As it turned out, the Broncos weren’t quite as bad at the 11 a.m. Mountain time starts as I thought.
Beginning with the 34-10 shellacking they took against a poor Miami team in the 2005 opener, the Broncos are 4-6 in 11 a.m. local starts — or games that kick off at 1 p.m. Eastern time or noon Central.
Still, they were miserable in the 2005 opener against Miami, bad in losing to an awful St. Louis team in the opener of 2006, and needed a heroic Toro! Toro! field goal by Jason Elam to beat a bad Buffalo team to begin 2007.
All were 11 a.m. starts, according to the Broncos’ biological clocks. The Broncos started well in 2008, but then, it was Monday night at Oakland.
People have been critical of new Broncos coach Josh McDaniels for many of his off-field decisions, but no one can say he doesn’t think of everything when it comes to preparation.
The Broncos will open the season Sunday at Cincinnati with the game starting here at 11 a.m. And so McDaniels started his practice at 11:25 a.m. Thursday and should start near 11 a.m. Friday.
“Whether it works or not in terms of our body clocks changing for Sunday, we’re doing everything we feel like we can,” McDaniels said. “We’re trying to get our players up a little earlier, get on the practice field a little earlier every day and then hopefully Sunday it will kind of feel normal to them being out on the East Coast.”
