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Raider Week is coming to an end! While Daunte Culpepper is looking to get the start (Josh McCown listed as doubtful), the Broncos are finished preparing for their home opener and are ready to take the field at 2:15 PM Mountain Time.

For those who can watch the game live, don’t miss the tribute the Broncos are expected to have for fallen teammates Darrent Williams and Damien Nash in their home opener. I haven’t found news of it, which gives me some hesitation in publishing that comment, but I’d be floored if they didn’t do that in their home opener.

WEATHER REPORT

Partly Cloudy
81° Farenheit
Chance of rain: 10%
Wind: SSW 9mph

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Head Coach Mike Shanahan announced today that the team has re-signed tight end/tackle Chad Mustard. To make room on the roster, veteran Stephen Alexander was released.

I always liked Alexander, and am sad to see him go. But his calf injury has made him useless for now, and the Broncos are lacking depth at tackle with Ryan Harris and Adam Meadows (Meadows having been waived last week) still nursing their injuries.

Ultimately the move makes sense – I mean, which tight end is more valuable to you, a young versatile player who can add depth at tackle, or an injured veteran who will sit the sideline?

I have returned to the U. S. of A. after a full week of meetings and movie-watching up in Toronto. Unfortunately, I was so busy I didn’t even make it over to KMA’s suggested Irish Pub for a pint. And that means I also missed our season opener (in fact, I’ve still not seen the full game video). During the game, I was actually in a screening of RUN FAT BOY RUN. Which might be a fun little movie, but it is in no way an adequate replacement for seeing my favorite team on the planet playing football.

As I reviewed the reports and stats from the game, however, I couldn’t help but think that my general health was improved by not being able to see that game. I think my heart would have exploded from the stress during that ending! :)

We got away with a win in the end, and Kyle has kept things rolling last week with some great content so really there’s little left to do but give you my pregame list of things I’m looking forward to versus our division rivals — the Oakland Raiders.

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Need a full scouting report on the enemy? Look no further than here. Position by position, I break down the competition’s roster and tell you which team has the edge.

QUARTERBACK – JOSH MCCOWN (#12, 6-4, 215)

There are conflicting reports out there, but my gut tells me we’ll be facing Josh McCown on Sunday in Denver. While Daunte Culpepper obviously has more upside in the long term, I think McCown is a better short term solution while Culpepper still nurses his knee. I’m admittedly biased though – living in Arizona most of my life, my “second team” would be the Arizona Cardinals (a very, very, VERY distant second). McCown always played well backing up the oft-injured Kurt Warner, and I wanted to see him get his shot in Detroit. In his first start, he went 30 of 40 for 313 yards, 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. 75% completion percentage… 93.0 QB Rating… definitely the best in Oakland in a while.
THE EDGE –

RUNNING BACK – LAMONT JORDAN (#34, 5-10, 235)

After eclipsing 1000 rushing yards and over 1500 total yards in 2005, LaMont Jordan didn’t do nearly as well in 2006, finishing the season with 508 yards combined rushing and receiving. In his first game of 2007, Jordan looked more like the 2005 version, rushing for 70 yards in 15 carries and tallying 9 receptions for 89 yards. He packs a lot of bulk in his small frame (only 5-10), and can pound the rock behind a half decent offensive line this year.
THE EDGE –
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In a big game of “What If?” – Oakland Raiders beat writer Steve Corkran wonders aloud how different the Raiders would be if they had selected Jay Cutler with the 7th overall pick last year. Instead, the team picked safety Michael Huff, who has a lot of upside but hasn’t lived up to his potential yet.

Corkran conveys his idea that the team would be further along if they had selected Cutler last season and wide receiver Calvin Johnson in this year’s draft. It’s hard to argue with his reasoning (although it’s convenient to think drafting Cutler would still guarantee a #1 overall pick this past year).

For one thing, it would have prevented the Broncos from picking up Cutler, delaying the possibility of drafting a franchise quarterback for (probably) several years.

An excerpt from his article:

Patience is not one of Oakland managing general partner Al Davis’ virtues. He has said time and again that the Raiders don’t rebuild, they reload.

Part of their reloading the past two years involved selecting strong safety Michael Huff and quarterback JaMarcus Russell with Oakland’s top picks in the 2006 and’07 NFL drafts, respectively.

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I’ve read every other predicter/sportswriter/blogger’s results from their Pick ‘Ems last week. And I’ve come to a simple, definite conclusion.

All hail me.

I had a great showing in Week 1, picking my way to 13-3 (counting the Colts, whom if you’ve read any of Power Rankings etc. you know I picked). So I praise myself and toot my own horn this week because I have a feeling these bragging rights will be short-lived.

The games this week are that mind-achingly difficult to predict.

Toughest Game to Pick – Packers @ Giants. If Eli plays, I’d pick the Giants. But it looks like he might not, so I went with the Packers.

Easiest Game to Pick – Chiefs @ Bears. One of these teams is an 0-2 caliber team.

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Andrew Mason reports that rookie defensive end Tim Crowder and third year cornerback Karl Paymah both returned to the practice field on Thursday for the Broncos. Crowder has been out for several weeks with an ankle injury, and Paymah has been sidelined since his concussion in the final preseason match against the Cardinals. His report is also the first news of ankle injury for safety John Lynch I’ve seen, but he mentions that Lynch practiced without a hitch as well.

CB Domonique Foxworth and TE Stephen Alexander sat out practice with an ankle and calf injury, respectively. When the team updates the injury report on Friday, their status (out, questionable, etc.) will be known.

G Ben Hamilton (concussion) and T Ryan Harris will not play against the Raiders on Sunday, and have not practiced in a significant time.

I’m excited to see T Crow in some real game action, and hope he’s healthy enough to see the field against the Raiders.

Getting ready for each week’s game, I’ll be inviting a fellow writer from across the blogosphere to a little Q&A to tell us about his or her team. This week I invited Sean at Raider Take to answer a few questions, and he’ll be sending some my way in the near future.

Just like he stated over at his blog, lets take the high road people – no need to go spamming his site. Classy, like Broncos fans should be.

1. Over the past few seasons, the quarterback situation in Oakland has been a big question mark on the team. What did you make of the team signing Daunte Culpepper, and do the fans favor him starting in lieu of Josh McCown?

I can’t really speak for the Raider Nation, I can only speak for myself, and I wasn’t one of those booing McCown last week. The Raider Nation is very diverse and very educated about their team and football in general, which means that not only will you find a lot of different opinions in the Raider Nation, but also some very good arguments to back them up. I’ve heard good arguments favoring both McCown and Culpepper as the starter.

In addition to leading the team to three touchdowns, McCown led them to three missed field goal opportunities. That should have been 30 points on the board—which is about three times as much as we scored on average last season. So I can’t complain about McCown. Our defense and our kicker lost that game.

That said, I believe that Culpepper has more upside, and I’d like to find out if I’m right, especially now that McCown has an injury to his finger. Regardless, the signing of Culpepper added some much-needed dimension to our QB corps, especially in the wake of JaMarcus Russell’s holdout.

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That’s not a typo you see in the title – I’ll be posting the 5 steps the Broncos need to take to guarantee a win for the opposing team each week.

So hopefully they’ll know to avoid these mistakes to get the win. :)

1. Let Derrick Burgess and Warren Sapp storm through the O-line.
If the Broncos can let pass rush specialists Derrick Burgess and Warren Sapp through the offensive line untouched, the Broncos offense will never get going. Allow these playmakers to do their thing and the Broncos will have no shot at winning.

2. Overlook Nnamdi Asomugha and Fabian Washington
Neither are household names, so they’re not worth our attention, right? Gameplanning against these corners seems foolhardy, and it certainly won’t come back to bite us in the ass.

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Last week, the Broncos announced their team captains for the season – Jay Cutler, Tom Nalen, John Lynch and Champ Bailey. It appears these four players went to coach Mike Shanahan and told him that there was a name missing from the list. Injured WR Rod Smith belonged among the leaders of the team as well.

Offseason hip surgery hasn’t kept Smith from being a leader in the locker room. Mike Shanahan spoke of how the move came from the players, not the coaches:

I had the captains come to me and say they did not feel right not having Rod Smith as a captain. They know if he would have been healthy he definitely would have been one of our captain. To want Rod Smith as part of the group. I thought it was a heck of an idea.

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