DENVER BRONCOS WEEK 15/16 … The bloom is off the rose: Josh McDaniels is an obstinate numbskull

“It’s not the back.”
– Pincers’ terse post-game response to a question on why the running game isn’t working

It was another GEICO Caveman Moment at Invesco on Sunday. As soon as it looked all good, as soon as it felt like we could enjoy ourselves and just live happily in the moment … the Raiders put up a “So easy a caveman can do it” kind of effort and the smile slowly but surely slinked off our faces. We are all just dumb cavemen living in a world of zero playoff appearances. We may be able to fool ourselves when we’re hanging out with one another, but in the end … so easy even a Bronco team can’t do it.

"I'll have the roast duck with the mango salsa." ... "I don't have much of an appetite, thank you."

6-0 bought Pincers some time, may have even bought him some leeway on the 2-5 run that followed, but after the sixth loss in eight games, due primarily to an offense that is so inept, so strangely operated, so clearly predictable, and under the sole command of the precocious Pincers himself, it’s time to place Pincers back in the realm of rookie suspect.

It was a shameless gag on Sunday. They sauntered into a game with everything to play for and got slapped around, at home. Let a bad team have the last drive by failing to convert; didn’t stop that team when three of its quarterbacks wandered onto the field like hatchlings trying execute it. The Denver rushing attack was so weak, so light beer, just a watery puddle that is symbolic at best right now. Pincers timing, scheme, and personnel in the run game is so awful, so disfigured, watching him operate it is like watching the torture scene in Syriana when George Clooney gets his fingernails ripped out one at a time with a pair of pliers by a CIA turncoat.

It’s true, the defense gave up the touchdown to perennially tubby and disconnected Jamarcus Russel. It’s true, they were gashed for over 200 yards on the ground. It’s true, Charlie Fry diced them a bit until Andra Davis silenced him on a crushing stunt. But in this game, it could also be said the defense gave the offense every opportunity to put the game on ice. And it couldn’t. It couldn’t in such a … well, disgusting manner. We reserve the right to use that word for home gags against the Raiders: disgusting. When Tony Scheffler lay on his back just across midfield as time expired, we were thoroughly disgusted.

Question: Is Knowshon Moreno beyond reproach?

Crazy Legs Moreno has played sub-terrible the past two weeks. Looks like he’s completely out of energy and totally void of eyesight. Lanes develop right in front of his very eyes and after 14 games he still doesn’t have enough sense to react to them. Furthermore, he pumps his breaks at the second level CONSTANTLY. As if this will somehow cause the four defenders corralling him to do the same. Instead, he forgoes an extra 2-3 yards gained if he would only just pound it in there. He’s lost his shimmy, his legs flail sideways, he doesn’t initiate contact in the second half, he’s a spaz in general. And lest we forget, the guy cannot get short yardage. Crazy Legs single handedly whiffed on the last touchdown opportunity; insisting on moving laterally until the inevitable takedown came behind the line of scrimmage, yards from the goal line.

"I get it ... I QUIT, but I get it."

At this point it’s useless questioning the lack of Peyton Hillis. Especially in a week where Correll Buckhalter didn’t even dress. Pincers wont play Hillis based on principal now. It’s his point to prove. Instead, he chose to spell Crazy Legs with Lamont freaking Jordan. He of Raider descent and long teeth, a player who hasn’t even dressed for the last ten weeks. And not only did Pincers run him, he threw to him out of the backfield! It’s a joke, Pincers. Whatever your reason for not playing Hillis is such a farce of a joke it’s really quite tragic. Your stubbornness is tragic; talent wasted on the sideline is tragic. Seriously, are you saving him for the 2010 trading bloc, trying to keep him healthy? Just give us some kind of straight answer because right now you are making zero sense. Did Mike Shanahan get you a backchannel message that made it clear he would offer a lopsided deal to get his hands back on Hillis once he found a new team? Because Shanny would feature this guy, and at this point, a bizarre conspiracy theory is as good an explanation as any compared to your whims.

Did you seriously go for two third and (relatively long) shorts with a quarterback sneak? Did you seriously just do that on your own 9-yard-line and come up short because you you don’t trust any of your backs (including one you don’t play) in short yardage? As the fellas on Monday Night Football might say: C’MON MAN!!!

So, just so we have this straight, you put your potential All Pro tackle out on a reverse screen … as the receiver? You’re really gonna do that? In the red zone? As All World corner Nnamdi Asomugha spears his helmet into Ryan Clady’s knees and an entire region subsequently gasps in abject horror.

And Pincers, you do know Eddie Royal plays wide receiver, right? You know he’s out on the field, don’t you? You do know you have a big pass catching tight end in Tony Sheffler that is available for more plays than just the very last one? Brandon Stokely still plays the game of football, right?

"A little loyalty would be nice." ... "Tina's here, we're getting back together!" ... "Hey, give us a minute!"

And what have you done to the offensive line, Pincers? You got your little pincer hands on them and now they stink. Somehow you’ve totally neutralized them. Perhaps the vaunted stats from 2008 were due in large part to Jay Cutler’s mobility and a constant three- or four-man rush (because as we all know Cutler can’t operate against a crowded secondary). But when they ran the ball in 2008, when they handed it off to the various slappies that started at running back all year, they did so effectively. This year, even with coaches Rick Dennison and Bobby Turner in tact, they flop. It’s a veritable certainty on Pincers’ watch. Could this be because he’s trying to make them something they are not? Well, they still run plenty of zone block, but they also gap block this year whereas in Shanny’s era (the architect of this offensive line) that wasn’t remotely part of the program. Force it in there Pincers, transmute reality, make it so Number One … conjure up an existence that only takes place in a math-major’s theories.

The most unfortunate aspect of this offensive Hindenburg is that on paper it really shouldn’t be in flames. Pincers is the boy genius, Crazy Legs was the top back in the draft, and at the very least Kyle Orton was a lateral move. For all intents and purposes the losses from 2008 were filled and supposedly yielded a net gain, it’s at least a push. Four halfbacks (two big ones, two lighter ones), a destructive fullback, two outstanding tackles (yes we know Ryan Harris has been out), a pro bowl center and an awesome right guard, two insane tight ends, four upper tier receivers including a freak of nature Pincers wont pay. Could we say this about the defense? No. Offense is where the talent is—bona fide talent, big name talent, proven talent—yet it gets outperformed by the presumed patchwork defense every … single … week.

If the Broncos had won ... "I wouldn't be having an existential meltdown right now."

Moreover, this is Pincers’ unit. This is his room. This is the unit that would apply the voluminous playbook he couldn’t stop bragging on in the offseason. The unit that would do all the things he (“we”) did during the New England tenure that he cant stop talking about. This is the opposite of 2008, when the defense was responsible for hemorrhaging points in bunches of 40. These days, the offense cant get out of its own way and appears to adhere to only one principal: Pincers’ ego. Even in failure, he’ll continue to jam that square peg in a round hole just to prove to the world and himself he’s the jammer.

Considering the tools he’s working with, considering who’s responsible for the application of those tools, Pincers’ 2009 unit is a catastrophe.

There will be much more calmer voices than this column this week. The supposed analysts will explain things away so as to come off like the football coaches they never became. All the speed bump reporters that face Pincers in his weekly press conferences will send up gossamer questions or veiled assumptive assertions and let him off the hook with kid gloves. The doting fans will be happy enough with the absence of a season-o-debasement and they will press on to Philadelphia with faces painted and a casserole in the oven. Pincers has it so easy in a small market with only one paper doing business thousands of miles from the next burg that even halfway cares about his team.

But the fact remains, to use calmer language, Pincers is being out-coached weekly. From our armchair, he’s currently camped out on a distant star. Light years away, peering at Earth through a telescope, he explains what he sees coming through his lens as if it’s currently taking place on our world. The questions he fields regarding “rookie walls” could just as well be directed at himself. It’s December and he’s fading fast and he needs to reel it in. Pincers’ response on Monday to whether or not Moreno has hit his rookie wall:

“I understand that this is a different experience for all of the rookies. I also think that we have other players that play every position that those rookies play. Those are the guys that take a lot of snaps for them. I’m not saying it’s not a challenge for them mentally or physically to focus and to be able to maintain a certain level of play, but there are a lot of other things that go into winning and losing, good plays and bad plays. It’s not just a one-player type of thing. We all have got to do better.”

Won't you one time, just let me be myself ...