laws were created, African Americans were considered less than the value of an entire man. So I find it hard to believe that the President at the time, Abraham Lincoln, was willing to sacrifice thousands of American troops in order to free people that they believed were not full people. As support to my opinion that an oppressed group is never really freed until the drive for freedom comes from the people, the Civil War ended in 1865, which was followed by the Emancipation Proclamation, which technically freed the slaves. But it took about 100 years for the Civil Rights movement to start, which was definitely a push by the people who were being oppressed. That’s when, I believe, African Americans truly began to get some freedoms, and while this world isn’t perfect and never will be, the Civil Rights movement was the very first time where things started to change and Black Americans began to at least legally have the same rights as individuals. I don’t know, but to think of the Civil War as a moral war just doesn’t make sense to me, because even after the Civil War it still took 100-plus years for laws to even be aligned so that Blacks were treated the same. So I guess I think of the Civil Rights movement more as that drive than I do the Civil War. For those who are bored by my politics and opinions on things like that, I apologize. We’re definitely going to move away from that in the future weeks.
Now to the Rockies. As I said last week, I try to follow all Colorado sports, and I think everybody in Denver and all of Colorado is really excited about what the Rockies have been able to do. From the Broncos, we’d like to wish them good luck. I hope everybody is following them and supporting them as well as you guys support us.
Also, there were some big wins in college football this past weekend. The University of Colorado had a huge win over No. 4 Oklahoma. My Maryland Terrapins knocked off No. 10 Rutgers. It was a really exciting weekend in Colorado sports.
As always, I’ve been having busy weeks in-season. Monday we had to come in and run and lift and watch film to correct our mistakes from the week prior. From there I went downtown to the Sports Column to do the live radio show, which was great because of the atmosphere surrounding the baseball game. There was a lot of enthusiasm and it was a lot of fun to be down there. I fielded some calls and tried to answer questions from some disappointed Broncos fans as diplomatically as I could, which was interesting and fun and exciting. I definitely appreciate all the support and just the wide fan base that we have. From there I drove down to John Lynch’s show, where CollegeInColorado.org was kind enough to bring about 15 or 20 kids from the Boys and Girls Club down to Old Chicago where John films his show. So I drove down there and met them and Elvis Dumervil was the guest. So I just laid back and hung out with the kids and had a good time. I signed a few autographs and the kids really enjoyed themselves. Elvis, like I’ve been saying just about every week, has been playing amazing and we’re fortunate to have that type of player on our defensive line. I look forward to John recovering and getting back on the field. He’s definitely an important part of this defense.
Anyway, tonight I’m going to the Boys and Girls Club for the writing group that we have every Tuesday. I don’t know if everyone’s heard, but we’ve raised enough money to build the Darrent Williams Teen Center. Now we just need to navigate through all the red tape and bureaucracy that comes with using city funds, because the city granted us a generous amount. So we have reached our goal. Our next goal I think is to build a gym, but we need to get the Teen Center up first. So we’re very proud of that and the kids at the Boys and Girls Club are very excited about building the Teen Center. I can’t wait till we actually break ground on that.
As for my fellow bloggers, Keela was actually the guest cheerleader at John Lynch’s show. As always, go check her blog out and tell her how well she did. I really didn’t get to watch the show because I was with the kids, but I’m hoping she did well. If she stuttered or something, feel free to tell her to stop stuttering.
And Andrew Mason, our favorite guy with the funny picture, managed to miss the team charter to Indy, which is awfully hilarious. I don’t know what he was doing, I guess maybe he was writing another one of his 12 blogs per week and ended up being late. Now this coming week he’s going to give you all this information on the Broncos, so please request that he explains why he was late. So then Andrew had to purchase his own ticket to Indy, and he managed, somehow, to make the charter back. Thanks for gracing us with your presence, Andrew. You’re too cool to fly with the team.
I had a fan come up to me on Monday randomly and ask me how I found time to do everything that I do with the community and be as busy as I am. I don’t have a wife and kids and all those wonderful things that everyone has to occupy their time, so that’s what I fill that time with now. It’s pretty cool, slightly exciting, that people want to know what I’m doing. So I guess that the hundreds of kids at the Boys and Girls Club have kind of become my kids. I definitely love all of them and am interested in them being successful, so we’ll end the blog on a positive note. We’re all looking forward to the game this week, I hope everyone else is also, and I hope Broncos Country and the 12th man show up strong for the game. Thanks everybody for the support. All Ready.
Tags: Boys and Girls Club, College in Colorado, Colorado Rockies, Elvis Dumervil, John Lynch, Nick Ferguson, Politics, Radio show, Teen Center
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