This is a very exciting moment in Denver Broncos history as John Fox takes the reins as head coach of the iconic Rocky Mountain sports franchise.
There is no team comparable to the Broncos in our time zone, and as one draws closer to Denver it is like heading into the epicenter of an emotional tsunami, with the Broncos figuratively representing the state religion for legions of Broncos Country residents.
The Broncos have achieved legendary status over the past 51 years, albeit in a legendary low ebb at this very time.
But with every negative comes a positive, and in this case it just happened that John Fox was available to bring his experience, energy and focus to the Mile High City.
He is the right man at the right time.
Much has been accurately written about the emphasis on defense, a strong running game, passionate play and sound coaching which John Fox’s teams historically have shown.
Those elements reminded me of when Red Miller came to Denver at the Broncos’ head coach back in 1977, for an era that soon would have its own name — the Orange Crush, a moniker founded on defense.
The Broncos at that time parlayed defensive play with a sound offense that ran the ball and did not make mistakes, adding in exceptional performance on special teams.
History was made in 1977, as every Broncos fan knows.
I am absolutely not suggesting that history will repeat itself in exactly that manner; not exactly, but Red Miller was the right man at the right time in 1977, and he was a veteran coach who emphasized strong defense and a sound offense that liked to run the ball. There are parallels, and another one will be the zest and energy level that fans will soon see from John Fox.
The words of Heraclitus always ring true. Heraclitus was an ancient philosopher who said, “No man can step in the same river twice, because the second time, the river is not the same and neither is the man.”
Those words apply just as aptly to a city and to a football team and to the fans who follow and love that team.
It is not the same time, the same thing all over again, but it might be closer than people think.
History has so many instances in which the past presages the future, and the opportunity for another one may be upon us as the Denver Broncos enter the John Fox era.
Tags: 2011, Head Coach John Fox, Jim Saccomano, Red Miller
I take that back. Tebow is the last guy I’d want to trade. I’d trade Champ first. That’s all I’m gonna say about that.
Where did the notion of trading Lloyd come from? I can see trading Orton, maybe put a franchise tag on Champ and trade him (but preferably re-sign him), trade Haggan (although I doubt he’d get much value), and trade Hill. But not Lloyd. By the way, Mora announced he was withdrawing his name from all coaching jobs: http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/page/Jay-Glazer-NFL-insider-NFL-on-FOX-Glazers-Edge
Bay must be happy.
Yep now it’s official. No more debating over Mora!
Just saying I am reading! I agree with Bay why start a new Blog? This one is doing just fine!
FTR
Well I am wondering if our staff really wanted Mora or not?? It says on Denver Post that Mora left without an offer so I wonder if we really wanted him since we didn’t give him an offer?
Also, do you think that we will wait now and see if we can get the guy from the Packers?? I think he is the most eligible one right now.
Man you get off here for a few hours and come back it takes forever to catch back up.
B&R if we trade a couple of WRs (Gaffney and Lloyd are my choice) we still are stacked at that position,Royal,Thomas,Decker,Willis,just saying.Why not take a little depth and trade it for positions of great need?
The only reason I said trade Lloyd is I think he’s a one year wonder,and with us going more to the run,we won’t use him nearly as often,and we have Royal,Willis, and Thomas,all are fast,and can stretch the field.
Just a thought.
Plus Lloyd might bring a 2nd round pick,we could draft a LB or Safety.
If anyone has like 10 minutes to read this:Return of zone blocking.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=news&cd=10&ved=0CIgBEKkCMAk&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.milehighreport.com%2F2011%2F1%2F19%2F1943386%2Fdenver-broncos-the-return-of-zone-blocking&rct=j&q=denver%20broncos&ei=vKg3TaWGO4H6lweP0rnyBg&usg=AFQjCNF-q3rBGXkC362RgUvRxA_Dg37vIA&cad=rja
That was a nice article BFE. It explains the zone blocking scheme in a way that’s easy to understand. Kinda makes you wonder why any team still uses power blocking.
It’s crazy that the Broncos were in the top 10 in rushing yards 12 times during Shanny’s 14 years and never ranked lower than 12th during that span. Ah, the good old days… And to think McD gave that up for half a yard in a cloud of dust. LOL.
Man I`ve been gone all day it seems like. It just took me a half hour to catch up. Skimming is more like it. I`m so glad that Mora is out of the picture. Thats a breath of fresh air.
Did anyone see this article yet?
http://www.denverpost.com/paige/ci_17132077
I think Paige is right on here. Like I’ve been thinking all along, the idea that Tebow is not the definite starter for next season is just plain ridiculous. Of course Fox and Elway aren’t going to come out and declare him the starter yet. But all this talk in the media about Orton or someone else being the starter next season while Tebow holds a clipboard is just a bunch of nonsense to create drama if you ask me. Elway and Bowlen picked Fox for a reason. He was the one experienced coach who not only believes in Tebow, but runs an offensive system that will fit Tebow perfectly.
88,great article and it makes complete sense!
I have been comparing Tebow to Young all season.
Giving Orton a chance to start is probably just a ploy to get a better draft pick!….shhhh.
Like Steve Young after drinking too much red bull, haha.
Im not big on trading proven talent for draft pick shot in the darks everyone knows this but BBR like BFE says, Brandon Lloyd was mentioned because his stock is the highest and we are stacked at the position. Sure its great to have depth but we can’t pass to all of them. I personally dont think he is a one year wonder, the guy has been making spectacular catches for years, just never the featured reciever. Now while he is not my favorite Brandon Reciever he has skills, and when we start pounding the rock, a deep threat like him can come in real handy and he is 29 but thats not that old…his great catches bailed Tebow out alot, Marshall was my choice as a Tebow safety blanket but Lloyd is doing a bang up job and we dont know How Demaryous Thomas will pan out…I would however trade Gafney in a heart beat. I like Decker alot too, and willis showed flashes of brilliance. This offseason can go either way, depends on who u ask…
Yeah,lol.
I think you’re right BFE. Probably the only reason they are doing the PC talk about the QB situation and not just declaring Tebow the starter is to drive up the interest in Orton so he’ll have better trade value. Good plan if you ask me.
Freaking Brilliant!
TRB,I agree Lloyd is a great WR,but if we trade a couple of WRs we have to pick and choose,Hell we probably won’t even do it,but to me Thomas is unproven and were not gonna get a good draft pick for him,same goes for Decker,unproven talent is just to risky to trade anyway,but if we could get a 2nd round pick for Lloyd,and Thomas and Decker pan out,we would be looking good,but if they don’t pan out,that would suck!
Agreed Gaffney is my 1st choice to deal! Royal I definitely would not!
Like I posted the other day,we need Elway,Fox,and Xman to evaluate the players before we decide to trade anyone,besides Orton,IMO.
“As an aside, Laurence Maroney was often criticized for “dancing” in the backfield rather than sprinting into the gaps. I’ve begun to wonder if this was as much due to the offensive line not being able to drive the defenders backwards and open the gaps as it was to his being a poor choice for a running back. If the man blocking system wasn’t working, there would have been no gap for him to run through and the dancing may have been an attempt to find a new hole, or to wait for one to open up. Just an after the fact point of curiosity.”
I mentioned that many times through the year, more for moreno than Maroney, he dances back there because he is trying to keep moving while waiting for a hole to develop, its a miracle he was able to avg 4.3 yrds a carry this season. Maroney has run under McD and Belichek, zone blockers…im not inclinded to give him a second chance like i am with moreno however..I like Moreno cuz he reminds me of TD…Just me. Nice article BFE…
I agree that lloyd stock is the highest, and BayBay has potential…so i understand the logic…its just a possibly bad situation…but i would probably deal lloyd for a second rounder if it were offered lol. As far as the Orton thing, yea i read an article about a week or so ago saying something similar, so as to drive up ortons stock…its brilliant but point less … orton isnt not starting for us because he sucks, orton is not starting for us because we have a young QB we believe and we want to go in that direction instead of the safe vet QB direction … im sure most out there understand this logic so making it look like Orton is competing for the job doesnt change much i think but it doesnt hurt…
They say Johnathan Stewart and DeAngelo williams were the first to have 2 1000 yard backs. Lets not forget we ourselves came very close…back in 2005, when we went to the AFC championship game, with the ORIGINAL, SMASH and DASH. Mike Anderson Smashed em, Tatum Dashed…I swear Tatum had like double digit 60 plus yard runs that year… A true homerun hitter…There used to be a video of Tatums season that year, with the music by fort minor “remember the name” but its long since been removed from youtube….that was a great year. Mike anderson had over 1000 and Tatum had about 921 because he only played 15 games… we were almost there, zone blocking rules…get ready for clady the monster to come back…
I agree that the depth of our receiving corp could give us some good draft stock. Where I disagree is that Lloyd is a “one year wonder.” he made so many circus catches this year, contorting his body, fooling recievers – I think he finally came into his own and lived up to his predraft hype. I’d also be against trading Decker and Demaryius until we see what they can do. Trading high draft picks for more draft picks seems to be a formula that leads to constant rebuilding without making progress, especially when we can never be certain how draft picks are gonna pan out. That leaves Gaffney, Royal and Willis. Gaffney seemed to have chemistry with Tebow and he’s a tough competitior – also he may not have a very trade stock. I just can’t bear to get rid of a guy as talented as Royal – find a way to use him! And all we know about Willis is what we saw in preseason. Granted what we saw is good but we have the dilema where a) teams may not give up much for him becaus they don’t know much about him and b) we could simultaneously be sitting on great young potential that we wouldn’t want to give up. I say let’s get rid of Orton even if he only ends up being worth a high third. Let’s get rid of DJ – some teams may feel they’re only one competent and athletic ILB away from the Super Bowl while he’s not the leader we were hoping he’d be blossom into here. We could end up with 8 or 9 picks in the draft. We can fill a couple more needs with FA and go into the 2012 draft with a very solid foundation and more information as to which recievers are productive in Fox’s scheme.
I read your zone blocking link Beast – very informative! 88 I saw Paige’s article yesterday. I am a big Paige fan if for no other reason than he is a big Tebow fan. He seems to be echoing what a lot of us have been saying and it’s nice when a professional comes in and reaffirms our beliefs. And I agree with you and Beast that Steve Young is the best comparison to draw to Tim. All the coaches trying to recruit him out of high school thought he looked like him too – and that was in HIGH SCHOOL!
We all know McCoy is still the OC,but here’s a bit more of why:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=news&cd=1&ved=0CCIQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sltrib.com%2Fsltrib%2Fjazz%2F51083815-87%2Fmccoy-broncos-coach-fox.html.csp&rct=j&q=denver%20broncos&ei=hMQ3TaivMcL78Aasr9GoCg&usg=AFQjCNGEYJycxbBSIquNYocekygt2Cq-HA&cad=rja
There’s 2 pages to the article!
Make sure if you read the article to click on ‘next page’ to see the rest,cause it’s the best part!
Nice article Beast. Which part did you think was best. I saw a lot of good stuff on there.
Suppose this blog will hit 2,000 comments? Wow should have things pretty well covered lol.
I know I need something new to talk about, Fox is old news!
Well guys it’s the off season. Not much more to talk about haha.
I am glad we got Mr. Fox as a coach.
Over the past years offensive coordinators as coaches for head coaches has not worked out well. I hate to say it also includes Shannahan . After Elway retired the defense was neglected and was in a downward spriral and the was a contributing factor to his demise.
Currently I believe our offense can compete.
Tebow has the skills. He just needs a good QB coach to refine and bring the best of him out. Brady Quinn Gone. Orton “Learn fro Kubiak” You can be a great backup and help train a possible future star. You retire still healthy and with enough knowledge learned to become a future coach.
Please remember our offensive line is young and big. They showed sparks of what they can be but great offensive lines need time to gel. I think 3 years minimum, till they know what each other is thinking and doing as first nature.
Our defense is what hurts. I like Champ but with age you lose speed. His knowldge of reading QB’s is his advantge but possibly moving him to safety for help in the run stop. He can still lay a lick on them.
You can have the best corners in the league but with out a pass rush .
” You cannot cover for ever”
A nice big 350 nosetackle that will take 2 people to move over center would be nice. That pretty much pluges the center. Dumervile and another speed rusher on the outside can fix the problem.
When an defense has to worry about tieing up 5 people that are blocked by 3. It works to our advantage.
so basically McCoy has play calling control, nice, and a better playbook i wager than McDaniels…As a D minded coach I was a lil scared that we may be too vanilla on Offense but with McCoy calling the plays, I dont mind seeing what I saw in the last 3 games when he called it for Tebow….sure he had conservative calls but when he started calling a real game, he called it well and Tebow made it happen. They will need to grow together but I like it. Nice article BFE, so basically McCoy got what we hoped dennison would get, OC who calls the play…while I would rather have Dennison, McCoy works just fine for me…still a young man (comperatively) he’s got upside id like to think
I’m with you on McCoy TRB. I think there’ll be some rough spots this year, both from play calling and the execution but I think we’ll have a better result than 4-12 and there’s a lot of potential there.
Have you all forgotten what happened two years ago? I can’t believe some of you are talking about a talent purge. Isn’t that what McDaniels did, traded away all our play makers? That put this team back at least a couple of years. I’m going to put silver dollars over my eyeballs so I can’t read this stuff.
I agree with Bay, glad Mora doesn’t want a job. He’s like poison. A young, bright mind would work there with coach Fox, someone who would want to learn under a master at his craft.
Yeah imready, I feel we escaped some serious lack of integrity issues on the team by Mora turning us down, that is basically Elway’s first lucky break in his tenure, he was about to make a major faux pas, maybe someone is watching over us once again…
Actually to me the best thing about McCoy is not how he called the last three games for us, but the fact that he was on Fox’s staff as QB coach for 7 years, yes SEVEN, bringing along subpar QB material like Delhomme to incredible results, so the relationship between Fox and McCoy is something I can feel very comfortable about, all the pieces need to work together as Elway often mentions, it will definitely be the case between HC and DC and for the same reason I would really like to have something worked out with Mr.T for DC next week.
bay… doest greenbay have to lose for us to talk with him next week… or because of the bye week we will be able to talk to Mr. T?
And obviously the most telling part of the Klis article today about McCoy is what we can expect from our O this year:
Between Fox’s preference for a balanced offense — read: pound the ball — and young Tebow’s early stage of development, the Broncos probably will be perceived as more conservative in 2011 than they were under McDaniels in 2010. Which is fine because the Broncos finished 19th in scoring in McDaniels’ system and 4-12 in the standings.
“He is the head football coach and we’re going to . . . I know what he wants,” McCoy said of Fox. “I know the type of football he wants to play. But all he wants to do is win.”
We all know what he wants we have seen the Panthers O for years, running the ball the great majority of the time, great way to bring Tebow
along and terrific way to allow the new D time to gel keeping them off the field as much as possible with TOP from our running game.
Sounds to me like we couldn’t have a better strategy for our team considering where it’s at now.
But obviously all our hopes of success now rest on us getting that running game going again, scheme switch is needed and additional backs too, maybe even some OL. And don’t get me wrong D has to be the main objective in the draft, but what I’m saying is when you look at how crucial the running game will be to everything Fox wants to accomplish here, we can in no way give the RB’s and the O line just a side thought.
The running game will be the corner stone to our success!
Just trying to get some of you guys not to be overly shocked if we address that in the draft or FA more than you’d like.
Funny because I always claim that without a D you got no shot, and while that always will hold true, there is no doubt that now I am seeing very clearly how huge of an effect our running attack will have on our new D to be with the TOP. Crucial that running game I tell you. And Tebow will only be better for it.
Correct, wild man, since there is an off week before the SB, you are allowed to interview the teams’ staff next week even the ones who win this Sunday.
I`m ready, poison is right. I don`t want Mora as a DC or any position on this team. The way I see it if we did hire him we wouldn`t have learned our lesson as far as INTEGRITY and a PERSONS CHARACAR. He`s just another versionof McD is what I`m saying.
I have a cool feeling about this Mr. T…. I don’t know much about him, but I feel like he could be someone special… I need to do some research.
Bay, Hiring fox with his offensive approach is going to remind us old- timer Bronco fans of someone. A coach who ran, ran, ran the ball to no end. Dare I say his name. OK, hear it goe`s. Dan Reeves. There I said it. lol
Yeah, there is some resemblance to that, specially that Elway had Reeves’ running game to grow along with, just like Tebow will have Fox’s.
Ya, And Dan Reeves is the primary reason John Elway had all of those 4th qaurter come backs. If Reeves would have cut Elway loose and threw the ball throughout the game there would have been alot more blowout wins instead of coming from behind all the time. Just saying.
I think we will be aggressive… Our time of possesion will definatly improve and With TT at the helm drives will last longer… Our defense will be able to smash the run… With Mr. T at the helm…… Granted we pick him up from Green Bay….. Our zone blocking scheme be great practicing against such a high end defensive line… Just need to get the right players on the line…
You do have to run the ball in the game but what Reeves had with Elway was rediculious. Balance is what I`m saying.
Bay,I agree putting emphasis on our running game whether it’s drafting an OL,or a FB,whatever it takes to get it running smooth,I also agree Defense is our major concern,but if we can’t run the ball and keep our D off the field,our D will be set up to fail.
Getting the running game going will definitely help take the load off of Tebow’s shoulders,plus it will open up plays for him as well.
It will be nice to see us pounding the rock again,I love a good ground game,that’s exactly why I was excited to see Fox get the HC job,a lot on here didn’t like it at 1st,but I did,because I know the main objective for Fox is playing good D and pounding the rock!
If McCoy can run the Offense as good as I think he can,we should improve by leaps and bounds from last year,IMO.
Wild, i do have faith in Fox as HC and of course McCoy calling the plays on the offense.