Always enjoy what you have to say. I don’t want to call you a rare find amongst Bronco fans, but I do look forward to when you have a comment on BroncoTalk.

Bronconinja is spot on when he say we have talent but lack experience. We”ll get that on the field this year.

E. Halsey Miles makes a very prescient point about being power ranked in the mid 20′s when we are assessed as an 8-8 team. Glad we have people on this site who can count.

The point about who are our ‘stars’ is also a good one. After all, before they got on the field who knew who Walter Payton, Dan Marino, or others were?

One of the things that doesn’t get measured in these prognostications is HEART and TEAM SPIRIT. I know that I’m preaching to the choir, but I don’t remember seeing the first teamers and backups coming out in the preseason with such great tempo, timing and rhythm since the start of the 1998 season. And as we all recall that was an experienced team coming off their superbowl victory over the Packers.

Of course this years team is very young and preseason is vanilla. But it does make you wonder how well they will execute the full season playbook. Could be HOT. Shanahans offense relies on timing to open the O. We’ve seen that already in spades. I just hope we see comparable improvement in the D.

I’ve been preaching to the choir for a long time. Denver currently has at least two future Hall of Famers- Champ Bailey and Tom Nalen. The rest of our team is too young to even go there (Hall of Fame wise at least), as far as I see, there are two other teams: Indianapolis and New England who can boast the same thing. Up until a month ago, we were holding three Hall of Famers. No one currently in the NFL could have said that.

10-6 to me is failure, as I said earlier, we were two plays from being 9-7 last season and we were also two plays from being 5-11. I’m going to go with the glass half-full and say that 10-6 is a one game improvement. Not seeing that, DeWayne Robertson, that’s a one game improvement. Boss Bailey, that’s a one game improvement. Eddie Royal returning, healthy Jay Cutler, Ryan Clady a Hall/Young one-two punch all one game improvements. It’s now or never, seriously how much better can it get?

Sure, we need a middle linebacker, he really need Marcus Thomas to be a wrecking ball in the middle. We know that Engelberger is a solid, not great, so we need to see Moss in there on passing downs getting pressure. Which brings me to the most promising part of the season, Denver’s new scheme, I mentioned that we saw it against Houston, we saw a bit of it against Phoenix. If you were at camp or read the reports you saw it as well. Third-stringers getting sacks, corners, middle linebackers and safeties. Imagine what it’s going to be like when Champ Bailey peels off the line and comes full bore at a QB? Or when Marlon McCree goes, “head hunting” and takes it all out on Philip River’s jaw line. Nate Webster? The main reason I liked him over Niko Koutouvides is because the guy is a kamikaze pilot, with his own body. These guys are going to be a problem this year and I for one can’t wait.

I completely agree with you, we have San Diego at home week 2… Wow, what a lucky draw so early in the season and New England before the bye week? I’ve got my tickets to that game already…

I can’t count how many articles I read that go “Sure, there’s Cutler, Marshall, Dumervil and Champ…but after that, who’re the stars?”

Somehow DJ Willliams is questionable (yet he’s still recognized as an incredibly gifted athlete), Hamilton has always been considered a strong guard but since he had that concussion last year let’s just assume he won’t actually play. Same with Nalen and his injury.

Selvin Young had a fantastic average in far more extensive action than was expected last year. Andre Hall is admittedly unknown but when he DID play he was electric last year. Our run game was still something like 5th in the league in yards, yet somehow was ‘disappointing’. Sure, disappointing because we haven’t found the next TD but maybe we never will. There just aren’t that many TDs.

Also, Cutler played the last six or so games SICK. We’re supposed to believe that his game won’t be significantly better now that his diabetes is managed and under control? Oh and yes, lots of people now call Cutler questionable due to the diabetes. But dozens if not hundreds of athletes ahve managed diabetes and had very successful careers. Questioning that is like saying that Peyton Manning hurt his knee, he must be done. Well, actually, that’s happened to quarterbacks (Culpepper) so there’s some concern there. So maybe that’s a bad example.

Luckily, it doesn’t matter what the national media says. It’s just frustrating. It was, however, really refreshing to read that Scouts, Inc article predicting that Cutler is going to tear it up this year. That he is ready to take the team on his shoulders and will the team to victory. That’s the kind of thing I want to see.

Sure, there are question marks. But not all those question marks are going to have negative answers when the time comes. Some will, but that’s what we call adversity, and all teams have to deal with adversity. Some more than others.

After seeing the success our first team has had this season; seeing how well the rookies have progressed between games one and four…I’m no longer ready to say that the Chargers automatically have the division.

Right now, I’ll say they have an advantage, but it’s not insurmountable. There are some big ifs along the way, but I think we can surprise them. This is a Denver Broncos team with discipline and character that will be able to set aside bad plays, come back fighting, and still win games. And the AFC West isn’t the powerhouse that it was. The Chiefs and the Raiders both look pathetic, with organizational dysfunction that will keep them that way until things are changed. The Chargers are tough but they are not invincible.

I’m still predicting 10-6 but that’s just because I do believe we’ll have significant adversity through the season, and we will have to struggle to get through it and it will cost us games we should have won. And if I’m wrong, this preseason has made more more confident that it’s because Ian was right, not the national press.

I believe that by week 3, the national power rankings will have us as a top 10 team, right there alongside the Chargers. Probably behind the chargers even though we’ll have beaten them, because they will still want us to prove it.

I’ve seen what you’re talking about as well. I’ve had similar thoughts as well, if we’re 8-8 how does that put us at 20th in the league unless there’s a bunch of teams tying each other?

Usually when you read an article, you get a regurgitation of something someone else said. For example, if we were to read something within the last month it probably mentioned Rod Smith retiring or John Lynch leaving. Smith didn’t play at all last season, his absence started last season… And Lynch? Great player, great guy, but for team related vindictive reasons I hope that he is forced to eat crow. What a hypocrite.

Does anyone remember a team that won a SuperBowl with a bunch of No-Names that were labeled a team in transition? I do, in fact they had an unknown QB with an unknown Defense, and an unproven Offense that had a mediocre Running Game at best! It wasn’t until they won “Back-2-Back” SuperBowls before they were recognized. Until that point, who really cared who Tom Brady was?

I dunno about you, but isn’t making a wildcard playoff in the AFC worth 10-12 out of 32?

Also, even predicting 8-8 — shouldn’t that be worth around 16th? I don’t understand how some of these guys do their predictions. Most of them think only the personnel (or Shanahan) was responsible for the travesty that was the defense last year, and simply can’t imagine that switching from a scheme that did not fit our personnel to a scheme that does fit our personnel will have us moving more toward average.

What’s worse is that 2 guys writing for Football Outsiders — who are not amongst the statisticians — actually went for the UNDER when the Broncos are listed at 7.5

UNDER.

I can find 10 winnable games on the schedule pretty easily, myself. Sure, we have a way of losing winnable games but we can also ahve a way of winning losable games, too. It weirds me out to see people talking about the team the same way they talk about 4-12 teams.

I can’t wait to see what the first Football Outsiders rankings come up with, based upon the preseason numbers and off-season projections. I know that their offseason stats weren’t too kind to us either but the preseason numbers should offset that somewhat. Hopefully they’ll have those out around Wednesday or so.