Denver Post sports columnist Woody Paige posts Woody’s Mailbag on Thursdays.
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Woody, I attended my first Broncos game as a kid and have been hooked since. When my family moved to Salt Lake City, I still never missed a game, since they were televised. When I was in law school in San Francisco, you could find me at a bar watching every game. For 16 straight years I attended at least one home game each season. But the streak ended last year. I have never been more apathetic. Broncos’ games are not broadcast in Salt Lake anymore, and I don’t really care. They are so boring. That’s the worst part. Boring. Will I ever care again? Is there any hope?
—Corper, Salt Lake City
Woodman: I’ve been a Broncos fan since the days of Steve Tensi to Al Denson. Had seasons tickets John Elway’s rookie year (South Stands). I’ve never been more apathetic about the Broncos. I don’t dislike Kyle Orton, I’m sure he’s a nice person. I believe he can take us to the promised land of mediocrity. Please give me a glimmer of hope (maybe he’s standing on the sidelines, maybe not). I just know I’m caring less and less. Is there a silver lining?
—Tom, Tennessee
Corper, Tom… Two of the worst words you can use to describe your interest in a professional sports team are “bored” and “apathetic.” Worse than “awful” and “pathetic.” You’re bored mowing grass, and you’re apathetic about the Moffat Tunnel Commission election.
I understand. People say to me all the time: “You get to go to games? For free?” Try going to 225 sports events a year for 40-plus years. I’m easily bored and often apathetic. You want thrills, chills, hope and silver linings? There are usual situations – like the Cubs. People go to Wrigley Field for the experience, certainly not the team. But they do hope that one day, perhaps in their lifetime, the Cubs will win a World Series again.
I’ve written this before, but it always made sense to me. After the Broncos won their first-ever playoff game against the Steelers in 1977, Terry Bradshaw told me: “Tell them to enjoy this. Things will never be the same in Denver.” He wasn’t quite right. When the Broncos won the Super Bowl for the first time, there hadn’t been such a feeling before and hasn’t been one like that since.
Mediocrity is as unacceptable in Denver as it is in Boston. And I think that in tough economic times, if you’re going to spend your money or your time on a team, you want something extra special. The Broncos aren’t extra special or special or exciting or much fun, really.
That’s why people want Tim Tebow. Nobody can say it won’t be exciting or different or unique, even if he’s not that great. He will make you buy the NFL package in Salt Lake City to see the Broncos, make you have a “glimmer of hope” in Tennessee. And if he fails, go get somebody else next year. Kyle Orton is, I want to say, a comfortable pair of slippers. But he’s not even that comfortable.
The idea John Elway had was to produce a great defense, in the tradition of the Orange Crush of the 1970s, or a great running game (Terrell Davis) of the 1990s, and winning would make everybody happy and hopeful again. Interceptions, turnovers, sacks, big plays, stamping feet, people watching on the sofa and screaming “Yes!” at the TV set. He wants another John Elway. None of that is happening.
The Broncos are same old, same old. I watch the Bourne movies over and over because they’re exciting. I know everything that is about to happen, but I like the action. I watch the Broncos over and over, and I don’t like the action, and I know just about how it’s going to turn out. Lose at Tennessee, lose to the Raiders, lose at Green Bay this weekend, lose to the Chargers. The plot does not thicken.
Having said all that, the defense is better this year (from worst to middle of the pack, even with the injuries), and the Broncos will improve over a three- or four-year period, and maybe Tebow or Luck or Landry Jones or somebody will lead the Broncos out of the wilderness, as Elway once did, and a rather average Craig Morton did with an incredible defense holding up the offense. So hang in there, guys, and your team’s day will come again. But not this Sunday.
Truthfully, the most exciting game in recent Broncos history was the Houston game last year. For the only time in 17 games (stretching from 2009 to last Sunday), the Broncos came back from a deficit of three or more points at halftime – to win. Who was the quarterback in that game and who scored the winning touchdown? I don’t have to say his name.
Woody: Is John Elway’s ego preventing him from mentoring Tim Tebow? Does he fear losing the crown? Shouldn’t having Elway in your organization be a huge advantage for your quarterbacks? If so, it doesn’t show.
—Marty W., Highland, Utah
Marty, John told me on the phone, the night before he was officially introduced as Executive VP, that he would personally work with Tebow. He didn’t sound like a guy who disliked Tebow or wanted to get rid of him. I believe since that time, John has worked with Tebow once after practice. Maybe he doesn’t want Orton to see him with Tebow. Maybe John has decided that Tebow can’t play a lick. Maybe he thinks he has more important things to do, like tweeting and doing his weekly radio show. But he hasn’t worked with the quarterbacks. Maybe Fox doesn’t want Elway to.
I know that Elway has no fear of losing his crown. He’ll always be The Duke of Denver. Have the Jets forgotten Joe Namath? The 49ers Joe Montana? Maybe the Steelers have somewhat forgotten what Bradshaw did. But Elway gave the Broncos five Super Bowls, two championships. People still wear his jerseys at games. They still talk about him in reverent terms.
I heard that a radio station co-owner said that if you believe in Tebow, you don’t believe in Elway. I believe in Elway, but I think he and the organization are making a mistake. Elway did try to trade Orton. And nobody wanted him, even the Dolphins, when it was over with. We know why. Elway tried to do the right thing, and ultimately, he will do the right thing.
I think Elway doesn’t want to step on John Fox’s feet by ordering him to play Tebow. Elway hired Fox to coach. But I still agree with you that John should have come out and worked with all the quarterbacks more. That should have been his primary job as exec VP because we know he knows the QB position. It certainly might restore some order if Elway showed up a couple of days a week to work with the quarterbacks.
Hi Woody, I was hoping the Broncos would go 0-16 or 16-0 this year. Looks like the Colts have good timing with Peyton Manning’s injury. I was hoping the Broncos would have the first pick in the draft and get Andrew Luck but it looks like they might just be too good (or not bad enough). Is Andrew Luck as good as advertised? I would hate to see the Colts pick him up and continue their quarterback dynasty. Thanks for looking into the future with your crystal football.
—Shawn Graham, Boulder
Shawn, the Broncos would do neither, as you learned. They are, at best, average. Average won’t get them the No. 1 pick, although what about this scenario (which I didn’t come up with, but was brought to my attention by an emailers):
The Colts get the No. 1 pick in the draft. Andrew Luck says he won’t sign with them because he doesn’t want to play in Indianapolis or for coach Jim Caldwell. The Broncos trade Orton, Orlando Franklin and a first-round draft choice to the Colts for the rights to Luck. Nah. Unbelievable. Would never happen in the NFL. But it did once – with John Elway.
Is it my imagination, or is tackling a lost art in the NFL? Champ Bailey seems to be the only consistent tackler we have. Also, I don’t ever remember a player giving up the ball intentionally like Tennessee’s Kenny Britt did, have you?
—Jamie Teumer, Fort Collins
Jamie, I’ve had this discussion here before, and people said I didn’t know what I was talking about. But you and I agree. Players don’t know how to wrap up, don’t know how to tackle, don’t know where to tackle, don’t know what they’re doing. They seem more about hitting helmet-to-helmet or getting on the TV highlights for crashing into some offensive players.
Pro coaches have told me that the players don’t know how to tackle when they get to the NFL, and it’s often too late to teach them. And with most of the practices now out of pads, or without contact work, they never learn. The game has changed.
I was there in Nashville. I didn’t see Britt give up the ball intentionally, unless you think that because he was hurt, he just gave up on the play. I saw Kenny Stabler once give up the ball intentionally, and Dave Casper picked it up, and ran into the end zone for the winning touchdown in a playoff game. The NFL outlawed that play, as the NCAA changed the rule to not allow players to fumble ahead – the old “Bear Bryant Technique.” Britt was twisting and turning and hurt himself. I think he just didn’t care about what was happening with the ball, or dropped it. Dropped footballs happen. Ask Kyle Orton.
Woody ! Is it just me or does it look like those CU Buffs are not ready for big-time college football? This looks like coaching is the issue here. Ugly.
—Kenneth Mattison, Lakewood
Kenneth, probably not. They honestly might win two or three games in the Pac-12. There are a few issues at work here: Dan Hawkins didn’t leave Jon Embree much of anything. Hawkins was a terrible recruiter, and when he got somebody like Darrell Scott, the coach ran him off. Have you seen Scott’s play this year?
Embree didn’t have much time for recruiting, and it shows. The Buffs are two, three, maybe four years away from competing for the Pac-12 title, if then. They haven’t looked ready to play in any game. They looked like a Division II school showing up at Ohio State. The stage was too big for them, and they couldn’t handle it. Tyler Hansen is a nice quarterback, but the Buffs didn’t recruit a big-time QB for four years because kids knew that Hawkins was going to play his son. Now, maybe, they can get quarterbacks to come to Boulder.
But here’s the real issue: This ain’t the Big 12, and the Buffs ain’t playing Kansas anymore, Toto. The Buffs want to run the football like they did in the old days under Bill McCartney. Won’t work. That was what you did in cold-weather games. Seen any cold weather this year? It could work when McCartney put in the bone offense and recruited great runners (one won a Heisman Trophy, and Eric Bienemy was a great running back) and was able to stay with, or beat, conference teams in those cold-weather games. Now they’ll play in California, Arizona, Oregon and Utah, and the only cold-weather games with be in Boulder and Salt Lake City.
And do you think young quarterbacks who want to throw and play in the NFL are going to want to come to Boulder when the announced intention is to run the ball a majority of the time? The coaching staff already has found out this season that their grand plan to run isn’t working. The only way they score is to throw to an exceptional receiving corps.
And, nobody wants to say this, but Bienemy is a work-in-progress as a play-caller. He never called plays as a player or as a running backs coach, and it’s been an adjustment for him. If I were in Boulder as a coach, I’d run a hurry-up offense (Oregon) all the time and take advantage of the altitude. (I’d do that, too, with the Broncos, but they never listen, and the Buffs won’t either.) Hawaii was gassed at halftime last year, and the Buffs overwhelmed them in the second half.
Use the hurry-up, which CU never has except in two-minute or catch-up offenses, and you’ll buy a couple of extra victories a year. (Cal was finished here this year, but got to regroup for overtime, and don’t even get me started on how CU blew that game).
Throw the football, and you’ll get quarterbacks and receivers, and sign all those 300-pound linemen from Mullen High School, and recruit for speed on defense, and you’ll be fine. I like Embree a whole lot because he has returned the old CU feeling, but he’s kind of over his head at this point. This is his first head coaching job.
But the coaches don’t have a lot to work with, and CU is hurt literally and figuratively every time there’s another injury because there’s no depth. Big time? Not yet. Ugly. Yet.
Do you have any records of how often fans turn out to be right when they love new players and those players prove to be very good? Looking back, I seem to remember that, early on, Denver fans loved Terrell Davis and Rod Smith and Steve Atwater. It looks like Peyton Hillis is following the mold (in Cleveland). So fans love Tim Tebow and have been right about disliking Kyle Orton (I believe). Is it so wrong if fans are right, and the coaches and front office are wrong?
—Mike Lee, Santa Fe
Mike, yes, I keep a record of how many times fans are right. Sure. I can’t even keep up with how many times I’m right. But I have been here long enough to know that Terrell was hot out of the box early, and everybody from fans to coaches (Gary Kubiak strongly recommended the Broncos draft him, even though he was injured at Georgia, so Kubiak was way ahead of me and you), and Rod Smith was a practice player for a year, and people were screaming out for him, and Steve Atwater was a first-round draft choice, so it was no secret out of Arkansas. He was sort of like Von Miller at the time. People assumed he would be good.
I don’t remember people discovering Peyton Hillis in camp. My friend Gil Whiteley, who has a daily radio show, was way ahead of everybody on Hillis. Gil had him on the show once or twice a week, and told everyone he would be a great player. Gil was right. I thought he was a good backup running back.
I do believe that sometimes fans know more than front offices and coaching staff. When I was a young writer covering pro teams, I just assumed coaches and GMs knew more than I did. Heck, they have the jobs, so they must know what they’re doing. John Ralston was a great evaluator of talent, but not a very good coach. I knew Steve Ramsey couldn’t play, but Ralston thought he could. I was right; he was wrong. But Ralston thought Louis Wright would be a great cornerback, and picked him ahead of Ohio State cornerback Neal Colzie, everybody’s All-American. Fans in Denver didn’t like the pick. Wright was so superior in the pros to Colzie. Ralston picked Randy Grandishar one selection ahead of another linebacker, Don Goode. Don Who? So Ralston knew how to judge personnel better than fans.
In 1976 I ripped Max Coley, the offensive coordinator, for the Broncos’ failures on offense. One night I got a call out of the blue (or orange) from Max Coley, who told me (off the record) I could rip him all I wanted, but he was not to blame. He said Ralston knew nothing about offense and was overruling Coley all the time. I didn’t know if he could be believed. The Broncos went to Houston to play the Oilers. Coley got sick and was taken to the hospital. Ralston took over the offense for the game. The Broncos had something like two first downs the entire game and lost 17-3. Coley was right. The players knew it. They had a mutiny at the end of the season; the ownership got rid of Ralston, and the Broncos went to the Super Bowl the next year.
I figured out in the 1970s that coaches didn’t know everything, and sometimes I could judge talent just by watching as well as they could. Mike Shanahan got rid of Domenik Hixon, who I loved as a receiver and a return man, and he’s had a very good career with the Giants (and was hurt in the first game this year). Sometimes fans know more than coaches and personnel guys do.
I find it somewhat funny that Brian Xanders distances himself from Josh McDaniels all the time, and has indicated he didn’t have anything to do with the draft. Well, if he was “general manager” and had no input, maybe he should have quit. He must have had some input. Someday he’ll tell us how much he had to do with the drafts in 2009 and 2010. We now know that most of us knew as much about talent as McDaniels did. It took about five minutes to figure out Richard Quinn couldn’t play.
You and I, Mike, probably have said since the beginning that Knowshon Moreno wasn’t that great – my comments were documented – despite what we were told. And, guess what, he wasn’t so good. I didn’t like the Robert Ayers pick. He has been average, at best, since coming here, and average, at best, this year. I loved the Tebow pick. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong some day. Not yet. The Broncos won’t let us find out if some of us are right, or those radio talk show hosts who claim he can’t play a lick, or right, or if those people in the building at Dove Valley are right or wrong.
Pittsburgh wasn’t perfect when it cut Johnny Unitas.
Woody, I have enjoyed reading your stuff for years. We played nine holes together in Edwards/Vail during the ’90s at one of those resort courses that were hot at the time. You were incredible. Anyway, baseball managers are like head coaches, obviously. So why do baseball managers and baseline coaches wear player uniforms during games? They look ridiculous. Picture Don Zimmer. Can you imagine football, basketball or hockey coaches wearing players uniforms during games. What gives?
—Ken, Moab, Utah
Ken, I remember you. You shot 80, and I beat you by six strokes… in my dreams. Incredible? I’m not even intolerable. Must have had a bad day.
Connie Mack was the last manager to sit in the dugout in a suit. He looked pretty silly managing in a bowler cap. Football coaches, hockey coaches, basketball coaches do not go onto the field (at least, are not supposed to), the ice or the court and participate in some way during the games. Coaches in baseball, as you noted, can be in the first and third base coaching boxes.
Do you really want them wearing jeans with their shirttails sticking out (my style of dress) waving a runner around? Do you want your bullpen coach catching relievers in a tuxedo? Do you want your pitching coach going to the mound in the third inning in a three-piece suit? Do you want Jim Tracy in shorts and a golf shirt going to the mound in the bottom of the ninth to take out a pitcher? I didn’t think so.
There have been several player-coaches in the NBA. Bill Russell and Bob Cousy come to mind. They wore basketball uniforms because they also played. Bill Parcells would have looked odd on the sideline in a uniform. But managers in baseball are part of the action (arguments at home plate), so there’s your answer.
Knowing Don Zimmer as I did, I saw him many times in slacks and a shirt. You wouldn’t like that look much better than the baseball uniform. “One time I was managing in Boston, and somebody threw a shoe at me. I went over and yelled at the guy, and it was reported that I cursed at him or something. I was just asking him to throw me the other shoe. They were pretty-good looking,” Zimmer told me one year.
The best story (of hundreds he would tell me at spring training) was he made $12,000 in one of his last years with the Dodgers, and a representative from a Japanese club came to him and asked if he would play in Japan. “I said no way, until he told me they’d pay 500,000 yen or something like that, and I thought, ‘wow’, that’s unbelievable. I told my wife I was going off to Japan to play and get rich. I go over there and can’t speak the language, and don’t know what to say to anyone, so I go to a restaurant the first night in the hotel, and have a nice dinner, and I pulled out my wallet and gesture that I want to pay, and the waiter says to me, "50,000 yen’, and I realized I wasn’t going to get rich.”
Maybe it’s not totally true, but it’s a good story, and it didn’t matter what Zimmer looked like in a uniform.
Woody Paige first joined The Denver Post in 1981 as a sports columnist. , or .
