The Broncos have hired Josh McDaniels, Patriots offensive coordinator, to replace Mike Shanahan.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3826234
To be clear, that means they fired a guy who is 146-95 in his career (not too different from Coach of All Coaches Belichick, who is 153-90), has won two Super Bowls, and had the #2 team in the NFL in total yardage despite sending seven running backs to injured reserve and starting a running back who was working in a cell phone kiosk when they signed him, and replaced him with an offensive coordinator. Uh, it’s not the offense that needs work.
Speaking of curious decisions, Tim Tebow announced that he is staying at Florida for another year. Why? The guy is a religious nutter, so it’s not as if he wants to enjoy all that Gainesville has to offer before wandering off. He already has the Heisman and a BCS title. Not only is football a sport with a serious chance of injury, but the vast majority of NFL quarterbacks spend their first year holding a clipboard anyway. Delaying draft entry just means compressing your actual playing career.
Only reason I can see for playing another year would be fear of being picked by the Lions or Rams. It is ludicrously unfair that the NCAA protects the NFL by forbidding players who enter the draft to continue playing college football (imagine if MIT expelled kids for talking to Google and then declining to drop out), but basic antitrust law seems to skip sports. Even so, seems a bit shortsighted, the draft will always be led off by the worst teams; better to pull and Eli Manning and simply say you won’t sign outside your chosen team.
Either officials are calling more post-touchdown personal fouls or I’m noticing more. Either way, brings to mind an arena football style rules change: a kickoff that goes through the uprights should come with three points and the opportunity to kick again (ie you should be able to score a field goal on a kickoff). In ordinary circumstances, it should be damn near impossible: it’s an 80 yard field goal, albeit off of a tee and without a defense. However, throw in a defensive personal foul on a scoring play…65 yards, with a good wind and a lot of luck… And it would shake up the comeback strategy – do you go for the onsides kick (moderate probability of success, failure gives the opponent the ball on your 40) or blast away (tiny probability of success, failure gives the opponent the ball on his 20)?
[...] the Denver Broncos have already outdone themselves in bizarre offseason maneuvers. As I mentioned here, the team decided to fire a two-time Super Bowl winner with a career 146-95 record who had the #2 [...]