Offseason: The State of the Broncos

The team with more recent flops than a game of Texas hold-em is once again leaving me confused as hell this off-season. Being a Broncos fan, I can't help but take a week to discuss their off-season changes. Last year the Broncos saw some MAJOR changes in the off-season, with the firing of Mike Shanahan, the hiring of Josh McDaniels and a whole lot of drama with Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall. Although this year's off-season hasn't been in the news as much, it is still a pretty eventful one.

The Broncos just acquired Brady Quinn from the Browns in a trade. The trade involved a 2011 6th round draft pick, a 2012 "conditional" draft pick (What every a conditional draft pick may be), and Peyton Hillis, the Fullback who did a great service in Denver when converted to Halfback due to the extensive running back injuries that year. A day after the trade, the Broncos cut Chris Simms (The former #2 QB), after spending one (unproductive) season in Denver.

I personally find this to be somewhat of a gamble, but a good one. Denver only gave up a fullback and a couple late round draft picks over the next two years for a 2007 first-round QB. Sure, he was pretty unproductive in Cleveland, but I've yet to see a QB there who IS. I remember watching his first game starting for Cleveland, which just so happened to be against the Broncos in 2008. There was a massive amount of hype surrounding his first game and it seemed many fans thought he would be the franchise QB the Browns needed. The game he played was actually pretty decent, though he has failed to really impress since then. Maybe Cleveland was just a bad fit for Quinn, Who knows? All I know is that I'd like to see if there was a good reason for the hype surrounding him entering the NFL when given a chance with another team.

A somewhat unsettling change in Denver this off-season has been the release of Mike Nolan (in January). Mike Nolan was the defensive coordinator for the Broncos last year. He completely revamped the 29th place defense with personnel changes as well as changing the defensive scheme from 4-3 to 3-4. He had incredible success and turned a terrible at best defense into one of the best in the league. In fact, for the first 6 games (before the annual Denver Bronco choke) Denver had THE best defense in the league. I still think it was a horrible move to fire probably the most significant factor in the 2009 Bronco's turnaround. The thing is, the Broncos are still in the REBUILDING phase and they let Nolan go after having extremely significant results in the first year of his employment.

The other moves by the Broncos have been more routine than notable. They've cut a few players who were somewhat insignificant, and hired a few who seem to have been average players for the teams they were previously on. I have a feeling that this off-season hasn't reached it's peak yet. Brandon Marshall,one of the best WR's in the game who is noticeably disliked by Head Coach Josh McDaniels, still hasn't been traded. As usual, I'm left having no idea how the Broncos are going to do. I remain optimistic, however, until we are once again mathematically eliminated from the playoffs after another late-season flop.