The Denver Broncos - and by extention, the fans - have far bigger concerns regarding the trip to Foxborough to face the New England Patriots. Their former head coach, who is now once again employed by New England, should not be one of them. While it makes for great radio talk-show chatter, and I'm sure it sells papers - Woody Paige wrote about it today - it doesn't concern me in the least. If the Denver Broncos lose Saturday night, it won't be because of Josh McDaniels.
In fact, McDaniels will have much more to do with a Broncos WIN, than any advantage he can give Tom Brady and the Patriots, seeing that many of the Broncos key players were drafted by McDaniels, or in the case of Elvis Dumervil, awarded lucrative contract extensions by Josh.
No, Broncos fans shouldn't be concerned - but the same can not be said about fans from the Baltimore Ravens, New York Giants, Green Bay Packers, New Orleans Saints or San Franciso 49ers. Why? Josh McDaniels spent time game planning for those teams THIS SEASON with the St. Louis Rams.
Did the Rams win any of those games? Well, they did beat the Saints, but the Rams didn't have any talent either. McDaniels has first-hand knowledge of the CURRENT defenses for six of the eight teams remaining in the playoffs, if you count the Broncos.
Still think there is no advantage?
I'll be interested to see if this becomes a bigger story than it is, or if the hard-headed nature of football prevails. NFL coaches have egos - big ones - and they feel they can beat you even if you know exactly what they are doing. But with detailed study on ALL FOUR remaining NFC teams, as well as the team the Patriots could play in the AFC Championship game, we may hear a lot more about this in the days to come.
Stay tuned.
2 recs | 27 comments
I totally have an angle for this
The majority of the teams he has prepared for are NFC teams….
The Patriots are overlooking us and making plans for the SUPERBOWL!!! lol….
Jeremy Bolander - January 10, 2012
You laugh but that is totally in their mindset!
well, not overlooking the Broncos, I doubt they do that (alas). But they are confident and cocky and also always well prepared so, I’m sure they are happy to have McDaniels’ input on those other teams.
Good point on that score, John!
underdog - January 10, 2012
on the plus side, he won’t be game planning against a wink martin-D.
oxmouth - January 10, 2012
No advantage
Both teams are already breaking down film on every single game from each of those teams. Mcdaniels isn’t going to provide anything more than his opinion on the film and tendencies. This is being blown way out of proportion.
Briank12 - January 10, 2012
OT but btw, a move just announced
underdog - January 10, 2012
Guess we all saw that coming.
Teboner - January 10, 2012
Mangini brought up some good points today
FTR record I agree with you John, but here’s Mangini’s take and it’s worth consideration.
Paraphrasing “Josh will not add much if any value to the schemes since most of his original offense is gone or modified. Where he will be very valuable is in having watched individual players strengths, weaknesses and tendencies against certain techniques and types of plays. He’s seen more practice tape and watched these players perform for hours and hours of practice time against many variations of technique and his understanding of individual weaknesses will be far more valuable than game tape.”
I’m not a Mangini fan and think that he’s generally wrong but he does make a solid point here.
asinsoin - January 10, 2012
I don't like Mangini at all.
I was watching ESPN after the Broncos win over the steelers and he basically blew it off as bad game planning by the steelers and that you can bet the patriots won’t allow the Broncos to pull an 80 yd TD against them. His whole attitude was the the Broncos win was a fluke and that they wouldn’t be able to keep up with Brady and how many points he’ll put up. He’s doing exactly what everyone did to us vs. the steelers, which is to the Broncos advantage. What he failed to realize (or chose to ignore) was that the Broncos just put up 29 pts on the best defense in the league in 60 minutes plus 10 seconds of overtime. I don’t want to go into this overconfident, but if we can do that to the steelers, what can we do to the worst or 2nd worst defense in the league? Score 35, 42 points? It’s doable. Will Brady score that much? Possibly. It could be a shootout, or it could be a mid range scoring game. I’m guessing the latter as we’ll be able to run it much more against the patriots and will eat up more clock. I think it’ll be a nother 24+/- each team type game and hopefully we come out on top and shock the world again. I don’t want to sound like I’m looking ahead to the next game (I’m a fan I can do that), but I’d like a shot at Suggs to shut his face up.
go4broncos - January 10, 2012
imagine
how we would have buried them had Doom not jumped offsides on the Goodman pick or if the lateral had been called correctly
the new Bradfather - January 10, 2012
Suggs did admit he was shocked by Tebow after the last game.
tossin - January 10, 2012
Hopefully his “game planning” will be as fruitful as it was this season for the Rams and as it was for his last season and a half here. And I’d consider Sam Bradford and Steven Jackson to be significantly talented.
Bob in Boulder - January 10, 2012
Bradford & Jackson was all he had is St. Lou and they both
missed significant time to injury, at least Bradford did. Just saying.
hcubed - January 10, 2012
He also had B. Lloyd
He took Sam Bradford from passing for over 3,500 yards, 18td, 60pct passing comp percentage and and a 76.5 passer rating from his rookie season to under 2200 yds, 6td, under 55% completion percentage, and 70 rating his 2nd season, with the same talent, and even better talent when you consider they got B Lloyd mid season.
Broncoman - January 10, 2012
But as hcubed suggested, couldn’t those falling numbers be attributed to injury?
tossin - January 10, 2012
I understand Bradford was hurt some
But his completion percentage and rating were also down, and I would attribute his getting hurt to poor protection schemes employed by McDaniels.
Broncoman - January 10, 2012
I agree about those protection schemes
It was no wonder that Bradford got hurt, lucky he didn’t get killed. Sometimes offensive geniuses, such as McD & Martz, fall in love with their schemes and when something goes wrong, they are too stubborn to change (or don’t know how to change since it was someone else’s scheme that they are essentially using-McD the Patriots offense, Martz a version of the Air Coryell scheme that if I remember correctly, he learned from our good friend Norv Turner.)
hcubed - January 10, 2012
the only notes McDaniels has on those teams are written in crayon
mikebirty - January 10, 2012
There is an advantage...
He knows our offensive coordinator. The terminology and audible signals may be the same. He also knows from many team meetings while game planning with the Broncos how McCoy might call plays in certain situations. And while routs may be different the signals for rout changes may not have changed. Coaches rarely change these kind of things and assistants always carry much of what they learn from a head coach, including terminology, play names and strategy. Believe me, McDaniels is a threat and the league should not allow this to happen this season.
BlueNOrangeNIdaho - January 10, 2012
No talent?
So Sam Bradford, Steven Jackson, Brandon Lloyd equals no talent, come on, the dude cost Spags his job in St. Louis and then slinks back to hide under the master cheater’s skirt, admit this dude rode the coat tails of some HOF players (Brady, Moss, Welker, Light, Mankins, etc..) with an established offense under Weiss to make himself seem like he knows what the hell he is doing. Put him on an island away from his mommy and he can’t coach worth a damn, St. Louis had the worst offense in the league last season, they did pretty well the year before they lost their previous OC, with the same talent.
My guess is that he has a bunch of tape from Broncos practices that he is handing over to the cheater now hoping to get back in his good graces. The fact he slinked back to New England after not getting canned, shows the true low life McD is that he really has no morals towards the intergrity of the game. What would it matter had he waited until after the Patriots had their season ended, I wish the league would allow us to have Rex Ryan be a consultant for this game. I don’t know if there is any real advantage that New England will gain, my guess is Brady game won’t improve that much and they won’t know our defensive signals because our DC changed and the scheme changed, but again, pretty pathetic that McD would do this now. Hope he enjoys being Brady’s towel boy for the next few years.
Broncoman - January 10, 2012
I think McDaniels’s motives are a little less insidious than that…
tossin - January 10, 2012
I agree with the fact that Rams had talent.
McDainels naturally doesn’t like to run the football so Jackson was screwed from the beginning. Why you don’t want to give that man the ball everytime confuses me. He’s an elite RB.
However, I will say, I kind of saw Sam Bradford’s injuries coming. That was my major concern with him and from the looks of it, I was right. The guy is a toothpick. I don’t think he can make it through a whole season on a consistent bases.
tiderfootball09 - January 10, 2012
omygod
He was offered a job, his current employer said, “go for it,” so he took it. I fail to see where morals enter the equation, never mind the “integrity of the game,” whatever that is.
I suggest you-all offer him a job. If he wants it, and the Jets will let him go, he can take it. I assure you: the League will allow it. I know, it’s really pathetic when a guy gets a good job offer and takes it. I imagine he’ll enjoy being OC in NE pretty well — last time he tried it yielded some of best seasons in franchise history.JohnHannahRules - January 10, 2012
To your posts
The intergrity of the game is that he was employeed in St. Louis, he could of just as easily told the Patriots that after the season was over he would join their staff and he would work with his current employeer to help transition whoever the next coach will be into what he was doing on offense, what they did this season, yada, yada, yada, instead of going and leaving out the back door to go run to mommy and try to help the cheater win another game by giving him whatever info he could.
Again, I guess sarcism is lost on you, but what if they could offer him a job for one game and then he goes back to Jets as their HC, I am sure you guys would be screaming bloody murder.
Seems to me he had a good job! He was the OC in St. Louis, the only thing apealing for this move was to go ride Brady’s and Master Cheater coattails again and hope he gets another fat payday by a naive owner who thinks McD actually can coach worth a damn. And is it that hard to be the OC when you have Brady, Moss, Welker, etc.. you could make an idiot like McD look good, oh wait, they did. I am guessing the O’Brian will fall flat on his face in Penn State, just like Weiss, McD, Romo, and every other cheater diciple. By the way, when McD was your OC, how many SB did you all win? Oh that’s right, all that offense and you still lost in the SB because you couldn’t run the ball and couldn’t protect your QB, 2nd is last place.
Broncoman - January 10, 2012
I was going to counter...
but the hate level is through the roof. Not even an inch of space left for an honest discussion.
Marima - January 10, 2012
By Romo, I assume you mean Romeo Crennel.
Didn’t he just beat the Broncos as a HC?
Middlesex - January 10, 2012
Wow
Time for a tinfoil hat adjustment
Marima - January 10, 2012
Whatever is causing so much pain and hatred in your life, Broncoman
I hope you figure it out. You’re projections on these boards are filled with inaccurate and unnecessary vitriol. I hope you can get some perspective, and some calmness and composure, as the year rolls on. Good luck.
furiousd - January 10, 2012
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