Angel
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2006
- Messages
- 2,261
- Reaction score
- 1
Lincicome: If future is now, '06 Broncos are finished
November 24, 2006
KANSAS CITY — No turkey jokes, please. This is too sad. This is season-ending sad.
It isn't just that Jake Plummer may have thrown his last pass for the Broncos — and if he did, it was overthrown — but if things are so desperate that, five games from the end of the season, the savior must be a rookie quarterback who has yet to take a snap that counts, things are somewhere between bleak and hopeless.
The question of the night was not asked of Mike Shanahan — the question of who will be the Broncos' quarterback in 10 days — I like to think because the gathered media showed more courtesy to the Broncos coach than it got in return.
It was not the question that was important as it was the answer, and if Shanahan could not anticipate the pubic curiosity, then he is a fool and not just a boor.
"Any questions?" Shanahan asked. It was not an invitation as much as a dare. None of us immediately blurted out the obvious, "Is Plummer finished?" or "Does your quarterback stink, or what?" — though that would have been two questions, and so we got what we deserved.
Silence and Shanahan's back.
Shanahan would not answer the question later, either, other than to insist that the media had its chance. And so, if Shanahan won this little game of pique with the media, may it help him forget a very bad Thanksgiving, not to mention a pathetic football game.
His real adversary is not the media but awful football and how to fix it.
What happens next is going to be unpleasant, whether he sticks with Plummer or not, and there can be no way Shanahan ever believed he would have to face the choice he must face this soon, any more than he has to realize that Darrent Williams couldn't make an open-field tackle if he were allowed to use the Jaws of Life.
This happened so quickly, this abrupt exposure of how inadequate are the Broncos, a team that seemed ready and meant for better things, a team losing, in turn, to lesser and lesser teams — so narrowly falling to the Colts, then more intolerably to the Chargers, and now more deplorably to the Chiefs.
What Shanahan has to know is that it is not just the quarterback, that the fiddling and patching he has done to fix the obvious has made no difference.
The special teams are horrible, the running game is imaginary, the offensive line is tattered, the pass rush is feeble, the play-calling is uncreative (a flea-flicker on the second play of the game?) and team poise is unsettled.
Suddenly, just like that, the Broncos are hitchhikers, teetering on the rim of the playoffs, a team that can't run the football, a team that can't tackle, a team with a quarterback crisis, a team of mismatched parts, a team in free fall.
How easy it is to focus on Plummer, the dismal wretch, who was always too limited to carry a team, and all the more diverted since the draft by the ghost of Jay Cutler, who is the great unfailed solution.
Plummer will always need help to succeed, a strong running game, good receivers, a sturdy defense, a freedom to fail. There are worse quarterbacks than Plummer in pro football, no matter what the ratings insist.
If we are left to guess Plummer's future, so is Plummer himself, and Plummer did take those questions, gamely and openly and defiantly.
"I have no control over that (Shanahan's decision)," Plummer said. "I'm the starter now, and if Mike feels he wants to put Jay in there, then my play hasn't warranted him to not do it. He will do what he wants to do, and I will go with it.
"All I can do is play my (butt) off when I get in there. And I battled (Thursday). I let down the team, but I'm sure there are others who feel the same.
"I get too much credit and I get too much blame. Right now, the blame is there. Whatever happens, happens."
Plummer is still the best chance the Broncos have of not only making the playoffs, but succeeding in the playoffs.
Cutler is tempting because he has yet to disappoint anyone, but to place Cutler in the position of saving a season is not only unrealistic, but unreasonable. The unacceptable failures of Plummer will be forgiven in Cutler, but they will be failures nonetheless.
The rest of the Broncos team is not good enough to support Cutler, to give him a chance to win. And Cutler would have to be the greatest thing since the twist tie to be anything more than tolerable.
Certainly, Cutler is the future, but if Cutler is the quarterback this season, the future is not this season.
And maybe it isn't.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/sports_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_83_5166859,00.html
November 24, 2006
KANSAS CITY — No turkey jokes, please. This is too sad. This is season-ending sad.
It isn't just that Jake Plummer may have thrown his last pass for the Broncos — and if he did, it was overthrown — but if things are so desperate that, five games from the end of the season, the savior must be a rookie quarterback who has yet to take a snap that counts, things are somewhere between bleak and hopeless.
The question of the night was not asked of Mike Shanahan — the question of who will be the Broncos' quarterback in 10 days — I like to think because the gathered media showed more courtesy to the Broncos coach than it got in return.
It was not the question that was important as it was the answer, and if Shanahan could not anticipate the pubic curiosity, then he is a fool and not just a boor.
"Any questions?" Shanahan asked. It was not an invitation as much as a dare. None of us immediately blurted out the obvious, "Is Plummer finished?" or "Does your quarterback stink, or what?" — though that would have been two questions, and so we got what we deserved.
Silence and Shanahan's back.
Shanahan would not answer the question later, either, other than to insist that the media had its chance. And so, if Shanahan won this little game of pique with the media, may it help him forget a very bad Thanksgiving, not to mention a pathetic football game.
His real adversary is not the media but awful football and how to fix it.
What happens next is going to be unpleasant, whether he sticks with Plummer or not, and there can be no way Shanahan ever believed he would have to face the choice he must face this soon, any more than he has to realize that Darrent Williams couldn't make an open-field tackle if he were allowed to use the Jaws of Life.
This happened so quickly, this abrupt exposure of how inadequate are the Broncos, a team that seemed ready and meant for better things, a team losing, in turn, to lesser and lesser teams — so narrowly falling to the Colts, then more intolerably to the Chargers, and now more deplorably to the Chiefs.
What Shanahan has to know is that it is not just the quarterback, that the fiddling and patching he has done to fix the obvious has made no difference.
The special teams are horrible, the running game is imaginary, the offensive line is tattered, the pass rush is feeble, the play-calling is uncreative (a flea-flicker on the second play of the game?) and team poise is unsettled.
Suddenly, just like that, the Broncos are hitchhikers, teetering on the rim of the playoffs, a team that can't run the football, a team that can't tackle, a team with a quarterback crisis, a team of mismatched parts, a team in free fall.
How easy it is to focus on Plummer, the dismal wretch, who was always too limited to carry a team, and all the more diverted since the draft by the ghost of Jay Cutler, who is the great unfailed solution.
Plummer will always need help to succeed, a strong running game, good receivers, a sturdy defense, a freedom to fail. There are worse quarterbacks than Plummer in pro football, no matter what the ratings insist.
If we are left to guess Plummer's future, so is Plummer himself, and Plummer did take those questions, gamely and openly and defiantly.
"I have no control over that (Shanahan's decision)," Plummer said. "I'm the starter now, and if Mike feels he wants to put Jay in there, then my play hasn't warranted him to not do it. He will do what he wants to do, and I will go with it.
"All I can do is play my (butt) off when I get in there. And I battled (Thursday). I let down the team, but I'm sure there are others who feel the same.
"I get too much credit and I get too much blame. Right now, the blame is there. Whatever happens, happens."
Plummer is still the best chance the Broncos have of not only making the playoffs, but succeeding in the playoffs.
Cutler is tempting because he has yet to disappoint anyone, but to place Cutler in the position of saving a season is not only unrealistic, but unreasonable. The unacceptable failures of Plummer will be forgiven in Cutler, but they will be failures nonetheless.
The rest of the Broncos team is not good enough to support Cutler, to give him a chance to win. And Cutler would have to be the greatest thing since the twist tie to be anything more than tolerable.
Certainly, Cutler is the future, but if Cutler is the quarterback this season, the future is not this season.
And maybe it isn't.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/sports_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_83_5166859,00.html