Mike Shanahan’s Achilles Revealed

Let me clearly state: Mike Shanahan is an offensive guru.

He has created three separate Playoff and/or Super Bowl caliber offenses during his years in Denver.

First, he took Elway‘s Broncos (who were at the bottom of the AFC West and finished 7-9 in 1994) to the playoffs in only two years and back-to-back Super Bowl victories following that.

Elway left Shanahan with a 6-10 team in 1999. But Shanahan crafted one of the highest power offenses of 2000 with Brian Griese in only his second year as a starting QB.

Following the terrible 2001-02 seasons which were filled with injuries and a QB that could not get out of his funk, Shanahan brought in Jake ‘The Snake’ Plummer from his losing Arizona team. Within two years Shanahan had once again created a power house with yet another QB, as Denver was dominate as ever in 2005.

What? The fact that he has created Playoff caliber offenses with three different QB’s doesn’t impress you?! How about the fact that he has created SIX +1000 yard running backs over those years? You can NOT argue that this man doesn’t knows how to put together an offense.

And now, Mike Shanahan is working on his fourth QB and his seventh RB. I have NO DOUBT that this year (which has been one unending struggle with injuries at EVERY position) will prove to be the stepping stone that vaults the 2008 Broncos back to the Playoffs.

HOWEVER….

Shanahan has an Achilles Heel: Defense.

For all of Mike Shanahan’s fantastic offensive game-planning, coaching, playcalling, QB tutoring, etc he just doesn’t ‘get’ defense.

Along with his four QB’s he’s had four defensive head coaches (or coordinators): Greg Robinson (1995-2000), Ray Rhodes (2001-2002), Larry Coyer (2003-2006), Jim Bates (current).

Robinson did a decent job of not letting the defense lose games during the Super Bowl years, but Rhodes was terrible in the two year slump that was ’01-’02. Coyer was my favorite of our recent DC’s, but the late season flop last year (which was not Coyer’s fault IMHO) was enough to make Shanahan take the defense in a new direction by firing Coyer and bring in Jim Bates.

I just get the feeling that Shanahan thinks there is some sort of voodoo that a defense runs on. It’s like he doesn’t understand it and just wants someone to come in, work some black magic and create a functioning defense.

This seems obvious when you see how he handles that side of the ball. His normal MO is to over-react to areas of concern (like the 2004 payoff loss to Indy that resulted in the drafting of three CB’s or the 2006 late-season failing on the D-line that resulted in the gutting of the defensive coaching staff and the drafting of 3 linemen). Those are severe reactions to a unit that has consistently played well (if not spectacularly) until this year.

This also means that Bates is in a very dangerous spot. Shanahan will NOT sit around while his defense gives up HUGE games like DET & SD. And, while he won’t be fixing anything on that side of the ball himself, I would not be surprised at all to see Bates hang out to dry for his unit’s failings.

Shanahan’s best defense is always going to be his offense, but with the whole team banged up or on IR, it looks like we could be in for a very long football season with even BIGGER off-season changes coming up….

-Jonathan Douglas
–BroncoTalk.net