THE NEXT BRETT FAVRE IS NO BRETT FAVRE
The Broncos finally painted themselves into a corner that Jason Elam’s foot couldn’t get them out of. A team with a running game that moves like old men and features an actual old man at quarterback just waltzed into Mile High and took another year off of Mike Shanahan’s life. Favre was having an average game up until overtime when he had a sudden moment of clarity and thought “Hey, wait a minute, I’m Brett Favre!” and promptly reminded Mile High of that fact by nailing the Bly-burning Greg Jennings for eighty-two freakin’ yards.
Horrible.
But not surprising. This wasn’t like the Pittsburgh game. Last week the team hit the field pissed-off, well rested and had a chip on their shoulders bigger than Travis Henry’s diaper bill. This week, the team was complacent after victory, the aforementioned Big Baby Daddy was out, and it seems that the “weaker” NFC was underestimated. The thing we here hate hearing the most is now that they’ve gotten over the “next Elway” bit, the media has moved on to comparisons between Pumpkin Pie and Brett Favre. Folks, can we stop? Jay Cutler has tools, but can we give the kid a break? Pumpkin is compared more to older quarterbacks than any young quarterback in quite some time. Can we let him develop his own identity, please? And another thing, no, he’s not Brett Favre. Brett Favre came over from the Falcons into a low-pressure situation with a team that had been an afterthought for 20 years and started turning heads. Then, Favre’s coach assembled a vicious defense led by racist homophobe (but otherwise generally nice guy and great player) Reggie White and suddenly the Packers were winning new fans and Super Bowls.
Pumpkin Pie, our favorite NFL pastry, is coming into a definite high-pressure situation, and for Denver fans, their two Super Bowls may as well have happened last week. He was drafted as a savior and dumped into the middle of a playoff run. Both Fav-ruh and Pump-kin possess strong arms and brains, and both throw about as many INT’s as TD’s (although incredibly, Favre’s ratio has actually improved in his 17th year in football.) But Brett Favre has the biggest pair of Q-Balls in the NFC, and therein lays the difference.
“The Mastermind” Mike Shanahan came to the party unprepared yet again. Sure, BBD was a late scratch, but remember, Shanahan’s arrogant pride in the notion that his RB’s are interchangeable is supposed to make that irrelevant. Cutler started out fine, hitting bam-bam-bam passes to put the Broncos on the board, but then a costly fumble by the Pie blew a sure score and probably kicked Cutler “squah” in whatever Q-Balls he’d been developing over the past two weeks. Pumpkin Pie was not the same for the next two possessions; Selvin Young didn’t hit his holes and Shanahan twiddled his thumbs as Green Bay padded their score with field goals. But then, as all great coaches do, Shanahan decided to trust in his best player to win an ugly game. Unfortunately, Shanahan has mismanaged this team so badly that his best player is the kicker. Jason Elam did what he was asked to do, but even Adam Vinateri can’t make a field goal equal four points instead of three, and the game went to overtime where it usually comes down to two things...coin tosses and Q-Balls. Green Bay had the double-whammy advantage and fifteen seconds later: Game over, thanks for visiting Invesco Field at Mile High, drive home safe; pick up some discounted Rockies World Series merchandise on your way out; go Nuggets.
Well, shit. Here we go again, back to square one. Now Shanahan leads his Horses into the Lions’ den in Detroit, where Jon “Jesus is my neurologist” Kitna’s promise of ten wins isn’t looking so ridiculous anymore. The Lions are coming off two strong wins against Tampa Bay and Chicago, the latter at Soldier Field. The Lions can be beaten if the Broncos get to Kitna early but they’re in a bind. The Lions just saw a Coyer defense and blew by it against Tampa. Jim Bates hasn’t been able to implement anything innovative that actually works...so Shanahan will probably go with the “Simple Simon” defense that caught Pittsburgh off guard but probably won’t be able to surprise the high-powered Detroit attack. The Lions have more good receivers than Champ Bailey can cover...whether it’s Shaun McDonald or Calvin Johnson, someone’s going to burn Bly or end up uncovered. Worst of all for Pumpkin Pie, even though the Lions give up points, they lead the league in picks. The Broncos can win simply because...screw it; we’re not trusting the Lions as contenders until after week 12, after they’ve played the Giants and Packers. They win those games? They can win the NFC. But then, anyone can win the NFC at this point (except St. Louis.)
Will they win? If they play like they did Monday night, the answer is no, no, no. So whip out the microscopes, Denver. We let the guy off the hook for one week and look what happens: A complete breakdown against a heavily flawed NFC team that went from having no running game to having some schmoe named Ryan Grant (Ryan Grant? RYAN GRANT?) kick up 100 yards of Mile High turf in Denver’s face! Can we get some accountability, Mikey? Well, don’t worry, LPP fans, we won’t be letting Shanahan relax anymore and neither should you, whether or not you supported our position that he should have...
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Live To Fight Another Day
WE LIVE TO WRITE ANOTHER DAY!!!
Lo and behold, our prediction of victory rang true! The Steelers had early jitters and ended up having to play behind for most of the game...the Mile High advantage actually worked for once! The Denver Broncos won again on the foot of Jason Elam, keeping LetPlummerPlay.com alive and reinforcing the legendary phrase “…On Any Given Sunday.” Pumpkin Pie had an above average game despite a couple of ugly picks that nearly ruined everything, even leading a drive halfway up the field (aided by a Steelers penalty) to get Elam in position to be the hero yet again.
We have to admit there’s not much to complain about this week outside of inflated expectations. Hopefully, all the fans screaming “playoffs” will come to their senses. Pittsburgh is pretty good, but they’re not Indianapolis or New England, and the NFL gave the Broncos a gift by scheduling most of their toughest games at Mile High. Amazingly enough there’s still a chance to make the playoffs, simply because San Diego hasn’t hit the hard part of their schedule yet. It doesn’t look like anyone in this division is going to win more than 10 games. For the love of Christmas, Kansas City is in first place, and that team was technically worse than the Broncos before the injuries hit! The Raiders are finding out that Miami game aside, Daunte Culpepper really IS washed up, and we’re about to find out if adding Chris Chambers will be a difference maker for San Diego. The Broncos, inconsistent as they are, have as much a chance of making the playoffs as they do of dropping their next 8 games in a row. That’s nice if you like surprises, we guess.
We won’t rub salt into old wounds this week just because this is a victory and we’re still Broncos fans...duh. However, this hasn’t changed our outlook on the season or the coach one bit. Last night was a young team with low expectations playing over their heads and getting out to a fast start, and the medium-powered Steelers offense isn’t geared to play from behind; they need to grind out early leads or keep games close for 60 minutes. They aren’t going to surprise teams every week. We do think next week is winnable because media is over-hyping a Brett Favre team as usual, and the Packers are coming to Mile High with no running game.
Quite simply, it’s one of those “everyone else” years in the NFL. Parity has made the league so diluted and weak that it comes down to Patriots, Colts...and then everyone else, with only a few lucky games and bad decisions separating the 2-4 teams from the 4-2 teams, and so on. No matter what kind of record the Jags, Giants, Bucs, Chargers, Steelers, Cowboys, or yes, the Broncos put together, they aren’t going to knock off one of the big boys when it matters unless the stars align, or Brady and Manning fall off a cliff in each other’s warm embrace to spite a world that cannot accept their cannon arms and massive charisma. The problem with the Broncos is that if you know you aren’t going to win the Super Bowl, you have to at least look a team that can fool a city. It’s been easy for Shanahan to fool Denver...he’s been doing it for 8 years and running. But there’s less to work with here than usual and the base for the future is iffy. Maybe he’s got the next Joe Montana/Jerry Rice in Jay Cutler/Brandon Marshall. But even if those two develop into very good players, there’s the chance that they end up as Jim Everett/Henry Ellard, which makes for very pretty statistics...and nothing higher than Conference Title losses, which this city has deemed absolutely UNACCEPTABLE to the point of turning on certain otherwise successful parties. Shanahan is not putting a good and consistent team together and he hasn’t done it all decade. They won yesterday as we predicted and his job is safe yet again...but we’ve made other predictions too, and we haven’t been wrong a whole hell of a lot lately. To paraphrase the immortal words of The Wolf: Let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks just yet...even Buffalo won a game yesterday. One win doesn’t fix everything, it just makes Monday morning a little easier to deal with when you’re at the office ragging on a bunch of Raiders and Chargers fans (we run into this quite a bit, and frankly this is one reason we’re sick of Shanahan falling short of the Super Bowl...we want to shut up the prick in the mail room who keeps reminding us--correctly--that the Raiders have more AFC titles in the 21st century than the Broncos.)
Enjoy the small victories, Denver, but the big picture is much bleaker. When the season ends with a fizzle, just make sure you blame the right guy. The TOP guy. And why not puff up your Favorites list by adding:
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
Lo and behold, our prediction of victory rang true! The Steelers had early jitters and ended up having to play behind for most of the game...the Mile High advantage actually worked for once! The Denver Broncos won again on the foot of Jason Elam, keeping LetPlummerPlay.com alive and reinforcing the legendary phrase “…On Any Given Sunday.” Pumpkin Pie had an above average game despite a couple of ugly picks that nearly ruined everything, even leading a drive halfway up the field (aided by a Steelers penalty) to get Elam in position to be the hero yet again.
We have to admit there’s not much to complain about this week outside of inflated expectations. Hopefully, all the fans screaming “playoffs” will come to their senses. Pittsburgh is pretty good, but they’re not Indianapolis or New England, and the NFL gave the Broncos a gift by scheduling most of their toughest games at Mile High. Amazingly enough there’s still a chance to make the playoffs, simply because San Diego hasn’t hit the hard part of their schedule yet. It doesn’t look like anyone in this division is going to win more than 10 games. For the love of Christmas, Kansas City is in first place, and that team was technically worse than the Broncos before the injuries hit! The Raiders are finding out that Miami game aside, Daunte Culpepper really IS washed up, and we’re about to find out if adding Chris Chambers will be a difference maker for San Diego. The Broncos, inconsistent as they are, have as much a chance of making the playoffs as they do of dropping their next 8 games in a row. That’s nice if you like surprises, we guess.
We won’t rub salt into old wounds this week just because this is a victory and we’re still Broncos fans...duh. However, this hasn’t changed our outlook on the season or the coach one bit. Last night was a young team with low expectations playing over their heads and getting out to a fast start, and the medium-powered Steelers offense isn’t geared to play from behind; they need to grind out early leads or keep games close for 60 minutes. They aren’t going to surprise teams every week. We do think next week is winnable because media is over-hyping a Brett Favre team as usual, and the Packers are coming to Mile High with no running game.
Quite simply, it’s one of those “everyone else” years in the NFL. Parity has made the league so diluted and weak that it comes down to Patriots, Colts...and then everyone else, with only a few lucky games and bad decisions separating the 2-4 teams from the 4-2 teams, and so on. No matter what kind of record the Jags, Giants, Bucs, Chargers, Steelers, Cowboys, or yes, the Broncos put together, they aren’t going to knock off one of the big boys when it matters unless the stars align, or Brady and Manning fall off a cliff in each other’s warm embrace to spite a world that cannot accept their cannon arms and massive charisma. The problem with the Broncos is that if you know you aren’t going to win the Super Bowl, you have to at least look a team that can fool a city. It’s been easy for Shanahan to fool Denver...he’s been doing it for 8 years and running. But there’s less to work with here than usual and the base for the future is iffy. Maybe he’s got the next Joe Montana/Jerry Rice in Jay Cutler/Brandon Marshall. But even if those two develop into very good players, there’s the chance that they end up as Jim Everett/Henry Ellard, which makes for very pretty statistics...and nothing higher than Conference Title losses, which this city has deemed absolutely UNACCEPTABLE to the point of turning on certain otherwise successful parties. Shanahan is not putting a good and consistent team together and he hasn’t done it all decade. They won yesterday as we predicted and his job is safe yet again...but we’ve made other predictions too, and we haven’t been wrong a whole hell of a lot lately. To paraphrase the immortal words of The Wolf: Let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks just yet...even Buffalo won a game yesterday. One win doesn’t fix everything, it just makes Monday morning a little easier to deal with when you’re at the office ragging on a bunch of Raiders and Chargers fans (we run into this quite a bit, and frankly this is one reason we’re sick of Shanahan falling short of the Super Bowl...we want to shut up the prick in the mail room who keeps reminding us--correctly--that the Raiders have more AFC titles in the 21st century than the Broncos.)
Enjoy the small victories, Denver, but the big picture is much bleaker. When the season ends with a fizzle, just make sure you blame the right guy. The TOP guy. And why not puff up your Favorites list by adding:
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
Friday, October 19, 2007
End Of Let Plummer Play?
THE SURVIVAL OF LET PLUMMER PLAY HINGES ON SUNDAY!!!
The bye week is over, the Broncos are home, and it’s time to face Pittsburgh. We here at Let Plummer Play are going to go out on a limb and predict a stellar victory for the Broncos, which will save Shanahan’s job and prove for one more week that he is a genius. If the Broncos lose, we may no longer have a reason to live...virtually speaking.
Why would we say this? Well, aside from the fact that we’re still Broncos fans, this season hangs by a thread. Pumpkin Pie is stuck with a thuggish-ruggish (and sluggish) offense both on the field and on the sidelines, injuries are popping up left and right, and the defensive line is playing like pre-schoolers (Red Rover, Red Rover, send the Chargers on over!) If the Broncos lose this game, they are 2-4, a barrel bottom they haven’t scraped since the first post-Elway season of ’99 (to be fair, that team started 0-4.) That means we here at LPP are closer to being proven right than ever!
That can’t happen! If we’re proven right, by the Broncos tanking the season, and they replace Shanahan, and they let Cutler slide to another team to become a Pro Bowler, and they become a respectable threat again...what will we have to complain about!?!?! The Broncos have to hang on to at least the edge of mediocre if not improve to outright average! If they stay mediocre, Shanahan’s job is safe week to week and we get to rip on him until the playoffs start! If they actually become decent, they’ll come within a hair of the playoffs or even make it and we get another year to gloriously bash Shanahan for keeping the horses on a treadmill for the entire 21st century!
You’d think we hope they don’t win a Super Bowl with Shanahan, but that’s not true! We’d love for the Shanahan-led Broncos to rise again and smite their enemies, including the hated Colts, Chargers, Patriots, and Raiders (well, they usually smite the Raiders anyway) but here’s the problem: as long as Shanahan’s running his tired dog-and-pony show, the only bowl the Broncos will be seeing is the one planted on Pumpkin Pie’s head the next time he cuts his own hair! Jay, seriously, if you don’t want to spend the money, we’ll gladly spot you $10.00 plus tip. Put down the safety scissors and bum a ride to Supercuts. There’s like three of them in downtown Denver alone.
So go, Broncos, go! Give the unrealistic Shanahan Brigade false hope so LPP can go argue his little heart out at Andrew Mason’s blog! Give the people who see the truth more reason to roll their eyes when the Steelers beat themselves and we have to put up with another week of the Shanahan Brigade fooling themselves into thinking the team is fixed while insulting us for pimping Jake Plummer every week and ignoring the dozens of logical and factual NON-Plummer points we make because they hit too close to home! Give us the pain of mediocrity that we must feed on to live as smart-assed web bloggers who like to waste their time! If the Broncos go say, 5-11, what good is complaining about change going to do us? There’s no fun in arguing with people when we’ve been proven 100% right! But if we’re only 80-90% right about a 7-9 or 8-8 team, we can still muster up the motivation to go toe-to-toe with the residents of Fantasyland, where Mike Shanahan’s fists are full of hard-earned championship rings, the urinals at Invesco Field flush Cabernet Sauvignon, and John Elway’s Toyota dealership actually benefits America and not the Japanese economy! Could such a wondrous place exist???
Now, if they fire Shanahan, we won’t have much to complain about either, and we may have to close the site down. We can console ourselves by eating the sweet manna of intellectual victory and watching the Broncos rebuild properly without having built-in overblown expectations brought on by an overrated, played-out coach who can’t develop new talent because he needs to come into a situation with built-in superstars to succeed...if they fail WITHOUT Shanahan, at least we can say they tried new things. It’s like taking a European vacation and not enjoying yourself...at least you can say you went!
Don’t fucking die on me, Pyle! That would break my fucking heart! Go Broncos!!! Because even if he is the greatest handball player to ever play football, this site really is more than just an attempt to convince people to...
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
The bye week is over, the Broncos are home, and it’s time to face Pittsburgh. We here at Let Plummer Play are going to go out on a limb and predict a stellar victory for the Broncos, which will save Shanahan’s job and prove for one more week that he is a genius. If the Broncos lose, we may no longer have a reason to live...virtually speaking.
Why would we say this? Well, aside from the fact that we’re still Broncos fans, this season hangs by a thread. Pumpkin Pie is stuck with a thuggish-ruggish (and sluggish) offense both on the field and on the sidelines, injuries are popping up left and right, and the defensive line is playing like pre-schoolers (Red Rover, Red Rover, send the Chargers on over!) If the Broncos lose this game, they are 2-4, a barrel bottom they haven’t scraped since the first post-Elway season of ’99 (to be fair, that team started 0-4.) That means we here at LPP are closer to being proven right than ever!
That can’t happen! If we’re proven right, by the Broncos tanking the season, and they replace Shanahan, and they let Cutler slide to another team to become a Pro Bowler, and they become a respectable threat again...what will we have to complain about!?!?! The Broncos have to hang on to at least the edge of mediocre if not improve to outright average! If they stay mediocre, Shanahan’s job is safe week to week and we get to rip on him until the playoffs start! If they actually become decent, they’ll come within a hair of the playoffs or even make it and we get another year to gloriously bash Shanahan for keeping the horses on a treadmill for the entire 21st century!
You’d think we hope they don’t win a Super Bowl with Shanahan, but that’s not true! We’d love for the Shanahan-led Broncos to rise again and smite their enemies, including the hated Colts, Chargers, Patriots, and Raiders (well, they usually smite the Raiders anyway) but here’s the problem: as long as Shanahan’s running his tired dog-and-pony show, the only bowl the Broncos will be seeing is the one planted on Pumpkin Pie’s head the next time he cuts his own hair! Jay, seriously, if you don’t want to spend the money, we’ll gladly spot you $10.00 plus tip. Put down the safety scissors and bum a ride to Supercuts. There’s like three of them in downtown Denver alone.
So go, Broncos, go! Give the unrealistic Shanahan Brigade false hope so LPP can go argue his little heart out at Andrew Mason’s blog! Give the people who see the truth more reason to roll their eyes when the Steelers beat themselves and we have to put up with another week of the Shanahan Brigade fooling themselves into thinking the team is fixed while insulting us for pimping Jake Plummer every week and ignoring the dozens of logical and factual NON-Plummer points we make because they hit too close to home! Give us the pain of mediocrity that we must feed on to live as smart-assed web bloggers who like to waste their time! If the Broncos go say, 5-11, what good is complaining about change going to do us? There’s no fun in arguing with people when we’ve been proven 100% right! But if we’re only 80-90% right about a 7-9 or 8-8 team, we can still muster up the motivation to go toe-to-toe with the residents of Fantasyland, where Mike Shanahan’s fists are full of hard-earned championship rings, the urinals at Invesco Field flush Cabernet Sauvignon, and John Elway’s Toyota dealership actually benefits America and not the Japanese economy! Could such a wondrous place exist???
Now, if they fire Shanahan, we won’t have much to complain about either, and we may have to close the site down. We can console ourselves by eating the sweet manna of intellectual victory and watching the Broncos rebuild properly without having built-in overblown expectations brought on by an overrated, played-out coach who can’t develop new talent because he needs to come into a situation with built-in superstars to succeed...if they fail WITHOUT Shanahan, at least we can say they tried new things. It’s like taking a European vacation and not enjoying yourself...at least you can say you went!
Don’t fucking die on me, Pyle! That would break my fucking heart! Go Broncos!!! Because even if he is the greatest handball player to ever play football, this site really is more than just an attempt to convince people to...
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
With the BYE week, you have time to read this...
Q-BALLS
Jay Cutler, aka Pumpkin Pie, aka our favorite NFL Pastry, is a smart dude. He’s got a cannon arm and a tough physical frame; but let’s not beat around the bush...Vanderbilt is not some shady, cushy, “Rocks for Jocks 101” football machine that gives athletes a free ride just for showing up. Pumpkin Pie actually had to go to real classes and maintain a GPA to stay eligible. To the point: Vanderbilt is a great university. It is not a great football school.
Cutler lost a lot in college. Vanderbilt is to 1-A college football as the Atlanta Hawks are to basketball. Despite Cutler’s record-setting numbers at QB and some close, thrilling games for Vandy, the school was an abysmal 11-35 during his stay. In high school, Cutler’s team romped most of the time, going 26-1 in his last two years and outscoring their opponents by a ratio greater than 8-1, including one game that went 90-0. The guy even played Iron-man football at times, snagging several INTERCEPTIONS on the other side of scrimmage.
What we’re getting at: Pumpkin Pie is strong, he’s smart, and he’s certainly no sissy. However, he’s rarely been in the kind of situations where he can develop a sort of arrogant confidence in himself and in his ability to win no matter the odds. Pumpkin’s alma mater, Heritage High, is the football powerhouse of its region, beating up southwest Indiana’s PAC conference for ten years running. He didn’t have to face much adversity in high school as an efficient star component of an already-loaded team. At Vanderbilt, his team consisted of few stars and many true student-athletes. While Cutler kept them in many games, the Vanderbilt Commodores knew (especially in Cutler’s first 3 years) that losing was the most likely outcome; maybe anything could happen if they put up a fight and tried to keep it close but more likely not. That’s not how championship players are forged, no matter how you slice it.
We’ve obviously never played pro ball, but we’ve been on amateur teams in several sports and we can tell you what you may already know: if your team is bad, you FEEL it. Even if you’re the best QB, pitcher, or point guard in the city, if your team isn’t good enough to beat a better team you’re going to feel it like a flu coming on. It gets into your head no matter who you are, whether you’re Jay Cutler or Jay Nobody. In the movie “The Natural,” Roy Hobbs’ team hires a quack hypnotist to help get a team out of its losing streak. Although the approach is asinine and rejected by the players, the quack makes a point: “Losing is a disease.” That one part was absolutely true. Just because some players are stronger than others doesn’t mean they can’t be affected by losing attitudes.
Mike Shanahan’s nickname is “The Mastermind.” He’s quiet, analytical, and meticulous. While he is passionate in his way, he’s not going to be the type of coach to lose his cool to a referee or at a press conference; a rah-rah, give-me-everything-or-get-out motivational coach in the vein of a young Mike Ditka or Bill Parcells. Shanahan is in the Phil Jackson/Joe Torre mold; sure he’ll lose his temper occasionally, but he’ll try and squash it as quickly as possible if he feels it’s a distraction. This can be a good thing. But sometimes you need a coach who will properly complement his quarterback. You think Shanahan ever had to motivate Elway?
Case in point: Pumpkin Pie finds himself in a situation he’s never been in before. The Broncos are a team with almost all of the tools. What they’re missing is a fire, the kind of fire that the Elways and McNabbs of this world light under their teams as if to say “Let’s cut the bullshit--we’re going win this goddamn game no matter what.” Sometimes you can get away with a quarterback who can’t really do that as long as you have coaches who can...John Gruden with Tampa Bay; Brian Billick with the Ravens; Lovie Smith with the Bears; Bill Cowher in Pittsburgh. Here’s the problem: Cutler came from a high school where winning was almost an afterthought, and a college where any competitive game was an event. He was rarely in heated competition with titles and trophies on the line...his high school team blew by 95% of his opponents and his college teams never played for anything more than pride and bragging rights. Mike Shanahan is a strategist but rarely a motivator. Jay Cutler is a captain but not yet a leader. All the Champ Baileys and John Lynches and Rod Smiths in the world aren’t going to light a fire the way a coach or QB can, and this disjointed, disheartened Broncos team needs one or the other. Shanahan is set in his ways; he’ll never change. But Pumpkin Pie is expected to become the leader, a guy who will strap the team to his back, smack asses and shout encouragement from the sidelines, and basically act like the “general” any great quarterback from Otto Graham to Tom Brady is supposed to be.
Jay Cutler can be that guy, but he’s in the unenviable position of having gotten this far in a football career without yet being that guy and he’s playing for an extremely passive coach who is not going to prod him in that direction. But if you’re going to invest the kind of time and money the Broncos have in Cutler, that’s what he needs! He needs that hand-holding, that nurturing...in the art of coldly murdering his enemies with a satisfied smirk on his face. Cutler doesn’t need Mr. Miyagi, Cutler needs John Kreese. Jay doesn’t need to hear “Wax on, wax off,” he needs to hear “Sweep the leg!” For all of his arm strength and brains what Cutler needs more than anything else is a lesson in balls (figuratively speaking.) Are we saying Pumpkin Pie has no balls? Of course not, that’s stupid and insulting. But what Jay Cutler needs to have are the absolute biggest balls on the field, the “Quarterback’s Balls” or “Q-Balls,” for short. Pumpkin Pie’s Q-Balls should be so big that the refs have to make sure Denver doesn’t have too many men on the field. Peyton Manning’s got ‘em. Brett Favre’s got ‘em. Vince Young’s got ‘em. Hell, even old beat-up Daunte Culpepper swung a big pair of Q-Balls against Miami. Right now Pumpkin Pie has the relative Q-Balls of an Eli Manning or a Matt Hasselbeck. Some days they’ll get the job done; some days they won’t and it’s up to the rest of the team to work it out. For guys like say, Brett Favre, if they don’t have their Q-Balls in full swell (this is getting gross) their teams usually don’t have enough to pick up the slack and carry the win. That’s Pumpkin Pie’s situation in a nutshell, but he’s not showing the Q-Balls necessary to carry them when they need it.
What it comes down to is: Pumpkin Pie needs a true, effective mentor. The Broncos, knowing this, actually tried to keep Jake Plummer onboard to back Cutler, and one wonders if it wasn’t purely to develop Cutler’s Q-Balls (because it certainly wasn’t to play the guy.) Jake Plummer, whatever you thought of his talent or numbers, had Q-Balls that could choke Godzilla. Like it or not, sometimes the only person on the field who thought certain plays could be completed or certain games could be won was Jake Plummer. Even when the Snake failed, he went down swinging. With Jake’s departure, Cutler doesn’t have a cagey veteran on the sidelines and Shanahan isn’t going to step in and teach Cutler how to eat lightning and crap thunder. The Broncos have staked their future on a kid who’s heart, body, and mind aren’t the problems; it’s his lack of arrogance (who knew such players still existed?) and hesitance to stab the other team right through the chest. With all they’ve staked on Cutler’s future, Bowlen and Sundquist need to make a decision: keep the coach who’s been running in place for 10 years or back the kid? Cutler and Shanahan have no bad feelings, no bad blood...they’re just bad for each other because one needs to be what the other one needs to have. Either Cutler needs to fire it up for Shanahan, or Shanahan has to fire it up for Cutler.
Again, we’re not saying Cutler is gutless or “ball-less.” But what he is lacking above all else is the killer instinct of a guy with enormous “Q-Balls.” That’s something Shanahan doesn’t know how to teach. Shanahan’s had ten years to try it his way. It’s time to explore other options. Save Pumpkin Pie and Save the Broncos.
Oh, and buy a T-shirt from...
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
Jay Cutler, aka Pumpkin Pie, aka our favorite NFL Pastry, is a smart dude. He’s got a cannon arm and a tough physical frame; but let’s not beat around the bush...Vanderbilt is not some shady, cushy, “Rocks for Jocks 101” football machine that gives athletes a free ride just for showing up. Pumpkin Pie actually had to go to real classes and maintain a GPA to stay eligible. To the point: Vanderbilt is a great university. It is not a great football school.
Cutler lost a lot in college. Vanderbilt is to 1-A college football as the Atlanta Hawks are to basketball. Despite Cutler’s record-setting numbers at QB and some close, thrilling games for Vandy, the school was an abysmal 11-35 during his stay. In high school, Cutler’s team romped most of the time, going 26-1 in his last two years and outscoring their opponents by a ratio greater than 8-1, including one game that went 90-0. The guy even played Iron-man football at times, snagging several INTERCEPTIONS on the other side of scrimmage.
What we’re getting at: Pumpkin Pie is strong, he’s smart, and he’s certainly no sissy. However, he’s rarely been in the kind of situations where he can develop a sort of arrogant confidence in himself and in his ability to win no matter the odds. Pumpkin’s alma mater, Heritage High, is the football powerhouse of its region, beating up southwest Indiana’s PAC conference for ten years running. He didn’t have to face much adversity in high school as an efficient star component of an already-loaded team. At Vanderbilt, his team consisted of few stars and many true student-athletes. While Cutler kept them in many games, the Vanderbilt Commodores knew (especially in Cutler’s first 3 years) that losing was the most likely outcome; maybe anything could happen if they put up a fight and tried to keep it close but more likely not. That’s not how championship players are forged, no matter how you slice it.
We’ve obviously never played pro ball, but we’ve been on amateur teams in several sports and we can tell you what you may already know: if your team is bad, you FEEL it. Even if you’re the best QB, pitcher, or point guard in the city, if your team isn’t good enough to beat a better team you’re going to feel it like a flu coming on. It gets into your head no matter who you are, whether you’re Jay Cutler or Jay Nobody. In the movie “The Natural,” Roy Hobbs’ team hires a quack hypnotist to help get a team out of its losing streak. Although the approach is asinine and rejected by the players, the quack makes a point: “Losing is a disease.” That one part was absolutely true. Just because some players are stronger than others doesn’t mean they can’t be affected by losing attitudes.
Mike Shanahan’s nickname is “The Mastermind.” He’s quiet, analytical, and meticulous. While he is passionate in his way, he’s not going to be the type of coach to lose his cool to a referee or at a press conference; a rah-rah, give-me-everything-or-get-out motivational coach in the vein of a young Mike Ditka or Bill Parcells. Shanahan is in the Phil Jackson/Joe Torre mold; sure he’ll lose his temper occasionally, but he’ll try and squash it as quickly as possible if he feels it’s a distraction. This can be a good thing. But sometimes you need a coach who will properly complement his quarterback. You think Shanahan ever had to motivate Elway?
Case in point: Pumpkin Pie finds himself in a situation he’s never been in before. The Broncos are a team with almost all of the tools. What they’re missing is a fire, the kind of fire that the Elways and McNabbs of this world light under their teams as if to say “Let’s cut the bullshit--we’re going win this goddamn game no matter what.” Sometimes you can get away with a quarterback who can’t really do that as long as you have coaches who can...John Gruden with Tampa Bay; Brian Billick with the Ravens; Lovie Smith with the Bears; Bill Cowher in Pittsburgh. Here’s the problem: Cutler came from a high school where winning was almost an afterthought, and a college where any competitive game was an event. He was rarely in heated competition with titles and trophies on the line...his high school team blew by 95% of his opponents and his college teams never played for anything more than pride and bragging rights. Mike Shanahan is a strategist but rarely a motivator. Jay Cutler is a captain but not yet a leader. All the Champ Baileys and John Lynches and Rod Smiths in the world aren’t going to light a fire the way a coach or QB can, and this disjointed, disheartened Broncos team needs one or the other. Shanahan is set in his ways; he’ll never change. But Pumpkin Pie is expected to become the leader, a guy who will strap the team to his back, smack asses and shout encouragement from the sidelines, and basically act like the “general” any great quarterback from Otto Graham to Tom Brady is supposed to be.
Jay Cutler can be that guy, but he’s in the unenviable position of having gotten this far in a football career without yet being that guy and he’s playing for an extremely passive coach who is not going to prod him in that direction. But if you’re going to invest the kind of time and money the Broncos have in Cutler, that’s what he needs! He needs that hand-holding, that nurturing...in the art of coldly murdering his enemies with a satisfied smirk on his face. Cutler doesn’t need Mr. Miyagi, Cutler needs John Kreese. Jay doesn’t need to hear “Wax on, wax off,” he needs to hear “Sweep the leg!” For all of his arm strength and brains what Cutler needs more than anything else is a lesson in balls (figuratively speaking.) Are we saying Pumpkin Pie has no balls? Of course not, that’s stupid and insulting. But what Jay Cutler needs to have are the absolute biggest balls on the field, the “Quarterback’s Balls” or “Q-Balls,” for short. Pumpkin Pie’s Q-Balls should be so big that the refs have to make sure Denver doesn’t have too many men on the field. Peyton Manning’s got ‘em. Brett Favre’s got ‘em. Vince Young’s got ‘em. Hell, even old beat-up Daunte Culpepper swung a big pair of Q-Balls against Miami. Right now Pumpkin Pie has the relative Q-Balls of an Eli Manning or a Matt Hasselbeck. Some days they’ll get the job done; some days they won’t and it’s up to the rest of the team to work it out. For guys like say, Brett Favre, if they don’t have their Q-Balls in full swell (this is getting gross) their teams usually don’t have enough to pick up the slack and carry the win. That’s Pumpkin Pie’s situation in a nutshell, but he’s not showing the Q-Balls necessary to carry them when they need it.
What it comes down to is: Pumpkin Pie needs a true, effective mentor. The Broncos, knowing this, actually tried to keep Jake Plummer onboard to back Cutler, and one wonders if it wasn’t purely to develop Cutler’s Q-Balls (because it certainly wasn’t to play the guy.) Jake Plummer, whatever you thought of his talent or numbers, had Q-Balls that could choke Godzilla. Like it or not, sometimes the only person on the field who thought certain plays could be completed or certain games could be won was Jake Plummer. Even when the Snake failed, he went down swinging. With Jake’s departure, Cutler doesn’t have a cagey veteran on the sidelines and Shanahan isn’t going to step in and teach Cutler how to eat lightning and crap thunder. The Broncos have staked their future on a kid who’s heart, body, and mind aren’t the problems; it’s his lack of arrogance (who knew such players still existed?) and hesitance to stab the other team right through the chest. With all they’ve staked on Cutler’s future, Bowlen and Sundquist need to make a decision: keep the coach who’s been running in place for 10 years or back the kid? Cutler and Shanahan have no bad feelings, no bad blood...they’re just bad for each other because one needs to be what the other one needs to have. Either Cutler needs to fire it up for Shanahan, or Shanahan has to fire it up for Cutler.
Again, we’re not saying Cutler is gutless or “ball-less.” But what he is lacking above all else is the killer instinct of a guy with enormous “Q-Balls.” That’s something Shanahan doesn’t know how to teach. Shanahan’s had ten years to try it his way. It’s time to explore other options. Save Pumpkin Pie and Save the Broncos.
Oh, and buy a T-shirt from...
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
Monday, October 8, 2007
Not since 1966...
WE KNEW IT WAS BAD, BUT...
Though we here at LPP often break out with a case of the Toldyaso’s when the very ineptitude we’ve been monitoring and flagging for years rears its ugly head and shreds the Broncos on a particular Sunday, we have to say in the aftermath of week 5: It’s even worse than we thought. How can we say it better than the combination of the Rocky Mountain News (Bernie Lincicome, writer) and the Mastermind himself:
Bernie Lincicome: "If Shanahan took the blame for this, it is the least he could do. His handling of Cutler so far has progressed to Cutler getting no touchdowns at all instead of his usual one or two. The crowd, had it bothered to stick around, couldn't even yell for a new quarterback. If it did, the chant would be something like, "Send in what's-his-name." Cutler is the course Shanahan has chosen, and if he never imagined it could be this bad, this bad it is. And not getting any better."
Said Shanahan: “I did a very poor job getting this football team ready. I don't know if I've ever been more embarrassed. It starts with me and I did a poor job getting them ready.”
We noticed, coach. We’ve been noticing. Now the writers who get paid to do this are saying what we’ve been handing out for free: Shanahan has championships, respect and a ton of money. Walking away would not taint his legacy. Watching him decline into a predictable, shakable, beatable coach definitely will, and the decline didn’t just start yesterday. If something drastic doesn’t occur starting at the top of the organization the season, the quarterback, the coach, and indeed the franchise’s next three to five years will be torpedoed completely.
It took Norv “Stomach” Turner of all people to cut the head off of this horse and leave it in Shanahan’s bed as bloody, gruesome proof that the game is starting to pass him by. When the list of similar coaches is reviewed, Shanahan is not in embarrassing company by any means: Chuck Noll; Tom Landry; Don Shula; Mike Ditka…all respected, all successful. All of them hit a wall at some point and had to pack it in, whether gracefully or abruptly. We’ve never said that Shanahan wasn’t a good coach in his prime. He was a perfect fit to regulate and manage a team full of All-Pro talent, which can be just as difficult as managing a team in the Belichek “minimal superstars” vein. But he is not a developmental coach. He’s not going to build a team into a real contender anymore, at least not in the head coach position. Denver came close a couple of years ago, but they’ve simply been outgunned talent-wise (particularly by flat-out loaded Colts squads) and it takes a different kind of coach than “Steady as She Goes” Shanahan to pull a lesser-talented team past a powerhouse. Also of importance is his ability to groom young players. He rarely does more than let them work out their own kinks. Jay Cutler has franchise-carrying tools, but he doesn’t know how to use them yet. He’s a project, and Mike Shanahan has never developed a young quarterback into a star; he’s only really groomed the Grieses and Grbacs of the world. That’s not something you leave on your resume.
The locker room is starting to crack (see Marshall, Brandon. Also the fondly remembered Darrent Williams spoke out last year about “quitsies,” and if anything, the guy’s many friends on the roster would have more reason to think “You know what, man? Darrent was on to something.”) The “fans” are getting the “Elway Clenches” in their sphincters and are only waiting for their condition to evolve into the stage where they start making up stupid derogatory nicknames for Jay Cutler (and don’t you dare point out “Pumpkin Pie,” that one’s done out of love.) The current roster was never going to roll to the Super Bowl, but they should be better than a team that’s two kicks away from 0-5. I mean, Holy Reversals Batman, the Raiders sat at home for their bye week and somehow ended up in first place! For once this season, Shanahan nailed it: It starts with him. It’s time for a different approach. And maybe he should have...
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
Though we here at LPP often break out with a case of the Toldyaso’s when the very ineptitude we’ve been monitoring and flagging for years rears its ugly head and shreds the Broncos on a particular Sunday, we have to say in the aftermath of week 5: It’s even worse than we thought. How can we say it better than the combination of the Rocky Mountain News (Bernie Lincicome, writer) and the Mastermind himself:
Bernie Lincicome: "If Shanahan took the blame for this, it is the least he could do. His handling of Cutler so far has progressed to Cutler getting no touchdowns at all instead of his usual one or two. The crowd, had it bothered to stick around, couldn't even yell for a new quarterback. If it did, the chant would be something like, "Send in what's-his-name." Cutler is the course Shanahan has chosen, and if he never imagined it could be this bad, this bad it is. And not getting any better."
Said Shanahan: “I did a very poor job getting this football team ready. I don't know if I've ever been more embarrassed. It starts with me and I did a poor job getting them ready.”
We noticed, coach. We’ve been noticing. Now the writers who get paid to do this are saying what we’ve been handing out for free: Shanahan has championships, respect and a ton of money. Walking away would not taint his legacy. Watching him decline into a predictable, shakable, beatable coach definitely will, and the decline didn’t just start yesterday. If something drastic doesn’t occur starting at the top of the organization the season, the quarterback, the coach, and indeed the franchise’s next three to five years will be torpedoed completely.
It took Norv “Stomach” Turner of all people to cut the head off of this horse and leave it in Shanahan’s bed as bloody, gruesome proof that the game is starting to pass him by. When the list of similar coaches is reviewed, Shanahan is not in embarrassing company by any means: Chuck Noll; Tom Landry; Don Shula; Mike Ditka…all respected, all successful. All of them hit a wall at some point and had to pack it in, whether gracefully or abruptly. We’ve never said that Shanahan wasn’t a good coach in his prime. He was a perfect fit to regulate and manage a team full of All-Pro talent, which can be just as difficult as managing a team in the Belichek “minimal superstars” vein. But he is not a developmental coach. He’s not going to build a team into a real contender anymore, at least not in the head coach position. Denver came close a couple of years ago, but they’ve simply been outgunned talent-wise (particularly by flat-out loaded Colts squads) and it takes a different kind of coach than “Steady as She Goes” Shanahan to pull a lesser-talented team past a powerhouse. Also of importance is his ability to groom young players. He rarely does more than let them work out their own kinks. Jay Cutler has franchise-carrying tools, but he doesn’t know how to use them yet. He’s a project, and Mike Shanahan has never developed a young quarterback into a star; he’s only really groomed the Grieses and Grbacs of the world. That’s not something you leave on your resume.
The locker room is starting to crack (see Marshall, Brandon. Also the fondly remembered Darrent Williams spoke out last year about “quitsies,” and if anything, the guy’s many friends on the roster would have more reason to think “You know what, man? Darrent was on to something.”) The “fans” are getting the “Elway Clenches” in their sphincters and are only waiting for their condition to evolve into the stage where they start making up stupid derogatory nicknames for Jay Cutler (and don’t you dare point out “Pumpkin Pie,” that one’s done out of love.) The current roster was never going to roll to the Super Bowl, but they should be better than a team that’s two kicks away from 0-5. I mean, Holy Reversals Batman, the Raiders sat at home for their bye week and somehow ended up in first place! For once this season, Shanahan nailed it: It starts with him. It’s time for a different approach. And maybe he should have...
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
Friday, October 5, 2007
Big Baby Daddy!
HARD WORK GOOD, AND HARD WORK FINE, BUT FIRST TAKE CARE OF HEAD
Well, this is just f***ing great, Denver fans. Travis Henry, one of the keys to Denver’s potential success, is a hair away from getting the hammer dropped for his second league substance offense. The interesting thing here is that unlike the last few high-profile substance suspensions, Big Baby Daddy didn’t get popped for HGH or ‘roiding. No, apparently Poppa T got popped for the one lady in his life that he couldn’t knock up no matter how often he hit dat: Mary Jane.
Maybe this is a stretch, but maybe it isn’t...shouldn’t a team signing a guy with character issues and previous violations dig pretty deep on the background check? Was it simply a matter of Shanahan asking “Travis, you still hit the bong?” and Henry simply lying? Or did they even bother to check? Personally, we here at LPP don’t mind the sweet leaf so much, but when it comes down to gainful employment and keeping your ass on the field...Big Baby Daddy was just a dumbass. Problem is, despite loads of talent, it’s not like Henry didn’t have any red flags on him. Yet the Broncos rolled the dice on a man who is apparently Shawn Kemp and Ricky Williams rolled into one. Are you kidding? That’s an old-school Raider move! Henry made the mistake, but by bringing him in, Shanahan and Sundquist enabled it. Now it’s a distraction and a detriment that could turn an uneven start into a full-fledged disaster.
Selvin Young looked good last game but if Henry goes down the Broncos will have Young and Mike Bell--both undrafted--as their top RB options. That’s yet another dice roll. Any good gambler will tell you that if you keep rolling the dice, you will inevitably crap out. Within 12 months, Denver has: swapped out a veteran QB with a winning record for a rookie from a bad football school during a playoff run; sent said rookie and future franchise savior back into a season finale with a concussion; fired a competent and proven defensive coordinator after a top-ten finish with a battered lineup; and hitched the running game on a guy with knee problems, nine kids by nine women, and a suspension record.
Hopefully, Denver will at least save money on Henry’s contract, but the team has another distraction that they can’t afford. Face it fans...despite San Diego being coached by Mr. Magoo, they’re angry and cornered with a chip on their shoulder and have an MVP running back ready to take his mad out on a bottom-five rush defense. Denver and BBD will try to stretch out his appeal as long as possible for this must-win game, but the Mile High Advantage might not be enough with Henry on the hot seat, Javon Walker’s knees buckling, and both lines getting worked like a side of beef in a “Rocky” movie while Shanahan tries to pretend he’s simply staying the course. Truth is, it’s largely Shanahan’s decisions that put us in this mess, but the soft Denver press will smooth this over and divert the blame towards Travis Henry and away from the guys who put the team’s season on Big Baby Daddy’s shoulders in the first place. BBD’s herb troubles are just part of a greater problem that many poor fans are blinding themselves to. LetPlummerPlay.com is proud to be the voice of reason in these troubled times. We won’t betray you, Denver faithful! Wake up and smell the ganja! And remember the good old days when the Broncos used to...
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
Well, this is just f***ing great, Denver fans. Travis Henry, one of the keys to Denver’s potential success, is a hair away from getting the hammer dropped for his second league substance offense. The interesting thing here is that unlike the last few high-profile substance suspensions, Big Baby Daddy didn’t get popped for HGH or ‘roiding. No, apparently Poppa T got popped for the one lady in his life that he couldn’t knock up no matter how often he hit dat: Mary Jane.
Maybe this is a stretch, but maybe it isn’t...shouldn’t a team signing a guy with character issues and previous violations dig pretty deep on the background check? Was it simply a matter of Shanahan asking “Travis, you still hit the bong?” and Henry simply lying? Or did they even bother to check? Personally, we here at LPP don’t mind the sweet leaf so much, but when it comes down to gainful employment and keeping your ass on the field...Big Baby Daddy was just a dumbass. Problem is, despite loads of talent, it’s not like Henry didn’t have any red flags on him. Yet the Broncos rolled the dice on a man who is apparently Shawn Kemp and Ricky Williams rolled into one. Are you kidding? That’s an old-school Raider move! Henry made the mistake, but by bringing him in, Shanahan and Sundquist enabled it. Now it’s a distraction and a detriment that could turn an uneven start into a full-fledged disaster.
Selvin Young looked good last game but if Henry goes down the Broncos will have Young and Mike Bell--both undrafted--as their top RB options. That’s yet another dice roll. Any good gambler will tell you that if you keep rolling the dice, you will inevitably crap out. Within 12 months, Denver has: swapped out a veteran QB with a winning record for a rookie from a bad football school during a playoff run; sent said rookie and future franchise savior back into a season finale with a concussion; fired a competent and proven defensive coordinator after a top-ten finish with a battered lineup; and hitched the running game on a guy with knee problems, nine kids by nine women, and a suspension record.
Hopefully, Denver will at least save money on Henry’s contract, but the team has another distraction that they can’t afford. Face it fans...despite San Diego being coached by Mr. Magoo, they’re angry and cornered with a chip on their shoulder and have an MVP running back ready to take his mad out on a bottom-five rush defense. Denver and BBD will try to stretch out his appeal as long as possible for this must-win game, but the Mile High Advantage might not be enough with Henry on the hot seat, Javon Walker’s knees buckling, and both lines getting worked like a side of beef in a “Rocky” movie while Shanahan tries to pretend he’s simply staying the course. Truth is, it’s largely Shanahan’s decisions that put us in this mess, but the soft Denver press will smooth this over and divert the blame towards Travis Henry and away from the guys who put the team’s season on Big Baby Daddy’s shoulders in the first place. BBD’s herb troubles are just part of a greater problem that many poor fans are blinding themselves to. LetPlummerPlay.com is proud to be the voice of reason in these troubled times. We won’t betray you, Denver faithful! Wake up and smell the ganja! And remember the good old days when the Broncos used to...
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
Thursday, October 4, 2007
From ESPN
By John ClaytonESPN.com(Archive)Updated: October 4, 2007 * Comment * Email *
Where's Jake Plummer when you need him?
During Jake the Snake's QB days in Denver, the rivalry between the Chargers and Broncos was predictable.Plummer would win the games in Denver with his smartsand feet, always making two or three big plays.Meanwhile, coach Mike Shanahan would do a masterful job catching the Chargers' defense off guard with his running attack.
In the rematch in San Diego, the Chargers would keepPlummer in the pocket and pound him. The series usually was a split.Now that Plummer has retired to Idaho, theChargers-Broncos series is unpredictable.
Where's Jake Plummer when you need him?
During Jake the Snake's QB days in Denver, the rivalry between the Chargers and Broncos was predictable.Plummer would win the games in Denver with his smartsand feet, always making two or three big plays.Meanwhile, coach Mike Shanahan would do a masterful job catching the Chargers' defense off guard with his running attack.
In the rematch in San Diego, the Chargers would keepPlummer in the pocket and pound him. The series usually was a split.Now that Plummer has retired to Idaho, theChargers-Broncos series is unpredictable.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Save The Broncos!
UPON FURTHER REVIEW
The Broncos never had a chance. We all pretended that they did for a bit, but even after Pumpkin Pie ran in the TD, it never seemed as if the Broncos put any fear into the Colts. Sure, Big Baby Daddy ran big early, but after their first breakdown, the Colts figured out how to effectively choke off the red zone for most of the game. Pumpkin Pie didn’t make a lot of mistakes, but it was going to take an outstanding effort from our favorite NFL pastry to overcome the Colts and his own team; and that kind of game just isn’t in the crust yet.
Despite the Colts losing Harrison and Addai--their 2nd and 3rd best players--for large chunks of the second half, the Broncos rolled over, blew at least one LetPlummerPlay.com staff member’s office pool (yes, he picks them to win every week...and you think we’re haters?) and are now, uh, in first place in the AFC West. This is how bad the AFC West has become. Somehow (thanks to Norv “Stomach” Turner) the Chargers have fizzled and the rest of the division is at 2-2: Raiders, Chiefs, Broncos. While we’re ecstatic that our prediction about Norv’s path of coaching destruction has actually come true, we are less excited about how the Broncos failed to take advantage of the Jaguars last week in their own house and stake out first place.
“The Mastermind” was completely lost against the Colts when Henry came up lame, and unlike Tony Dungy, when he loses both a top receiver and his best runner, Shanny does not have the roster or the back-up plan (both HIS responsibilities) to compete with the big boys anymore. Last years’ loss to the Colts was a valiant effort where the best team gutted out a victory over a slightly lesser opponent. This year was different, as the Broncos couldn’t sustain more than one or two good drives in a row and eventually gave up in the fourth quarter. There’s no fire under these Bronco’s asses, whether it’s Shanahan occasionally slipping into the Art Shell/Norv Turner zone on the sidelines, whether it’s Cutler zoning out on the bench, the offensive line falling asleep every other down, the defensive line crumbling, or simply the ENTIRE TEAM’S final collapse in the 4th quarter.
We’ll complain about him during a loss just like anyone else, but we here at LPP have come around to see Jay Cutler as both a talent and a man. We’ll make fun of the Pumpkin Pie Haircut and we’ll bitch a bit about his mistakes, but now we see why we kept the site up. We aren’t just here for Jake anymore, we’re here for all the “savior” QB’s of the Broncos who didn’t get a proper chance and were blamed for something that in the end wasn’t and isn’t their faults. Now we know there’s something bigger than the QBs to blame for all this. Brian Griese was selected to succeed Elway. Plummer was selected to bring back respect to the Broncos QB position. Cutler was brought in to start over clean and build a new franchise QB. If the first two tries didn’t work under the same head coach, why is this time going to be different? The Broncos have Pro Bowl talent at multiple positions and Shanahan reconstructed the coaching staff (again) to fit his style. It’s not working, and Jay Cutler, a legit stud prospect at QB, is going to suffer for it. Can’t you just picture Pumpkin Pie getting run out of town Griese- or Plummer-style in 3 years and then catching on to another team that will probably know how to use him?
How embarrassing is it going to be when Jay Cutler takes Carolina or Kansas City to the playoffs?
By the way, the man Shanahan blamed for the team’s defensive struggles last year went straight to Tampa Bay, and Larry Coyer has helped hone a defense that was 21st in points allowed last year (finishing 4-12) into a team that’s allowed the fewest points in the NFL and is now sitting atop its division. Gary Kubiak has people buzzing about the Texans...the Texans! The Broncos are floundering with multiple Pro Bowlers, the best secondary in the league, a QB generally considered a blue-chip prospect, and a workhorse of a running back. And the team is struggling against everyone. Maybe we’re just idiots here, but we think that kind of poor guidance starts at the top. Shanahan is no longer “The Mastermind.” He’s just another coach. If things don’t turn around soon, he’ll be just another coach who’s stuck around too long. Don’t coast on 97-98 and keep giving Shanahan a mulligan year after year. Demand excellence from the position where the Broncos need it most! If you think we’re still just insane Jake Plummer lovers, you can kiss our asses! We failed to save the Snake, but our failure is going to inspire us to do bigger things! We aren’t just out to save the last piece of Pumpkin Pie; we’re out to save the entire Broncos team! SAVE THE BRONCOS!
Start holding Shanahan accountable for HIS mistakes, Denver faithful! The team is crumbling despite a load of talent! Put the blame where it belongs and CAN THE SHAN! Trust us, it’s not just because he didn’t...
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
The Broncos never had a chance. We all pretended that they did for a bit, but even after Pumpkin Pie ran in the TD, it never seemed as if the Broncos put any fear into the Colts. Sure, Big Baby Daddy ran big early, but after their first breakdown, the Colts figured out how to effectively choke off the red zone for most of the game. Pumpkin Pie didn’t make a lot of mistakes, but it was going to take an outstanding effort from our favorite NFL pastry to overcome the Colts and his own team; and that kind of game just isn’t in the crust yet.
Despite the Colts losing Harrison and Addai--their 2nd and 3rd best players--for large chunks of the second half, the Broncos rolled over, blew at least one LetPlummerPlay.com staff member’s office pool (yes, he picks them to win every week...and you think we’re haters?) and are now, uh, in first place in the AFC West. This is how bad the AFC West has become. Somehow (thanks to Norv “Stomach” Turner) the Chargers have fizzled and the rest of the division is at 2-2: Raiders, Chiefs, Broncos. While we’re ecstatic that our prediction about Norv’s path of coaching destruction has actually come true, we are less excited about how the Broncos failed to take advantage of the Jaguars last week in their own house and stake out first place.
“The Mastermind” was completely lost against the Colts when Henry came up lame, and unlike Tony Dungy, when he loses both a top receiver and his best runner, Shanny does not have the roster or the back-up plan (both HIS responsibilities) to compete with the big boys anymore. Last years’ loss to the Colts was a valiant effort where the best team gutted out a victory over a slightly lesser opponent. This year was different, as the Broncos couldn’t sustain more than one or two good drives in a row and eventually gave up in the fourth quarter. There’s no fire under these Bronco’s asses, whether it’s Shanahan occasionally slipping into the Art Shell/Norv Turner zone on the sidelines, whether it’s Cutler zoning out on the bench, the offensive line falling asleep every other down, the defensive line crumbling, or simply the ENTIRE TEAM’S final collapse in the 4th quarter.
We’ll complain about him during a loss just like anyone else, but we here at LPP have come around to see Jay Cutler as both a talent and a man. We’ll make fun of the Pumpkin Pie Haircut and we’ll bitch a bit about his mistakes, but now we see why we kept the site up. We aren’t just here for Jake anymore, we’re here for all the “savior” QB’s of the Broncos who didn’t get a proper chance and were blamed for something that in the end wasn’t and isn’t their faults. Now we know there’s something bigger than the QBs to blame for all this. Brian Griese was selected to succeed Elway. Plummer was selected to bring back respect to the Broncos QB position. Cutler was brought in to start over clean and build a new franchise QB. If the first two tries didn’t work under the same head coach, why is this time going to be different? The Broncos have Pro Bowl talent at multiple positions and Shanahan reconstructed the coaching staff (again) to fit his style. It’s not working, and Jay Cutler, a legit stud prospect at QB, is going to suffer for it. Can’t you just picture Pumpkin Pie getting run out of town Griese- or Plummer-style in 3 years and then catching on to another team that will probably know how to use him?
How embarrassing is it going to be when Jay Cutler takes Carolina or Kansas City to the playoffs?
By the way, the man Shanahan blamed for the team’s defensive struggles last year went straight to Tampa Bay, and Larry Coyer has helped hone a defense that was 21st in points allowed last year (finishing 4-12) into a team that’s allowed the fewest points in the NFL and is now sitting atop its division. Gary Kubiak has people buzzing about the Texans...the Texans! The Broncos are floundering with multiple Pro Bowlers, the best secondary in the league, a QB generally considered a blue-chip prospect, and a workhorse of a running back. And the team is struggling against everyone. Maybe we’re just idiots here, but we think that kind of poor guidance starts at the top. Shanahan is no longer “The Mastermind.” He’s just another coach. If things don’t turn around soon, he’ll be just another coach who’s stuck around too long. Don’t coast on 97-98 and keep giving Shanahan a mulligan year after year. Demand excellence from the position where the Broncos need it most! If you think we’re still just insane Jake Plummer lovers, you can kiss our asses! We failed to save the Snake, but our failure is going to inspire us to do bigger things! We aren’t just out to save the last piece of Pumpkin Pie; we’re out to save the entire Broncos team! SAVE THE BRONCOS!
Start holding Shanahan accountable for HIS mistakes, Denver faithful! The team is crumbling despite a load of talent! Put the blame where it belongs and CAN THE SHAN! Trust us, it’s not just because he didn’t...
LET PLUMMER PLAY!!!
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