The Denver Broncos are 3-0, and have to be considered one of the early NFL season's suprising stories. After an offseason filled with turmoil that has seen Mike Shannahan fired, the young Josh McDaniels hired as the teams first new head coach since 1995, Jay Cutler being traded and Brandon Marshall demanding to be traded, The Broncos have put together a string of victories that has put them on top of the AFC west. The biggest suprise however, is not that the Broncos are 3-0, but how they have achieved this success.Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images
Led by a dominant, stingy defense which has allowed just 16 points in twelve quarters of play, the Broncos are a team with not only new personnel, but a new Identity. New defensive coordinator Mike Nolan has installed a 3-4 defense that has seen the Broncos transform one of the NFL's worst defenses over the past two seasons, to the early NFL seasons best.
Offensively, the Broncos, now led by oft criticized Kyle Orton have gone from a "sling it all over the field and win it for us with your golden arm Jay Cutler" style of play, to a quick slanting, run happy attack that has shown constant improvement over the past three weeks. With Brandon Marshall finally contributing, the offense has the talent, and the scheme to compete with just about any in the league.
I know what you're saying, "the Broncos have only played one decent team and they were very lucky to win that game" (see: "The Immaculate Deflection"), and you are right. The Broncos can only play the schedule that is laid out before them. Granted, they haven't played the "toughest" stretch of their schedule (which coincidentally starts next week with Dallas), but in my opinion every game in the NFL is a tough one and there are no such things as easy victories. Besides, if you can't have hope when things are going well, what's the point of being upset when they aren't?
It's a good story, we'll see what happens but I can't see them winning more than 8 games. Hope not anyway! Another surprising team is the Bengals, had they not been victims of the luckiest moment of Brandon Stokley's life, they'd be a 3-0 team and yesterday was a fantastic win over the Steelers!
ReplyDeleteI must admit, Denver was very lucky to win in week one, but Stokley's play or not, the Denver D still held a pretty talented Bengal offense scoreless through over 59 minutes of play...a note to NFL head coaches..."THE PREVENT DEFENSE ONLY PREVENTS YOU FROM WINNING!!!" There, got that off of my chest. You're right though, Cincy looks very impresive.
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