DENVER BRONCOS BATAAN DEATH MARCH (i.e. TRAINING CAMP): It must be exhausting being Josh McDaniels (It’s exhausting to watch)

I was home for last year’s holidays when Denver gagged 44-24 to Kansas City on January 3 with the playoffs at stake. There is a cat that lives at said home. About once a day it wakes from a nap with a start, pushes out an otherworldly yowl, staggers around the living room then painfully wretches up a wad of fur slurry. It’s really quite disgusting. The gagging reflex really takes hold of him, involuntarily scoots him across the floor. He looks like Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura when he computes Finkle is in fact Einhorn. You kind of have to watch the whole process to make sure the cat projectiles onto hardwood instead of carpet. It would’ve been a sublime cosmic parallel had he actually executed this move concurrent with the Week 17 Broncos broadcast. They were essentially the same actions. The cat metaphor is particularly relevant to the Broncos because, well, cats are pussies.

Though the Broncos were once again absent from the post-season tournament, all was not lost for me at the top of 2010. The new decade ushered in two fantastic cinematic moments: Star Trek and Avatar. It really doesn’t get any dorkier when it comes to appreciating sci-fi. (Star Trek was released the previous summer but I didn’t see it until the holiday DVD release. In fact, I think I watched both the same day.) Star Trek is Lost co-creator JJ Abrams’s feature-director debut. It’s a ballistic take on the perpetual series that, despite its social stigma, rarely disappoints as a film. The most recent addition has plenty of mind benders but for the most part it’s a high-quality action movie. Avatar, of course, was James Cameron’s hyped release. From the same mind as the Aliens, the Terminators, The Abyss, and one other popular flick I wont mention, Cameron nailed his fantasy legacy to the wall with Avatar. One could easily postulate all Cameron does is make good movies. These two films also have something in common: Her.

Zoe Saldana. A ridiculously attractive actress even if in the latter presentation she’s merely motion-captured and expressed as a hippie warrior-Smurf. She slays as Spock’s down-low chick in Star Trek and in Avatar gave me that same sense of misdirected hetero-energy I felt when I watched Jessica Rabbit as a 13-year-old. Star Trek and Avatar: two radical things with an awesome thing in common.

A similar comparison could be made to the 2010 Denver Broncos. However, for this to apply, we need to step through the zero-point to the other side of the number line. It’s the negative integers at play here because at this point X is certainly < 0. Witnessing Josh McDaniels these past eighteen months, getting a look at what he’s working with here in the second week of training camp, hearing his haughty summaries and having to pick my jaw off the deck when I see the daily injury manifest, it seems to me the Broncos are currently dealing with two lame things with a crappy thing in common.

LAME THING I. Clearly, it’s the injuries the first week of camp. You could see it the second Pincers got here and I wrote about it at least 17 times in 2009: Thank the Laaawd above Pincers brought a new emphasis on defense. It was embarrassing rooting for those post-2005 defensive flowerbeds. They turned the concept of Orange & Blue Excellence into a synonym for ruin. I’m still feeling the pride in Pincers standard for toughness, however, is a physical camp causing these roster losses? It didn’t in 2009 but this year’s list is just bizarre: Dooms, Crazy Legs Moreno, Bucky, Chris Kuper, Jarvis Moss, and the veterans that may or may not be simply precautionary—Brian Dawkins, DJ Williams, and Jamal Lewis. Don’t forget Ryan Clady’s shredded knee as a function of pick-up hoops in April.

LAME THING II. A bevy of draft picks at the expense of existing talent. Pincers had 10 picks in 2009, five in the first two rounds. He had nine picks in 2010, five in the first three rounds. Both years combined he’s had four first rounders. Crazy Legs, Robert Ayers, Fonzie Smith, and Richard 2/3rds Quinn did about as much for the Broncos in 2009 as President Obama did for the American unemployment rate. (If they had good years, I would’ve said they did as much for the Broncos in 2009 as the taxpayer did for thrift banks.) Ponder this scenario: What if instead of Crazy Legs, Pincers drafted Brian Orakpo; instead of Ayers, center Alex Mack; instead of Fonzie, Rey Maualuga; instead of 2/3rds, Shonn friggin Greene. All those guys were available and I’m not cherry picking them based on impressive rookie campaigns. Hindsight is of course 20/20 but two Aprils ago, as the 12th pick came up, I’m literally saying Orakpo. When Pincers traded into the top of the second, I’m literally saying Rey. What would the current expectations be with those guys in town? They’d be a playoff favorite of every maggot in America with a journalism job. It’s tough. We’ve all given Pincers a wide berth to see if he can get it done. We all accepted after Jay Cutler threw 26 gags last year that perhaps ditching him was appropriate. Not many of us were deeply affected by the expected loss of Brandon Marshall. In 1989, Jimmy Johnson traded Hershel Walker to Minnesota and begat a Dallas mega-dynasty. In all, he accumulated five players and eight picks. He nailed almost the entire exercise. He properly flipped existing talent and was carried off the field in January four years later. Ya just can’t help but wonder, in particular as it applies to Pincers’ rookie and sophomore draft decisions, if a bird in the hand wasn’t worth more than two in the bush.

THE CRAPPY THING IN COMMON. Risk. Pincers is loaded with it. Abandoning conventional wisdom in an effort to overhaul generally looks crazy. Jimmy’s move in Dallas, even looking back, was an insanely risky move. But it paid off. I wonder if he had any sleepless nights in the process. Or if he was so confident in what he had, so sure he was seeing the truth, he slept better for it. Consider the state of the overall economy in 2007. For more than two decades the system had been loading up on risk and all our lives and portfolios were temporarily better for it. Of course, the other shoe dropped in 2007 and we’ve been at economic DEFCON 1 for three years. The point is, risk is risky: you can leverage-up for the sake of the big payday, or it wipes you out. Billionaire Brit Richard Branson writes that the art of good risk is knowing your downside. Pincers is not stupid. He’s aware. The cliché about the hedge fund manager who can’t sleep on his positions comes to mind. Look at Pincers current risk:

• Front office: Two first-time helmers in Brian Xanders and Pincers. They’ve officially laid their collective sacks on the railroad tie and are currently praying they can get to the post-season and zip up before the locomotive arrives. Oh, don’t forget the first year defensive coordinator replacing Mike Nolan this year. You heard the one about Pincers brother from Kent State, right? The quarterback coach currently charged with developing the biggest diamond in the rough in the history of NFL quarterbacks.
• Quarterback: One he traded for Cutler, a second he traded for an effective running back, and a third he traded back into the first round for at the strenuous objection of 95% of the football speaking world. If Cutler somehow runs out of piss and vinegar and becomes good or god forbid great; if Pincers runs out of healthy backs while Peyton Hillis repeatedly converts third-and-short in Cleveland; if Tim Tebow ultimately fails to unleash his divine powers and walk on water in the NFL—Pincers is gone.
• Running back: A team with inferior defensive personnel selected the position with the most injuries and shortest career-span with the 12th overall pick last year. It remains to be seen if Crazy Legs is a legit running back, let alone durable. Furthermore, with Crazy Legs and Bucky firmly entrenched as one and two, Pincers rolled the dice and shipped out JJ Arrington for a special teams guy. What happened the very next day? 27 and 28 go down with injuries.
• Offensive line: It appears Pincers is going to start the year with rookies JD Walton and Zane Beadles at center and left guard, respectively. I like that Pincers spent some dough on gigantic pissed off brawlers for the O-line. They could grow into that group nicely but it’s still a huge risk to start off starting them in 2010. What if they wash out like his 2009 class? In case you haven’t noticed, the back-up plan in terms of O-line depth is a freaking farce. If the rookies can’t handle it, if Ryan Harris, Clady, or Kuper go down, it’s going to be a blood bath not only for Pincers’ reputation, but for anyone trying to make a living in his backfield.
• Tight ends: 2/3rds Quinn is the second tight end. Nuff said.
• Receiver: Peace out Beast, hello two rookies—one a first rounder—with broken feet. Both have already gone down, even if only for the short term. Hypothetically factor them out of the receiver equation in 2010 and you got Jabbar Gaffney, Brandon Lloyd, and lil fellas Eddie Royal and Brandon Stokley. Seriously, I want to go to Vegas with Josh McDaniels. He’d get wiped out in half a day … and he’s a millionaire!
• Linebacker: Pincers takes a big chance and pays Dooms real cake, Dooms goes down for the year two weeks later. Risk at it’s finest. If Ayers can’t dominate like he says he wants to, where’s the pass rush? Please tell me that you have something more, Lieutenant. These two Marines are on trial for their lives. Please tell me their lawyer hasn’t pinned their hopes to a phone bill … Thanks, Danny. I love Washington. Also, I have no clue what’s going on a middle linebacker. This remains a mystery to me but oddly enough this seems to make this the least risky position group.
• Secondary: Awesome, but relatively geriatric. The backup plan here are the two safeties Pincers drafted last year and a cadre of lil fellas he drafted in 2010. David Brutun and Darcel McBath looked semi sharp in 2009. Risk appears low. Not so much at the corners. If injuries or wear-and-tear force a tipping point from age to youth for the majority of the schedule, it will effectively move the talent quotient from elite to serviceable. At best.
• Defensive line: $58 million wrapped up in a 34-year-old dude the size of an asteroid and two career backups from outstanding defensive teams. They are here to start and allow the young guys from 2009 to rest and develop. Jamal is going to get paaaaaaid to mentor if he can’t stay healthy. And what’s the probability of an injury? Justin Bannon and Jarvis Green are flat out expensive with limited timelines.

In total, Pincers needs one of three quarterbacks, a first round running back, a first round linebacker, a second round tight end, two starting rookie interior O-linemen, two rookie receivers, and at least two defensive backs to contribute in 2010 and soon develop into the core of his team. In the meantime, he needs four 30-something defensive backs, three expensive D-linemen, two already injured offensive tackles, an average-save-for-one-player receiving crew, and a fragile veteran running back to play the majority of the snaps and carry the team in 2010.

We’ve already seen three wicked snakebites in Clady, Dooms, and Arrington. And a simple review of how much Pincers needs reveals just how low the probability he gets what he’s rolling for.

Riverboat gambler.

No question the squeaky lil fella’s got a penchant for risk.

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