Is this the gentleman who ruined the buffet at the Harrow club this morning?

So the club level is awfully nice. I know I beat the "hold my dick while I pee" joke (such as it was) into the ground, but it's not actually that far fetched. Fireplaces, giant TV's everywhere you look, very un-crowded bathrooms, three or four massive fully stocked mahogany bars, leather recliners and sofas, killer memorabilia on the walls, the absolute best food in the stadium (salmon!), you can buy alcohol until the end of the game, sickeningly hot women on the prowl for a sugardaddy like me, etc., etc.

Was it worth $310? Of course not. I could get used to the creature comforts and all, but that shit only distracts you from the real reason you're there, the game. I can see why people have such distaste for the "wine and cheese" club level crowd, they care not one whit about the game. They're there to be seen, and that's a little disgusting to me when the Broncos are involved.

Take me for an example, I was so caught up in the specter of it all (and so drunk off my ass) that I missed the entire second half. Missing an entire half of a game for a guy like me is blasphemous. Some friends were down in the south stands, so we headed down that-a-way at halftime and didn't go back up to the club level until about midway through the third, wherein we proceeded to slug beer after beer after beer and take in the sights while battles were raging for the critical 9th O-line and 5th wideout slots.

So it was a good time, I got wasted (We went out after and closed down Sputnik. I didn't think I'd make it in.....luckily the foreman here is shutting the factory down at 2:30 and I'll be able to go home and sleep it off a little) and apparently the Broncos dominated in the second half, so I guess that's good, but I won't sit in club level ever again. Well, at least not until I make my first million anyway.

By the way, Bucky Bronco, the horse on top of the south stands has a giant cock and balls. Everyone knows that the horse was made using the same mold for a statue of Roy Rogers' horse Trigger, but you might not know that it has a giant, well, horse cock and horse balls right there on the statue, staring you in the face. I first noticed it a couple of years ago when the Jets were in town, but I figured I'd mention it now. I couldn't find any pics of it online, but I'll be up there for the Raiders game in 2 weeks and I'll bring my camera.

I'll be there right after my AA meeting.

So, I'm going to the final preseason game tomorrow night. That's right suckers! I get the privilege of being in attendance for the most meaningless game on the schedule this season! Jealous? Yes, yes you are.

I've already mentioned how I got screwed out of ducats to this mega-matchup earlier this summer, but the gods have shined their lasers or happiness beams or whatever on me and I was able to score a couple of free seats to this highly-anticipated event.

The good news? They're club level ($310 face value - can you believe that shit?), I wouldn't waste my time otherwise. I probably couldn't even sell them for a third of that.

I shall get shitty drunk on booze that some poverty stricken dude has to bring to me, eat foodstuffs that some tenement-dweller has to bring me and urinate while some immigrant mother of eight holds my willy for me. Basically, the plan is to be a general all-around jackass. It's something I've always wanted to do, but I'm always way too invested and care way too much about the outcome to really get the "experience" of getting annihilated at a Donk game.

Sure, I might offend a few of the bluenoses with my cocky stride and musky odors - oh, I'll never be the darling of the so-called "Club Level Dwellers" who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about "What's to be done with this Hercules Rockefeller?"

Hands-free piss here I come!

You leave town tonight, right now. And when you're gone, you stay gone, or you be gone

It's time to send some chumps packing. Today Lord Shanahan has to send 11 guys off to the CFL, the Arena League or back to their fast-food careers.

Eight guys were already told pack up their shit and get the hell out, including Demetrian Veal, Kenard Lang, David Terrell, David Kircus, Ced Cobbs, Teyo Johnson, Troy Fleming and Brandon Pace. That leaves three more guys to ax today. My guess is three of the NFL Europe guys: Akah, Alford, House, McAlmont, etc., guys that I haven't seen even take a single snap so far.

No real surprises with the group, not a Mo Clarett in the bunch. I do think cutting Veal and Lang is a mistake, given the D-line’s utter failure so far, but not really surprising. Plain and simple, they’re not fat enough.

The real scene comes on Sat., when the Donks have dump another 22 guys to get down to 53. Here are some name guys (to Bronco fans anyway) that I think are going to be shown the door:

TE Stephen Alexander – Graham and Scheffler are locks, Nate Jackson is a gamer and can play TE or WR. You’re not going to get any snaps here, you should be happy we’re cutting you loose.

P Paul Ernster – He’s outperformed Sauerdoughbrun, but he’ll get the boot anyway.

QB’s Darrell Hackney and Preston Parsons – Shanny has only kept 2 QB’s for the last 3 years or so. No deviation this year. Hackney is a PS guy maybe, Parsons will be a third string guy for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers some day.

RB Andre Hall – Sorry guy. You never had a chance really, and Selvin Young just made you expendable.

S Quentin Harris – Its either you or Cargile, and Cargile has played better

WR Quincy Morgan – Waste of a roster spot, you’re only here to return kicks and you suck at it. See ya.

TE/T Chad Mustard – You’ve had a nice run, but you might want to look into getting your teaching certificate renewed.

DE Kenny Peterson – If you didn’t have to sit out the first four games for being a knucklehead you might have had a shot.

Don't be completely surprised if Shanny re-negs on whatever verbal deal he may have with Rod and shows him the retirement door. He's nowhere near ready to play, I mean its not even close. If you caught the game on Sat., you saw him walking off the field at halftime and he looked like an old man with a broken hip, which is kind of what he is. It was sad to watch. I don't think he'll be ready to go before December. If you're going to keep him around, put him on IR now. I don't think there's any way he plays this season.

Obviously there are other guys that will get tossed to the curb, but I think these are the some of the bigger name guys that will get cut. We’ll see how it shakes out.

UPDATE: The last four (Four? my math is off somewhere) guys to get the gate today are Preston Parsons, Paul Ernster, Cameron Vaughn and Quentin Harris. The punter competition is over already? And Sauerdoughbrun won? I must have been watching different games than the ol' coach. All three of these cuts should have come on Sat. Dump the guys that you know have no shot. I guess they're fired up to get that limey Emmanuel Akah on the practice squad.

HT to my man Hallux Valgus

No kids? Well, get yourself some kids.

Another week, another dogshit performance by the Broncos defense. This is starting to be more than a passing concern. They look god-awful. DJ Williams needs another month or so to be even decent in the middle. The pass rush got a little better and the secondary was a little better, but overall, the front seven seem to be regressing. I cant get over how bad DJ looks out there. He's a insane liability in coverage because he can't figure out which guy he's supposed to be covering. Apparently there was a reason he was out of the game on 3rd downs last year. I saw him blow a coverage assignment no less than four times on Sat., including a complete meltdown on the first play from scrimmage.

I'm still not sold on this Jim Bates system. It's become pretty clear that, at this point, no one is really sure of their role in it and we might not even have the personnel to run it.

Here's the rub of the D. It doesn't matter if their excellent or dominant or whatever. They just have to be mediocre. The old adage that defense wins championships is a bunch of horseshit. Excluding the '00 Ravens can you name another team that won solely because they had a dominant D? I cant. What I can do however is name you a bunch of teams that won because they had an unstoppable O with a mediocre or below average D . The list includes last years champs, the turn of the century Rams, both Broncos squads, etc.

The O looked decent, I guess. Cutler was mediocre, Javon dropped a couple of balls, etc. etc. Just general tightening up and they should be ok. If we can average around 28 pts. a game, we're a contender, if we're scoring 17-20 every game, we're in serious trouble.

Undrafted rookie RB Selvin Young looked frickin' excellent and may have done enough to make the final roster. If we do wind up cutting him, I don't think he'll clear waivers. It's similar to the Wesley Dukes situation a couple of years ago. You don't really want the guy on your final roster, but you're afraid that if you cut him in the hopes that you can re-sign him to the PS, some other team will snatch him up. You just know Kubiak will swoop in, since every former Bronco still in the league is now in Houston.


The real point of this post though is to point out that Travis Henry enjoys sleeping with women. Dude has nine children with nine different women. NINE children with NINE different women. Shawn Kemp, the poster child for athletes that father bastard children, only has seven kids with six women. Henry channels Tupac for a response:

"People can judge me all they want, but only God can judge me"

Nine of Amerikaz most wanted in the same motherfuckin' place at the same motherfuckin' time right, Travis? Look out Denver women of child bearing age, Travis Henry's in town, and you're gonna have his baby.

Young man, I'm gonna twist off your head and spike it onto the floors of a nightmare you can't even imagine!

Jesus. What a fucking disaster. Short of the team bus going over a cliff or an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever at the hotel they stayed in, last week couldn't have been any worse for the Donks. They got blasted by the Cowboys 31-20 in a game that wasn't even that close, but that's not really the point. I mean if you're going to blitz on every down, stunt and twist every play and try and disguise all your defensive formations, I guess you deserve to win a meaningless preseason game. We sure did make a mistake firing you 15 years ago. You showed us, Wade!

The point is that we looked like a bunch of high school kids playing, well…the Dallas Cowboys. Look at some of these offensive stats:

35 total yds rushing. 35! That’s the entire team total. Thirty fucking five yards. Henry had 25 yds on 10 carries with a fumble inside his 10. Nice work. To top it off, he’s done for the preseason with a sprained knee. A starting tailback with a lingering knee injury to start off the regular season? Sweet! Plus our #2 back went down with a hip problem. Better and better.

Jay Cutler – 7-13, 56 yds, 1 sack. He looked like a rookie. He underthrew one receiver, threw behind another and had at least three tipped at the line of scrimmage (a serious problem for Jake last year and apparently a serious problem this year). I’m starting to have concerns about the way he hesitates before making his throws. Just a qualifying concern, I still think he’s going to be sick, but a concern regardless.

Defensively we were a complete joke again. The first team D was on the field for the nearly the entire first half (except for that fat bastard Sam Adams, who not surprisingly was out of the game and entered in a pie eating contest on the sideline before the end of the first quarter – how is this guy more valuable than Warren again?) and gave up 24 points. No pass rush whatsoever, poor linebacker play, the secondary got chewed up, etc., etc.

In addition to getting our ass handed to us, we also lost a starting (and maybe our best – I can’t believe I just typed that) D-lineman for the season with a blown Achilles.

There were what, 3 bright spots this week?

Dre Bly was dominating, stepping in front of a receiver for a pick of Romo and making a crazy athletic play by poking a ball loose from a receiver running straight at him with a full head of steam.

Ramsay looks like he’ll be a capable backup. We’ll better off with Ramsay if (knock wood) Cut has to miss a game or two, than we would be if BVP was still around. Probably not as good as we would be if Jake was still around, but whatever. Brian Clark is getting too much credit though. That 90 yd TD would have been a 45 yd reception if the safety hadn’t completely given up on the play after the catch.

Nate Webster is looking better and better for that starting SLB slot. He’s relentless, moves well laterally and only lost his helmet once, so that’s an improvement I guess. They should consider moving Webster to MLB and sending DJ back to the strong side. DJ looks lost in the middle.

So you’ve got awful play coupled with a devastating injury. When you toss in the guys that got dinged in Dallas during the week: Tim Crowder, Ryan Harris, Adam Meadows, etc. it adds up to a worthless trip. Seriously, we don’t have a single game in a high temp, high humidity environment all season, so why do we send our guys to sweat and cramp it out in Texas in August? Conditioning? Please. It doesn’t make any sense. If you need the competition that badly, then go to Seattle or SF. Fuck Houston, Fuck Dallas. You're asking for guys to get hurt.

It can only get better from here.

UPDATE: We just dealt Gerard Warren to the fucking Raiders. Fuck me. The stupid talk about maybe dealing with KC for Greg Wesley was bad enough, but now we actually made a trade with the Raiders? Are you kidding me?

Jim...if you ask me, and you haven't, I think this is a terrible idea

The Donks are in Dallas this week for a couple of combined practices prior to their game against the Boys on Saturday. These two nightmare inducing stories in today's D-Post talk a little bit about how both of the ass-hats pictured above nearly became Broncos.

We all knew about the courting of TO, what with cameras tracking him from the second he landed at DIA and all, but the Tony Romo thing came as a bit of a shock. He apparently chose Dallas over Denver even though we were offering TWICE as much money as they were. Thank fuckin' christ. For the most part, I approve of Shanahan's personnel decisions. Obviously there are exceptions (Al Wilson, the "Browncos" utter debacle, Trevor Pryce, etc.), but mostly I can get behind the guy.

Not this time, however. Ugh.

Can you imagine how fuckin' schizo this team would be with these foolish bastards on the sideline? We all know TO is a worthless human being. I don't give a fuck if he catches 200 passes for 3000 yds and 25 TD's....he's not worth the Excedrin-sized brain damage headache he brings along with him. Meanwhile, Tony Romo cares more about being a celebrity and nailing vapid, brainless Hollywood types like Jessica Simpson and Carrie Underwood than he cares about being a decent quarterback.

If we sign Romo, do we draft Cutler? If we sign Owens do we trade for Javon? No and no. Those two are going to be the unquestioned leaders of this offense for the next five years. The douchebags above couldn't lead themselves out of a paper bag.

It's tasteless, disgusting, and offensive. I love it.

Nice way to get into to the swing of things last night. All in all, it was a successful start to the season for the hometown heroes as the Broncos exacted a small measure of revenge (not really) for the New Year's Eve meltdown by beating the 49ers 17-13.

Don't get me wrong, this team still has serious problems on defense, but the game was a success nevertheless. Here's a few quick thoughts:

* No significant injuries. I cant stress enough how important this is. You see guys going down for the season with major injuries in meaningless preseason games all the time. No one wants that.

* Travis Henry is really hard to tackle. The starting O played one series and scored a touchdown in lickity split fashion. Henry busted out for 27yds on 5 carries, with probably half of those yds coming after contact. A couple times Henry was hit in the backfield and was able to squirt through for positive yardage, which is nice after watching Tatum Ball fall over after someone looked at him funny for two years.

* The first team O looked pretty frickin' good all around on that series. Cutler drilled a throw to Javon Walker for a 24yd gain and later in the drive stepped up in the pocket and scrambled for a 16yd gain. If Brandon Marshall can get healthy and step up his game, this offense will be significantly improved over last year. Cutler is going to be so good it'll be disgusting.

* No worries with whoever winds up starting at RG and RT. This team will run the ball well and pass protect effectively.

* I think Mike Bell solidified his spot as the #2 tailback. He just looks like he’s at full speed as soon as he touches the ball.

* On the other end of the spectrum is the D. I know it's early and it takes a few games to iron out the kinks, but the D looks like the same old story from last year. Only now, everyone is fatter. SF had big gains on 1st down, ran the ball at will, picked apart the secondary (yes even the first team), etc.

* The D-Line didn't look improved at all and none of the young guns really looked that great. Crowder was flying around a little bit and wound up getting nicked but I didn’t hear Marcus Thomas mentioned once.

* There was a noticeable lack of speed in the LB ranks (except for Nate Webster's helmet - seriously, somebody get that motherfucker a chin strap or at least a helmet that fits, he's going to get himself killed), misdirection and backside runs were WIDE open, and it didn’t look like an over-pursuit problem, it looked like they simply couldn’t catch up.

* Filling that starting Sam linebacker spot is going to be a problem. None of the candidates would likely be a starter for any other team in the league. My guess is whoever we start in Buffalo will not be the starter against Minnesota.

* Demetrian Veal and Kenard Lang are going to get cut and that sucks. Both were impressive last year, but aren’t fat enough to suit Jim Bates and were on the field late in the fourth with dudes that will be washing dishes in a couple of weeks.

* How did the D only give up 13 points? Failed 4th down attempts and red-zone takeaways. You cant survive like that. Eventually it will wind up killing you. It's still really early though. I think they'll get it together.

* Special teams was a mixed bag: Quincy Morgan looked good in the return game, but Elam pushed a 44 yarder right and Sauerdoughbrun did not impress with punts nor kickoffs.

So, the O looked good, but the D looked terrible. When it's this early, I'll take it.

The first two were high and tight, so where do you think the next one's gonna be?

Quick thoughts on a few training camp matters:

New Bronco Daniel Graham can catch the football. In fact he caught the ol' pigskin 38 times back in 2002. Wow, 38 whole catches in one year? Last year he had the also impressive number of 21 catches! 21! On a team whose main receiving threat was Cocaine-Eyes Caldwell. I don't want to hate on Daniel Graham, but if you're not getting receptions (regardless of the "emergence" of Ben Watson) in that line-up, you're not getting them here. I wasn't really pleased with this signing when it went down. I thought it was silly to give $6M a year to a blocking TE, especially when we already had one of the top 5 or so blocking TE's in the league on our roster. If Cutler's BFF Tony Scheffler is ready to go by opening day and can stay healthy, look for Graham to approach that magical 20 reception mark again.


Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing Jarvis Moss wasn't seriously hurt. Nobody wants to see their first round pick out for the year with a shredded knee, but the doomsayers were out of their minds with their takes on what would become of the D-Line if he had suffered a major injury. Here's my favorite bit of insanity, courtesy of someone named Khan, who was at the practice when Moss went down, over at OrangeMane.com (via Bronco Talk):

After he was gone we really only got pressure up the middle. It will be more of the same this year without him: No pass rush.

Sheesh, buddy. I'll let Tom Symkowski sum it up: "You see, it would be this mat that you would put on the floor, and it would have different conclusions written on it that you could jump to."


Finally, Dove Valley is apparently infested with birds of prey and raccoons:

No one is characterizing it as a problem, but Broncos officials are monitoring the number of hawks and raccoons that have recently infiltrated Dove Valley.

Luckily, the creatures have demonstrated aversions to crowds, so they've stayed away from the workout sessions, although a raccoon was seen scooting around the trees near the south end zones as the afternoon practice commenced.

The week before camp started, a nest of baby hawks got aggressive and occasionally swooped down on an unsuspecting field worker, but no injuries were reported.

"It's actually been great for us because it's helped us with our rabbit population," said Chip Conway, the team's vice president of operations

He's dead-on about the rabbits. There are millions of those little hippity-hoppity fuckers running around the southeast metro-area. One time last year, I saw a rabbit fighting a squirrel for a piece of bread. I didn't think rabbits even ate bread. Watch out for raccoons, too. They'll bust into your house and eat all your cat food and maybe your cat. Oh, and once a dipshit handyman capped a raccoon family in the chimney of our house, with decidedly un-sexy results (flies, maggots, a rotting corpse stink of death). I know all that's off topic, but kiss my ass.

We can go camping and make moose sounds

Hey, hey! It's that time of year again! It's the time of year everyone loves. It's training camp time. You know what that means, right? Actual football games are going to be played...and soon. It's the best time of year for football fans. You see, every team in the league has sky-high expectations (well - except for the Chiefs. I'm sure they just wish they could go back to the glory days. What glory days you ask? Hmm....good point). Even ever-pathetic franchises like the Lions, Browns, Cardinals and Raiders have playoff aspirations. I even saw where Jon Sh(k)itna predicted the Lions would win 10 games. Isn't that cute?

Symbolically, training camp is the unofficial start of the season and that's great news for everyone, but it simply isn't that big of a deal.

Dont get me wrong, it's great to hear that tough guy Domenik Hixon came back to practice one day after separating his shoulder. It's great to hear that Shanny has told Rod he's got a spot on the team regardless of whether or not he can go on opening day. And on the flip side, it sucks to hear that Mike Bell has been crapping his pants and that Brandon Marshall is acting like a pantywaist malingerer. It really sucks to hear that Warrick Holdman had to be carted off the field this morning with a scary neck injury (looks like he'll be ok).

Training camp is about installing the playbook and keeping your significant contributors healthy. Look, I'm as interested in finding out who will be on the final roster as anyone, but it's really pointless. What's the use in slobbering all over yourself trying to figure out who will be the fifth wideout or the eighth linebacker or the ninth O-lineman when, barring catastrophic injury, that guy is going to be deactivated for 16 straight weeks? Does it make that big of a difference which guy is walking around in street clothes on the sideline sending his boys text messages? There are camp battles for what, maybe 3 or 4 starting jobs? Every other spot is locked in. We pretty much already know who's on the team and who isn't. The only thing is to figure out where on the depth chart they're at.

The bottom line I guess is that I'm sick and tired of hearing Shanny say the word "competition." In every single interview, he says it roughly five hundred times. Hey Coach, here are some synonyms for competition: candidacy, contest, event, fight, horse-race, match, race, rivalry, strife, struggle and trial. Can you please try out one of those?