Mason's Morsels

You probably know of the news that struck some of us Wednesday. Layoffs are tough, but it’s part of any business. It’s happened to me before. It happened to my dad on multiple occasions. As Mom reminded me Wednesday night, he always came out with a better situation in the end. I hope that will be the case with me, but it will be tough, because it might not have y’all as a part of the deal. I’ll miss each and every one of you, even the ones who drove me bonkers from time to time.

(Yes, LetPlummerPlay, that means you. My New Year’s resolution was to no longer feed the trolls, but I’m going to break it now.)

I had hoped to break the news to you guys here, but Mike Klis beat me to it. A high-quality journalist, that fellow. I hadn’t even told my parents the news when he had the story on the Post’s Web site and a classy and heartfelt message on my voice mail. His message wasn’t the only one. Thank you all.

But I’d be remiss without also tipping my hat to those who’ve brought you Broncos news on various sources over the years, with whom I’ve repeatedly jockeyed for locker-room and press-conference position. On the print side, there’s Frank Schwab, Lee Rasizer, Bill Williamson, Ryan Thorburn, Pat Graham, Eddie Pells, Arnie Stapleton, Bill Wilson, Pete Bigelow, Patrick Saunders, Lynn DeBruin, Kamon Simpson and Adam Schefter. Hope some of those transcripts and random facts helped you out, gang. Over on the TV side, there’s FSN photog extraordinaire Charlie Felix — I’ll see you at Slammer’s, pal - Brian Olson, Gary Miller, John Kuhrt, Blake Olson — God bless you, brotha — and countless others. And lurking in the spirit of radio, special thanks to Mike Rice and Andy Lindahl of KOA, and Mark Knudson and James Merilatt for the couple of occasions my voice was allowed to pollute their airwaves. And Stefan Fatsis, I still can’t wait to read your upcoming book about your adventures at training camp.

Then there’s the people in the organization itself, too numerous to name and to thank. But I should give special shout-outs to Kyle Sonneman and Kasey Byers, on whose watch the Web site will continue, Patrick Smyth and Dave Gaylinn, who are the “keepers of the flame” in regards to the media guide, Paul Kirk, whose Seinfeld command probably surpassed my own, Steve Harbula, who hired me in the first place and put up with me for the last five years and eight months, and Jim Saccomano, whose blog you should continue to read, and whose wit, hearty laugh and disseminations about baseball I will miss terribly.

If I missed anyone, I apologize.

At least I know I did everything I possibly could, maybe even more than I should have.

“Back away from the computer, son,” I can recall my dad saying during one vacation when I filed a story from a Starbucks in Florida. In the months and years that followed, I could hear his voice echoing in my mind as I slammed my fingers into the keyboard at 1 in the morning, working on a game-program story at the only time I had to write in peace.

Perhaps my dad was right to offer that advice. But I’ve always worked in fifth gear, perhaps because my internal transmission was busted and I couldn’t downshift. It gets me in trouble sometimes, but I’d like to think the results of that speak for themselves in this Web space.

For now, I’m going to watch college basketball. Life … and sport … goes on.

Thanks for your eyes, your ears, your attention, your suggestions, your unrestrained love of all things Broncos.

Until we meet again, Vaya con Dios … and take care, and thanks for watching — and reading.

I never met Brett Favre, though I’ve heard some stories. But I remember where I was when he took his first snap as a Green Bay Packer.

It’d be hard for me to forget, seeing as how I was there.

Sept. 13, 1992, was one of those Florida summer Sundays where not even a liberal dollop of supposedly sweatproof 50 SPF could prevent you from looking like a boiled lobster after just under four hours in the sun, where $20 of water and pink lemonade wasn’t enough to keep hydrated and cool. The high temperature was 89, but in the concrete bowl of Tampa Stadium — which basically became an open-air kiln on days like these — an on-field thermometer registered 109.

The Buccaneers were drilling the Packers, both on the scoreboard and in physical punishment. Days of defensive dominance like these would someday become routine for the Bucs with the acquisitions of John Lynch, Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp and defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin to guide them. But with a defense featuring Keith McCants, Mark Wheeler, Ray Seals, Darrick Brownlow, Darrell Fullington and Milton Mack, this sort of performance was a tad unusual.

The pressure left Green Bay starter Don Majkowski running for his life until he was finally unable to escape, bowing to injury in the third quarter. Trailing hopelessly, the Packers turned to a second-year quarterback from Southern Mississippi.

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Ah, the offseason. When rumors become perceived as fleeting fact.

Evidently, anyone with a laptop and a camera can fan the flames of rumor. Case in point — the 2006 offseason, when a kid in a dorm room turns on his camera and says that John Abraham is headed to Denver in exchange for the No. 29 pick in the first round, then writes a story repeating the “news.”

Of course, Abraham never became a Bronco. The guy in his dorm, who posted under the site name “JetsTV.com,” presumably faded into Web flotsam. One can only wonder about his “sources” who clamed the deal was imminent.

Yet the non-story still had to be chased, even though it was on video that caused me to think of the description that Noah Vanderhoff, fictional video-arcade tycoon portrayed by Brian Doyle-Murray, offered upon completing a “Wayne’s World” screening:

“I think it’s two chimps on a Davenport in a basement.”

The Abraham gossip just one of many rumors to come across in recent years. The discussions of some gobble bandwith by the terabyte. In other cases, it’s just a sentence or two in a conversation, which was the case four years ago, when a media member came up to me and breathlessly proclaimed, “You guys are going to sign Charlie Garner,” deeming this to be virtually incontrovertible.

Still waiting for that one to happen.

Some of you post comments asking me for my take on these deals and I typically remain silent. Not that I’m ignoring you, but as a team employee, I try to stay out of the rumor business.

Not that I mind if you talk about rumors. Feel free. Discuss them below or on the message boards. But hopefully you’ll understand why I’ll stay out of the debate, for the most part.

And with that, I’ll turn it over to the Timex Social Club:

Vaya con Dios.

The laptop hums well past midnight. The Diet Mountain Dew flows into my cup, Niagara-like in its volume and pace. The up-tempo ’70s soul music peps through my headphones, keeping me awake as the minutes pass like seconds. There’s so much steam rising from vents outside my hotel-room window that a frigid fog seems to hang in suspension over the nearby, domed football stadium. Each step on the sidewalk is accompanied by the crunch of salt and ice; each newscast leads its sports report with college or high-school basketball.

It must be February in Indianapolis.

Combine time.

So far, this has been a placid trip, considering how some of my voyages to far-flung destinations took turns that would have made Odysseus or Uncle Traveling Matt blanch.

Turns out that Wednesday’s trip here was as uneventful as My Dinner With André.

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It’s Super Sunday.

T-minus three hours or so to kickoff.

And, I’ll be honest, I’m not watching the pregame show.

It’s testament to the prominence of the sport that Fox can justify four and a half hours of pregame content, which doesn’t even factor what airs on ESPN and NFL Network throughout the day. But by this time, I’ve heard virtually everything there is to hear about this game. I need to step away.

I mentioned this to my mother, who is back home on the couch with my father, watching college basketball. By backtracking through our Super Sundays as a family, we realized that more often than not, we’d built up to the big game with other games, rather than chatter.

Besides, I’ve wasted so much time stewing over this game and my prediction for it that I’ve ensured a long post-game night of catching up with tasks and obligations that await here at my desk.

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Everyone misfired on Colts-Chargers … and we now have a two-way deadlock for first place heading into the conference championships:

THE PREDICTIONS SO FAR:

ANDREW MASON: 4-4

MIKE RICE, NEWSRADIO 850 KOA: 4-4

KYLE MONTGOMERY, BRONCOTALK: 6-2

JOHN BENA, MILE HIGH REPORT:: 6-2

JONATHAN DOUGLAS, BRONCOTALK: 4-4

GREEN BAY 42, SEATTLE 20

“Is it snowing there?” queried a friend back in Colorado via text-message as the Packers and Seahawks battled in a gorgeous snowfall that is surprisingly rare for playoff games at Lambeau Field.

Where I was — elsewhere in Wisconsin — the landscape was wintry, but the skies were dry.

There was no snow beyond a few flurries in Madison, which is 135 miles south-southwest of Green Bay. But by dining at the locally renowned State Street Brats, a favored establishment among University of Wisconsin students and state-government officials alike, I gave myself the next-best experience to being at Lambeau, replete with Brett Favre jerseys galore and the ubiquitous “Go Pack Go” cheer being played over the speakers throughout the restaurant.

(And by the way, from being at Lambeau Field once before, I can only offer this thought on the “Go Pack Go” cheer — cut it back a bit. It’s like going to games at Oklahoma or Tennessee, where one hears “Boomer Sooner” or “Rocky Top” after every … single … play. Two-yard run off tackle? Strike up the band! Less is more, everyone.)

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Week 13 leftovers and Week 14 appetizers …

… At least now the questions about Travis Henry can stop. Seldom was the press briefing for Head Coach Mike Shanahan in the last few weeks that the subject of his appeal did not arise. Now the public focus on Henry can go back to his recovery from a partially torn posterior cruciate ligament, which had progressed enough for him to play Sunday and score twice — although his playing time was more than Shanahan hoped, as he noted at his postgame and Monday afternoon briefings. The first illumination on the health of Denver’s running backs will come Wednesday afternoon at practice …

… With Chiefs head coach Herm Edwards already ruling Larry Johnson out for Sunday, it’s their quarterback situation that bears watching in regards to injuries. Brodie Croyle missed last week with a bruised lower back, and Edwards indicated he wouldn’t try to shove the second-year passer into Sunday’s game if he wasn’t healthy enough.

“If he can’t protect himself and we feel he’s not mobile enough to get out of the way, then there’s no need to play him this week,” Edwards said Tuesday. “But he’s going to come to practice tomorrow and we’ll see where he’s at.

“You definitely want to see more of Brodie Croyle, but you’re not going to put him in there wounded either. That’s not fair to the kid.”

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The shrill beep that heralds a text message on my phone roused me from an all-too-brief and fitful slumber at 7:04 this morning:

taylor died … how horrible!

It was the news no one in the NFL wanted to hear, but after the smattering of reports leaking from South Florida over the previous 24 hours regarding Sean Taylor, it was anything but a surprise. When I had told my anesthesiologist girlfriend about the extent and location of his wounds, she seemed amazed that he’d managed to cling to life throughout a day as harrowing as it was sad for his nearest and dearest. Such is the heart of a champion athlete, unbridled until its final beat.

In Denver, it reopens wounds that have healed for some in Broncos Country, but have only begun to scab over for others.

Another death by gunshot.

Maybe I’m wrong, but my brain repeatedly circles around to an idealist’s notion, that all killings at the barrel of a gun are ultimately preventable. It certainly isn’t part of the natural order of things for vibrant, healthy 24-year-olds like Taylor and Darrent Williams to leave the world like this — or for the thousands of others who die in similar fashion, leaving friends and families mired in grief after such senseless extinguishment of life’s glowing flame.

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Every Wednesday when Parliament is in session in London — and at other times in some other nations of the Commonwealth — noontime begins the Prime Minister’s Questions, when members of the House of Commons can query the nation’s leader about all matters, from the ones that are global in scope to more trivial and local concerns like signage along the M1.

Since Tuesday is the players’ day off here … and since this usually brings some time for me to answer questions … I’m going to bring that tradition over here to the blog. While I’ll answer as much as I can throughout the week in the comments section or on the pregame podcast — available Saturdays on DenverBroncos.com — whatever I can’t get to there, I’ll take here.

So keep your comments rolling on the blog posts, or e-mail me, as we begin another Tuesday question-and-answer session … which I will begin with the return of an old antagonist to our blog sanctum. I’m talking, of course, about LetPlummerPlay:

And since compelling drama requires antagonism … and since I love a good written scrum … I’m only too happy to dive in and respond to this individual:

Wow, it’s been a while since I stopped by old Andrew’s blog. After being reprimanded more than once by Mr. Mason, I just stuck to our infamous letplummerplay.com website.

Three words:

Let.

It.

Go.

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Ah opening night.

A nationally-televised concert, fireworks … and, oh, yeah, there’s some football too. Pretty fair matchup.

I guess we’ve come a long way from when halftime shows meant calling up the university band whose team had a road game within two hours’ drive and asking whether they wanted to come down and perform a halftime tune or two.

Let’s see … they’ve got John Mellencamp, Faith Hill, Kelly Clarkson and Hinder. I know the first two; rather like Mellancamp, actually. Plenty of his stuff in the Morsels’ iPod. Clarkson? Can’t recall a song she’s sung; just know that she’s got a good voice, she’s cute and she probably wants to slap you if you remind her of her performance in From Justin to Kelly, which I think was seen by fewer people than your average rec-league slow-pitch softball game.

Then there’s Hinder. What in God’s name is Hinder?

It’s a band, moron. Here’s the Wikipedia link.

Wrong, it’s a verb. (And as Robert Goulet once said of Tim Duncan’s surname, it’s a “baaaaad verb.”) It can also be an adjective.

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