Nothing against Detroit, its potholes or gray skies. But if not for the Super Bowl, nobody has any business visiting there in the dead of winter.
With one more victory, however, Broncos coach Mike Shanahan earns a trip to a far better place:
Canton, Ohio.
After going nearly seven years without any success in the NFL playoffs, Shanahan is now less than seven days away from guaranteeing his enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
If you don’t get to the Super Bowl, Shanahan always says, people tend to forget about you.
America is about to rediscover Shanahan.
When the Broncos finally won their first Super Bowl on a January night in 1998, the celebration was for John Elway.
They went back the next season and took home another Lombardi Trophy in the name of franchise owner Pat Bowlen and Broncomaniacs everywhere.
But, on this rather unlikely road to the AFC championship game against Pittsburgh, the Broncos have followed Shanahan every step of the way. It’s all about him.
These are Broncos you would have to be orange mad to love. Shanahan gave many of these players a second chance. Many of them needed it.
He rescued quarterback Jake Plummer from the Arizona desert. Talented safety John Lynch was thought to be damaged goods. Running back Mike Anderson had disappeared from the face of the football earth. Defensive lineman Trevor Pryce had one foot out the door before Denver called him back. The Broncos were laughed at for placing trust in Gerard Warren, Courtney Brown and Michael Myers, rejects from lowly Cleveland.
If this is a Super Bowl team, Shanahan must be a Hall of Fame coach.
Shanahan is so obsessed with crunching numbers that if you opened his brain and took a peek, all his gray matter would be neatly divided in the grid of a Sudoku puzzle.
So here is the single statistic from this surprising Denver season that best reveals the wiring inside Shanahan’s brain. The Broncos have been held to fewer than 300 yards of total offense in four games. Their record in those games: 4-0.
Back in the day, Shanahan built his reputation on offense. Now, whenever Denver gets a lead, he orders 240-pound linebacker Al Wilson to sit on it. That’s a stunning change in philosophy.
In the coaching profession, perhaps the true definition of genius is being able to reinvent yourself.
Some of us irreverently call Shanahan the Mastermind, behind his back, in the same way office drones in their cubbyholes select a pet name for the big boss.
In recent years, I have often wondered aloud if the Mastermind was losing his marbles. Don’t blame me. Daryl Gardener and Maurice Clarett made me do it.
But here’s the thing. By nature, emboldened by shrewd calculation and a flow chart for every waking second of every day, Shanahan is a gambler.
The risks he took in trusting Plummer, trading Clinton Portis for cornerback Champ Bailey and taking in all those strays from Cleveland’s Dawg Pound are what have put Shanahan back at the top of his profession.
Across the country, nobody loves these Broncos. Their 14 victories are all regarded as 14 flukes. Why?
Maybe it’s because their quarterback looks like a slacker chilling to U2’s “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” rather than a rocket scientist.
Maybe it’s because their defense is one Champ and 10 guys named Al.
Maybe it’s because there were those two championships won by the Broncos in the 1990s, so it’s hard for the national media to cast this story as an underdog having its day in the sun.
But this is the best job of coaching Shanahan has ever done in Denver. No doubt about it.
When the folks at the Hall of Fame carve a bust for Shanahan, they should make every detail true to how the Broncos coach looks on the sideline right now.
Listen to Mark Kiszla at 12:15 p.m. today on 1060 AM and the Radio Colorado Network. He can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
