Some NFL Observations After the Third Preseason Game

The Denver Broncos Are A Mess: It’s difficult to imagine how badly Broncos’ owner Pat Bowlen has screwed the pooch in 2009. It’s one thing to fire a long-tenured, Hall-of-Fame-caliber coach, but another thing completely to hire an unqualified, over-his-head rookie who has undone years of progress and stability for one of the NFL’s traditionally more-successful franchises in less than 9 months.

It takes some elephant-sized cajones for any NFL coach to try to replace a franchise-caliber QB coming into his prime, but Josh McDaniels’ ego led him to try just that. Neither Matt Cassell, McDaniels’ initial target, nor Kyle Orton are in the same ballpark as Jay Cutler, and that kind of mistake is a career-killer for a coach.

No one would place the blame for the Brandon Marshall-circus squarely at the feet of McDaniels, but it does speak to McDaniels’ inability to garner the respect or support of the Broncos’ most talented players. For whatever reason, Mike Shannahan was able to keep Marshall in line enough to eliminate distractions.

Last night’s performance by Jay Cutler drove the point home. It seems difficult to believe, but Josh McDaniels career as a head coach looks over before he’s even played a game. As bad as the Cutler and Marshall situations have looked in the offseason, the Broncos record on the field looks likely to be even worse.

McDaniels’ Struggles Call For An Examination of the Belichick Coaching Tree: At what point will NFL teams stop hiring someone simply because they worked under Bill Belichick? With McDaniels looking like he’s in way over his head, he stands to join Eric Mangini, Romeo Crennel, Nick Saban and Al Groh as Belichick disciples who have failed as NFL head coaches. When you add the disappointing tenure of Charlie Weis at Notre Dame, it looks more like a lot of the genius starts - and stops - with the Hooded-One.

While Thomas Dimitroff looks like a good executive so far in Atlanta, Scott Pioli has made some questionable moves in Kansas City. Trading for Matt Cassell is one thing, but giving him $26 Million in guaranteed money is another.  Cassell looked an awful lot to me like a “system” QB who does not have the arm or accuracy to stretch the field. If that’s the case, Pioli has dug himself a big hole to dig out of, adding General Managers and QBs to the list of positions and people who weren’t nearly as good without Belichick pulling the strings.

Byron Leftwich Beats Out Luke McCown…..Why Is This A Surprise?:  I had to rub my eyes and look twice when I saw that career backup Luke McCown got a 2 year, $7.5 Million contract with a $2.5 Million signing bonus in the offseason. It’s doubly surprising in light of the fact that Byron Leftwich sat on the open market with few suitors until the Buccaneers finally brought him in on an identical contract.

How is it that Luke McCown has as much or more value on the market than Byron Leftwich? I’m certain that people will point out Leftwich’s long windup, lack of mobility and tendency to fumble, but at the end of the day the guy has proven that he can play at the NFL level while McCown has not. Leftwich has 54 career TD passes, 16 more TDs than Interceptions over his career, and has been the starting QB on a playoff team.

Luke McCown has a total of 9 career TDs and 10 INTs in 7 starts and has never shown the ability to lead an NFL team. Luke McCown looks an awful lot like his brother, Josh McCown, who also possesses rare athletic ability, but will never have the pocket presence or raw intelligence needed to successfully lead a team to the playoffs. It’s amusing that the McCown brothers identically painful-to-watch QB play reinforces each other’s inevitable failure at the NFL level, yet both continue getting quality opportunities.

This while Leftwich got little attention on the market for two years now. Here’s to a good guy and a QB with upside rightfully getting another shot.