Sharpe Talks Broncos on Sirius Radio

Listening to Sirius NFL Radio yesterday and was able to catch a caller’s question to Shannon Sharpe (who co-hosts with Brian McGovern) regarding the Broncos. Here’s what was said:

Caller: Hey I got some questions, especially for Shannon. What’s going on with the Denver Broncos? You’ve got to be watching your old team – I mean, I’ve been kinda expecting here the defense to be a little slow off the ball, and slowly gelling as the year moves along in the new Jim Bates system. I expected the Special Teams to be getting better with them bringing that guru in there [edit: Scott O’Brien], but their offense is not that good. I was watching them, and I was actually really impressed with the first half at Indy. They were up on Indy, they were ahead at one point, they held ’em, they were right in the game until the end of the first half. And then they lost the game, but I kinda expected that being the game was in Indianapolis, but I mean… last week, that wasn’t the same team that showed up. What’s going on with these guys?

Shannon: Well, let’s start with the defensive side of the football. They can’t stop the run. They have patchwork guys trying to get [indecipherable] men’s work done. They’re just not very good defensively. I’m not so sure if you take Champ Bailey and Dre Bly out of that defense, that you don’t want really anyone else. D.J. Williams is playing out of position. Ian Gold is playing his [D.J.’s] position but is playing all over the field, and Nate Webster, uh, he’s a guy. He plays well, but I don’t know if that’s a guy you say you’re pinning your hopes on getting it done. Elvis Dumervil – he can do some things. He can rush the passer, he’s a lot better playing the run than I anticipated…

BM: Yeah.

Shannon: ...and I think a lot better than a lot of people anticipated. I don’t know if the offense is that bad, but Jay Cutler has not progressed in my estimation. When I look at it, I see the same guy, making the same mistakes that he made last year, and when you can run the ball – I mean they have Travis Henry who is the second leading rusher in the National Football League – there’s no reason. Well obviously with Javon Walker being out, that hurts them, because you’re now counting on Brandon Marshall being a #1 receiver when you’re really counting on him to be a #2 receiver.

But defensively, they can’t stop the run. And if you can’t stop the run, you can’t win in the NFL. Period.

BM: How about Shanahan saying he was embarassed? You know, and we saw half of that stadium gone in that third quarter, Shannon. You don’t see that a whole lot in Denver.

Shannon: I was embarassed! And I don’t even play! So imagine how they felt!

BM: Tough spot. 41-3, I mean, geeze.

Shannon: At home! At home!

BM: Made Rivers look like Johnny Unitas!

Shannon: You know, I’m trying to think. I think the worst I got beat in my career was probably 41-19. The Raiders beat us one year, 1994, I believe 41-19.

BM: That’s not terrible.

Shannon: No… [pause]… Denver really was never in that game.

BM: No.

Shannon: I mean, because they drove right down the field and scored. And when San Diego kicked off, they get the ball back and they’re already right back in the end zone. So it’s 14-0 with 3 minutes gone, uh, 4 minutes off the clock. And your offense, Denver’s offense, has not even been on the field yet. And they’re down 14-0.

BM: That’s a bad loss. I mean, where do you go from here now? You talk about Cutler, he’s not making the plays he made last year. And obviously Javon Walker and that injury has something to do with it, here, that’s clear. But you have the bye week now, and you come out of the bye week with two huge games, and they’re both at home. Again, this Bronco team at home loses to San Diego, lost to Jacksonville in week 3. You come out of the bye – Steelers, Packers, at home. Welcome back.

Shannon: You know what? You knew they were living on borrowed time. They struggled in Buffalo. They struggled at home against the Raiders ball club. So you knew they were playing with the devil’s money. When you do that, and if you’re they type of team… If you’re the type of team you think you are, if you’re a playoff caliber team, you don’t struggle at Buffalo. You don’t struggle at home. And now, the Raiders may be a little better than we thought, we’ll see how that plays out. But there’s no way, I mean, they were in control of that ball game, and then all of a sudden the Raiders started running the football.

BM: They moved the ball all over the field against the Bills! They almost had 500 yards! And they had 15 points.

Shannon: And what did it come down to? Turnovers at the one position you could ill afford to have the guy that touches the football every single play prone turn it over. And Jay Cutler has been prone… I looked at the interception he threw early in the game, down the middle to Marlon McCree. I don’t see what he saw. No once can convince me he should have thrown that ball. He can’t convince me, Mike can’t, the offense, nobody can convince me, because I dont’ see what he saw. He’s not playing… now, I don’t know if the offense is that bad, I don’t know if it’s the offensive line, I don’t know what’s going on. But I haven’t seen the same conviction that I saw last year.