Now if you’ve read me for awhile you know that I am good for a historical fact every now and then or even better a quote from a historical figure. I’ll lead with it, write a paragraph tie it into something current with the Denver Broncos, cap it off with a finishing paragraph and viola!
This isn’t that type of post though, but boy do I have a doozy of a quote for some of you Tebowners towards the end. This isn’t about Denver being a small city with an envy towards the larger cities, nor is it about a team that was counted out early on, but came on incredibly strong just before being exiled into football obscurity–okay maybe it’s about that last one a little bit.
Let’s talk about theme, let’s talk about weapons–artillery, battles, victories, defeat, smog of war and napalm. Let’s talk about strategy, chess, casualties, blood and guts. Let’s talk about death metal and end game strategy. Let’s talk about a mission impossible and the little engine that could. Let’s talk about God and evil, good and bad, judgement and luck.
My love for Josh McDaniels goes just about as whispered as I can make it around these parts, but the man was either ahead of his time or just flat out unlucky. He’s not Napoleon in this story though, possibly more of a Cesar, not for winning tons of Super Bowls, but for being stabbed in the back due to his ambition. So he’s more of Shakespeare’s Cesar than the historical Cesar (insert link to Spark Notes here).
See as terrible McDaniels may have been as a General Manager or a talent evaluator he’s still the reason why most of you reading this likely don’t think highly of Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall and Tony Scheffler. Yes, he flip-flopped Peyton Hillis for Brady Quinn, but how did Hillis turn out for the Cleveland Browns this season?
Let’s just hope that Tim Tebow doesn’t get the cover of Madden next season. Speaking of Tebow, McDaniels traded back into the first round to draft him, skipped over Dez Bryant to pick-up Demaryius Thomas drafted Eric Decker, Zane Beadles, J.D. Walton, re-signed Chris Kuper to a big contract and about a hundred other things that I could use to justify me liking him (or you could use to justify that I am an idiot).
For all that McDaniels lost, he won as well. It’s important that you see my point, because there is a parallelism going on right now. McDaniels came in went 6-0, before going 8-8. Tebow comes in and goes 7-1, before going 7-3 (better or worse pending final results on Sunday’s game). McDaniels promised things that you had never seen in professional football before. In Tebow we are witnessing things that haven’t been seen in decades in the NFL.
Allow me to bring up two more McDaniels recruits to Denver; Kyle Orton and Brandon Lloyd. Both wanted out of Denver, both were given their walking papers. Much like McDaniels did when Mike Nolan gave McDaniels an option to retain him as the defensive coordinator in Denver and like Cutler, like Marshall, like Scheffler.
Now I personally think that letting Lloyd walk was a mistake, never mind that he seemed to be the only receiver on the Broncos that could consistently catch Tebow’s knuckle balls. At least with Lloyd Denver got a fifth out of the deal, with Orton they got absolutely nothing. However, the Broncos didn’t release Orton and give the Kansas City Chiefs the key to beating them, they gave the Chiefs a ticking time bomb that will detonate at some point late in the game this Sunday in Denver.
That’s all it is really about, I don’t believe that God favoring an outcome in a football game is in the least bit logical. Leadership is leadership though and no matter who or what one believes in the outcome of any given venture tends to rely strictly on the things that humans are well in control of. Then again, what do I know, my favorite Psalm is the one that Shakespeare wrote.
“God fights on the side with the best artillery” – Napoleon Bonaparte.
