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Published on 01/24/2012 at Tue Jan 24 21:06.
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Dennis Allen

The Denver Broncos have a storied history with the Number Seven. They were hoping their defensive coordinator position wouldn’t continue the trend. They were wrong.

Seven defensive coordinators in seven years. The Broncos will hire their seventh defensive coordinator in as many years following the news that Dennis Allen has been offered and has accepted the position as head coach for the Oakland Raiders.

Allen is the first Denver Broncos assistant to be hired as head coach by their AFC West rivals since Mike Shanahan became Raiders coach in 1988.

For the Broncos, it means that the search has begun for Allen’s replacement. John Fox and company are in Mobile at the Senior Bowl practices (Allen too), so they may wait until they return to begin the coaching search in earnest. Broncos linebackers coach Richard Smith (former defensive coordinator of the Houston Texans) and former Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Jack Del Rio, who was a defensive coordinator under Fox in Carolina, are thought to be frontrunners.

Very disappointed to see Allen leave to the hated Raiders. Look at that picture, Broncos fans — that face is no longer the face of our defensive leader. That’s the face of Enemy #1.

  • http://ehalseymiles.com E. Halsey Miles

    I’m partial to Del Rio. The Jags had a good defense for most of his tenure there.

  • cap

    Champ should retire. When Bowlen and Elway ask why he should tell them because they are idiots! Great move morons. The very last thing we need is consistency. Sick of this! So next year we’ll be last again, learning ANOTHER new scheme for a year then another with a new DC. Bowlen should really think about selli
    ng this team brcause apparently he no longer has yhe ability to run this team anymore.

  • Anonymous

    LOL

  • 5280

    Cap i agree! as bronco fans this should enrage us. its ridiculous.  how do they expect to build a super bowl caliber team when they keep dismantling their coaching staff? i am so sick of being mediocre and the second it looks like we’re about to pull out of it, they go and do something like this, again, for the 7th time. bailey should ask to be traded. i wouldnt blame him. hes worked so hard and hes been the only bright light on that defence for a long time and he hasnt had a steady consistant d coordinator since he’s been here. he’s gotta be fed up. it really doesnt matter who they get to replace allen because the defence is gonna need another 2 years to get fully integrated anyway and you know that after next season someones gonna be looking to make any coach we hire their next head coach. they could have at least tryed to offer more $ then the raiders and try to get him to stay.  he knew he was gonna leave if he had an opportunity for a head coaching job when the season ended and he took the job anyway knowing that we were last in the league in defence and we were a rebuilding team.  what an asshole! he simply used us as a stepping stone, he could care less about winning a super bowl with us. everyone within the organization is at fault for this and that includes allen. this stinks!

  • Anonymous

    The two things that upset me about losing Benedict Allen is we can’t keep a DC in Dove Valley for longer than one season, and its to a division rival.

    Statistically, he improved the D, but it wasnt anything to write home about. From last to 24th in points allowed (29 vs 24) and last to 20th in yards allowed (390 vs 357). This season should have been more promising, but the tools are there and help is on the way for the next DC.

  • Fan From Spain

    bad move by the Raiders… another 8-8 season if that.

  • flbronc

    i don’t get the outrage… we as a team didn’t do anything wrong here.  we hired a good coach and he attracted attention and got a promotion with another organization.  there are only 32 teams, so only 32 hc jobs.  when one comes open and you are offered it, take it because it may be your only chance.  personally if being a head coach is what he wanted to do, than i am happy he is realizing his professional goals.

    if we had fired him or he resigned or something, that would be a different story.

    Bryan did touch on a good point above…  we went from close to last to low 20’s in defensive rankings.  surely some of it was attributable to allen, but a lot was a healthy doom and the addition of miller. 

    of the two names mentioned, i too am partial to del rio- but i would like to see who else they have on their radar.  remember, we had never heard of allen until the search started to replace wink.

  • Djdj

    Are you high? He was lazy and complacent.

  • Dbaumga797

    Agree 100%…this is actually a good sign versus what’s happened in the past. Everyone likes the staff and what they’ve done…so much so that they’re looking at them as head coaches. Not sure what everyone expects the Broncos to do here…give Allen the HC job? Don’t think so!

  • Anonymous

    What a snake.

    Way to take an interview the week of the Patriots game. 

    If we hire Jack Del Rio, I’ll cry. He is awful and a lazy person.

    The best thing he ever achieved in his career is an overtime victory against the Steelers in the Wildcard round of the playoffs with an unconventional quarterback that wasn’t the starter in preseason, only to lose the Patriots in the Divisional round… and the Broncos have already done that.

  • Anonymous

    You know how you eliminate laziness and complacency? 

    You fire a guy.

  • http://Facebook.com/BroncosZone Jon

    I love Dennis Allen and he really helped the Denver Broncos defense turn around this season.  However, two years ago he was a secondary coach. Last season was his first year as a coordinator.

    The Oakland Raiders just hired a head coach who had had one year of coordinator experience, one good year.  That’s so Oakland.

    I would wish Allen the best, but considering who he signed with, I hope he turns out to be a terrible head coach.  I like the guy, and I like him as a defensive coordinator. But I hope Oakland runs him out of town.

  • MeOMy

    The curse continues! Higher back Coyer and break the curse!

  • areferee

    Hey Guys, thanks for starting my morning with such a great laugh.

    For those of you criticizing the Broncos for allowing Allen to make a bad career move, a question:

    How do you get your heads so far up there and still see your keyboard?  (Perhaps that explains all of the typos!  The convoluted thought must come from all the methane.)

    Thanks for the great laugh.  In the future, may I suggest wwwdotsilverandblackdotdork

  • Anonymous

    Sunnuvabitch.
    (That’s it. What else is there to say?)

  • Djdj

    You know what insanity is?
    Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result

  • areferee

    Mike Trgovac…

  • Anonymous

    Why all the vitriol for Dennis Allen? 

    He spends one season here and he’s supposed to be forever loyal?  

  • http://www.broncotalk.net Josh Temple

    How is a coach climbing the NFL ladder the Broncos fault for “dismantling”?  Or am I missing something here?

  • Anonymous

    The more I think about it, the less I want Jack Del Rio to be our DC. While I have no doubts that he’d do a great job, I think that he would be another “1 year DC in Denver” coach. The reason for this is because he was a longtime head coach, and then will prove to be a great coordinator, and immediately become a head coach the next year. We need stability, not a coaching carousel.

  • Audi

    It is for a promotion!  What is wrong with you?  Any team that refuses to let their coaches interview and possibly leave for promotions is not likely to have anyone good waning to join up.  You are completely clueless if you think this is the Broncos fault…….

  • flbronc

    thats life when you get good coordinators… look at new england.  they come and go pretty quickly when you are good on whatever side of the ball. 

    the other option than hiring a fired head coach is the up and coming positional coach… ie dennis allen.

    the only way you can guarantee that your guy will be there next year is if you are wholly average- not bad enough to make a change and not good enough to attract attention.

  • flbronc

    is a 3-4 dl coach.  i don’t mind getting a new coordinator, but we can’t keep playing the scheme change game.

  • Anonymous

    I would think that the way to keep your coordinator is to not hire a coach that was just a head coach and will more than likely be out of there within a year to be a head coach again. While the hire of anyone to be coordinator doesn’t guarantee they’ll stick around if successful, hiring a coordinator that isn’t anywhere on the “head coaching radar” is a good place to start.

    Dennis Allen was on the head coaching radar when we hired him as defensive coordinator. Once he proved good at being a coordinator, he went from being on the head coaching radar to being a head coach.

    See, there is a hierarchy at work here. The hierarchy goes from being a specialty coach, to being a coordinator, to being a head coach. Within those positions is the “is he or isn’t he on the head coaching radar?” If the answer is yes, then the time spent at any of the hierarchy levels will be 1 year or less.

    As a specialty coach (DB coach), Allen was already on the radar to be a head coach, therefor, when we hired him as a coordinator, any success would catapult him to head coach. Had Allen not been on the head coaching radar, any success we had would at most catapult him up to the radar, thus assuring us at least 1 more year as coordinator.

    By hiring Smith, we will get a guaranteed 2 years out of him as coordinator even if our defense skyrockets to #1 in the league and is compared to the ’85 Bears and 2000 Ravens. Why? Because he isn’t on the HCRadar yet. If he was, then any success we have with him will be a 1 year and then “bye bye” type of hire. Smith could be coordinator, be very successful for a few years, and then move up to the HCRadar, and then ultimately head coach.

    So as you can see, there are ways to guarantee that you won’t be a revolving door for coordinators without compromising the success of the team and the coordinator. Remember, hiring someone who will only be here for a year might be a detriment to your team because they will be incapable of forming an identity, and they wont have time to get fully comfortable in the new coach’s scheme. By constantly changing coaches and schemes, your defense will never get a chance to gel, never get a chance to “stop thinking and just playing”, and never get a chance to be consistent. Any proof I need to back up any of my claims can be our defense this last 6+ years with the revolving coordinator position and the resulting performance our D has given us.

  • areferee

    Currently, yes, but has coached the 4-3 for more years and as the Carolina DC.

  • Anonymous

     The Broncos (Bowlen & Elway) not giving the gayders permission to talk to Allen would have been stupid and lacking professional courtesy. 

  • Anonymous

    Not supposed to, but you wish you had a guy like Jay Gruden. A coordinator who doesn’t bite at the first crappy gig someone throws at him.

    I mean the guy went and interviewed with the Rams the week of the Patriots playoff game. That’s really messed up, most coaches wait until their season is over.

  • anthony33

    Isn’t this the same Richard Smith the led the Texans defense to one of worst of all time?  Is the same same Richard Smith that after he left Wade Phillips transformed it into one of the best defenses in the league? 

    NO THANKS.  No on Del Rio.  Go get someone off the Ravens, Steelers or 49er’s staff.

  • Anonymous

    It’s such a total crap shoot as to who will succeed and who will fail that I think we can’t automatically say coach X will be good and coach Y will fail. I think it ultimately comes down to who you are coaching. Like they say, coaches don’t make the tackle. Coaches don’t blow the coverage. Coaches don’t sack the QB. Yes, coaches need to coach the players and have a good, sound scheme, but if you don’t have a) the right players for said scheme, and b) players with enough talent to overcome their shortcomings while they continue to grow, then no matter how good of a coach you are, your defense will fail.

    Look at Bilichick. He was a pile of dog shit until he got a 1st ballot HOF QB. All of a sudden, he’s the greatest coach who ever lived. Look at Shanahan before him. He was the “Mastermind” and best coach in the league when he had a 1st ballot HOF QB. I know we’re talking about defense here, but what I’m trying to say is that even when “the best coaches who ever lived” didn’t have amazing talent to coach, they were failures.

    While I think that the right coach (such as LB coaches on Ravens & Steelers) can maybe either coach up their talent, or help develop their rookies & young players, nobody can say that their schemes would be any better than anyone elses. Do coordinators have assistants that aren’t the DB/LB/DL coaches? If so, maybe you go after that guy on the Steelers and Ravens, because they’ll be in the DC’s ear when devising the schemes and gameplans. I have no idea how much input or exposure the specialty coaches actually have on the scheme/gameplan, which is why I stand by my “it’s a crap shoot” opening statement. You also have to remember that Smith, like Fox last year with Carolina, didn’t have any talent to work with. He helped develop that talent as much as he could, but being Houston’s LB coach, he didn’t have any say so or impact on Houston’s miserable secondary (which is the reason they were so bad). So I don’t think you can hold him accountable for that.

  • Anonymous

    Also, I completely agree with you on the “No on Del Rio” statement. I think it would be a HUGE, GIGANTIC, ENORMOUS mistake to get anybody who is on the “head coaching radar” such as Jack Del Rio. We can not have another “1 year as coordinator and then out the door” coach. I don’t care how good he does that 1 year, we need stability in order to get an identity, and we need an identity in order to start gelling as a defense. Then, and only then, will we start moving up the ranks and start playing very good on a consistent basis.

    If Rex Ryan was canned from NYJ, I’d LOVE LOVE LOVE to have him as our DC, BUT, I wouldn’t hire him. Know why? Because he would be “1 and out” for us, and we’d have our players having to adjust yet again to another coach, another scheme, and another voice. That will hurt our young guys, and it’ll waste the chances to win for our older guys. It’s unfair all around, which is why Del Rio shouldn’t even be interviewed.