My bad.
If Mike Shanahan’s press conference today summing up the Broncos’ 2007 season could be summed up in two words, those are the ones.
Shanahan accepted the blame for the team’s 7-9 season, saying, despite a handful of key injuries, the Broncos should have won 10-plus games.
“I’m in charge of this thing,” Shanahan said. “I just think if I had done a decent job of coaching, we’d have won 10 games or more. … I take full responsibility for what happened last year. We should have won 10 games at a minimum, with the players we had, even with some of the injuries we had. That goes back to me. My job is to win football games and I didn’t do a very good job.”
The Broncos’ 7-9 record marked Shanahan’s second losing season in his 13 years at Dove Valley. The team also missed the playoffs for the second straight season, the second time that had happened in Shanahan’s tenure.
Shanahan said the team’s recent failures haven’t strained his relationship with team owner Pat Bowlen.
“He’s a great owner,” said Shanahan. “One of the reasons he’s had great success is he understands the big picture.”
Shanahan said struggling at times “is the nature of this game. You’ve got to get through tough times. You’ve got to fight through it. … The bottom line is do you win or don’t you win? If you don’t win, you deserve all the criticism you should get.”
Shanahan’s press conference came on the heels of assistant head coach/defense Jim Bates’ resignation. Shanahan officially announced that Bates would be replaced by Bob Slowik, who becomes the team’s fifth defensive coordinator of the 21st century. Other changes on the staff: Jim Ryan will coach the linebackers, with ex-linebackers coach Joe Baker moving to quality control, and Ronnie Bradford will become the secondary coach.
In other matters, Shanahan:
– Said he talked with John Lynch earlier in the day and hoped Lynch would return. He expects Lynch to announce his future plans within the next month.
– Left open to door for Javon Walker to return in 2008. He doesn’t plan to talk to Walker, who questioned his future in Denver during a recent meeting with reporters, until Walker has had a chance to get away for a month or two.
– Wouldn’t commit to Travis Henry as the No. 1 tailback in ’08. He did, however, say that Selvin Young wouldn’t be the starter out of concerns about Young’s durability.
– Said he expects Tom Nalen to return next season, and expects Ryan Harris, a third-rounder last year, to compete for Matt Lepsis’ spot at left tackle. Lepsis retired after the season after nine years as a starter.
