So, the intrepid reporter asked Champ Bailey, what about those 37 points the Chargers put up against you? “Actually, they scored 38.”
Gee, thanks, Champ. Just what everyone needed around here: a reminder of how shaky the Broncos’ defense looked last Sunday, when the Chargers scored on six consecutive possessions to come within an Ed Hochuli whistle of winning.
From the looks of things, there will be more games like that one on the Broncos’ 2008 schedule. Games in which the last team with the ball wins. Games in which the Broncos’ offense will carry them — by design and by default.
It’s no deep, dark secret at Dove Valley. Of course the offense is better than the defense. How could it not be? The Broncos have used more resources and hit on more draft picks on the offensive side of the ball.
Nine of the 11 offensive starters — 10, if Tom Nalen returns — are homegrown, including Jay Cutler and Ryan Clady, the two highest draftees of the Mike Shana-han era. The defense, meanwhile, has three starters who were drafted and developed. The others were acquired through trades or free agency, mostly to provide short-term answers to big-picture problems.
“To more seasoned Broncos fans, this should look kind of familiar,” said CBS analyst Randy Cross, who was in the booth for the Denver-San Diego game. “They’ve got an offense that can score points in huge globs and a defense that they’re not really sure about. It kind of looks like I’ve seen this before.”
Yes, but with an asterisk. For the first time since John Elway was selling play fakes instead of cars, the Broncos have a franchise quarterback. That’s the difference between these Broncos and the others of the post-Elway days.
Ask Shanahan about Cutler’s six touchdown passes or those 80 points in two games and you won’t get much of a reaction. He expected this, or something similar to this. To him, the Broncos’ growing reliance on the passing game is more evolution than surprise. It didn’t suddenly happen so much as it was preordained.
This is a league in which the rules to promote the passing game have been tweaked so often it has fundamentally changed how its teams do business. To wit: NFL teams in 2007 threw 55 percent of the time and completed a record 61.2 percent of their passes. Seven quarterbacks threw for 4,000 yards, the most in NFL history. Games averaged 428.6 yards in offense, the most since 1995.
The Broncos are with the program. They have run 133 plays in two games — 75 passes, 58 runs. Contrast that to recent years, when the Jake Plummer-led Broncos ran the ball more often than throwing it every season from 2003-06. Why? Because Shanahan never developed a level of trust in Plummer that he clearly has with Cutler.
“I just knew, after we lost the AFC championship game, that was probably as good as we could play both offensively and defensively,” Shanahan said. “Jake had won 70 percent of his games and done a great job, but I thought that was as good as we could get. So I was determined to go out there and try to get a franchise quarterback.”
Armed and dangerous
Now that he has one, Shana-han is airing it out, just like all those other teams with elite quarterbacks: the 2007 Packers and Cowboys, who produced 60-40 pass/run splits; and the Patriots, who threw to set up the run from the opening kickoff of their 16-0 season.
“What Jay has done in these last two games speaks volumes,” Shanahan said. “You don’t have to talk. You just watch him. If you can’t figure out how good he is . . .”
Then you can’t figure out that the Broncos are a legitimate threat to win the West. Las Vegas certainly has. The Broncos once were 40-1 longshots to win the Super Bowl. These days, they are 11-1 at the Las Vegas Hilton, barely behind the Chargers and Patriots at 10-1.
No, they don’t owe it all to Cutler. But now that the kid quarterback has reached his third NFL season, Shanahan has decided to put the fate of the franchise in Cutler’s hands. Given the defense’s limitations — the Broncos have gained 6.9 yards per play and allowed 6.9 — it’s on Cutler to make this a special season.
“He’s pretty darn good right now,” said Hall of Fame quarterback-turned-analyst Dan Fouts. “The important thing for him to do is remain as confident as he is. His teammates already think he’s something else. You can just tell by the way they’re playing.
“The thing about him is he reaches the field with every ball. There’s no place on the field he can’t get to. A lot of quarterbacks can’t do that. That allows them to spread the field and get the ball to those fast receivers in open spaces.”
Defense cannot rest
Sure, it’s early, but these aren’t the 2-0 Broncos of last season. This isn’t the team that squeaked past Buffalo and beat the Raiders after Shanahan’s infamous timeout nullified a Raiders game-winning field goal. But given the Broncos’ defensive limitations, it’s hard to project where this team is headed.
Maybe we’re looking at a modern-day Air Coryell, a team that has to put up 30-plus to win most Sundays. Fouts wouldn’t go there, saying it’s too early to tell, but common sense suggests there will be more days like last Sunday.
“With this game being the way it is, it takes awhile for a team to be what they’re really going to be,” Cross said. “Ask Boss Bailey how important Jon Kitna’s great stats were in Detroit. If you don’t back it up with defense, sometimes you don’t become the team you think you can be.”
Jim Armstrong: 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com
