Shannahan is a genius at drafting offense, not so much on defense...

[-denverfan24-]

wait until this years draft. if you look at our past drafts they have been mostly offensively focused.

when shanny thinks the D needs a boost he will draft a d player high like williams. but until the offense is great like it is now he will just go for hidden gems.

this next draft will be defensively oriented. a LB another CB and S and then some more DL

i trust shanny though

[SlyBronco]

well the fact that he hasn't even been active makes me wonder what is going on...he most have gotten on shanny's badside.

Falling in to Shanny's dog house is like falling in to a bottomless pit with no sides.

[mct1967]

Throughout Shannahan's career, he has been proclaimed an offensive genius, and he has proven it while here in Denver. Year after year he finds offensive players that become pro-bowlers and put up monster numbers (except that stretch of horrible WRs he drafted <_<). It's a pretty big list of all the offensive talent he's found over years, not all of them are with the team anymore but they went to find success elsewhere. If there's one thing that's sure in Denver, its that Shannahan will always have a top flight offensive unit.


But now we move onto defense. Ever since the super bowl seasons, the defense has been on a steady decline. They've had some ups (2005 season) and some downs (last two season), but overall the defense has been nothing spectacular. Hell, even the Super Bowl defenses weren't that great, but they were leaps and bounds above anything we've had since.

Why such the drastic decline? Simple, Shannahan and Co. are not good at drafting defensive players. Since his tenure here in Denver, he has drafted six standout defensive players: Elvis Dumervil, Al Wilson, D.J. Williams, Darrent Williams, Trevor Pryce and (arguably) Ian Gold. Now, only two of them are still on the team.

This is a horrible number. Take a stellar Bears defense. They have seven drafted starters on their team, and that's not even counting the rookies. That's 7 out of 11 players compared to Denver's 2 out of 11. The only drafted starter aside from Dumervil and Williams is Marcus Thomas, and he hasn't been spectacular either.

Obviously something is flawed here. You don't go almost 12 season and only draft two outstanding players, while relying on free agency for the other 9 spots on defense. What is going on? Why does the Denver FO suck so bad at drafting defense? All the offensive grabs in the last three years have been brilliant, but we're facing an almost all bust 2007 draft class. Free Agency has never won a team the superbowl, when is Denver going to figure this out?

The Broncos had a golden (defensive) opportunity slip through their fingers earlier this year. Monte Kiffin--the great defensive coordinator for the Bucs (who has master-minded awesome defenses over the years) was a free-agent at the end of the '07 season. Shanahan and Bowlen should have went after him hard and dumped a bunch of money in his lap to come to Denver. But they listened to what the Bronco players wanted and decided to chance it on an unproven, inexperienced Bob Slowik. I hope this decision doesn't destroy the '08 season, like how Bates destroyed the '07 season.

[knoxman36and2]

Al Wilson
John Mobley
Trevor Price
Elvis Dumerville
Darrent Williams (r.i.p.)
D.J. Williams
Deltha O'neal (hey he has had a couple good years)

.....those aren't bad choices.....and lots of them were pro-bowlers....some have/had ( ) great potential

I'd still like to have Oneal back there helping out in nickel packages I think he has Paymah beaten hands down

[jhns]

Well the Goodmans taking over all of scouting is what has made our drafting good (or at least it cooincidentally got good at that time). Since then, the only defensive draft that we have had we gave to Bates (I have heard Moss was almost all him). I have no doubt that these guys can draft us some good defensive players over the next couple of years. It is where all of the focus will be.

[Spice 1]

The Broncos had a golden (defensive) opportunity slip through their fingers earlier this year. Monte Kiffin--the great defensive coordinator for the Bucs (who has master-minded awesome defenses over the years) was a free-agent at the end of the '07 season. Shanahan and Bowlen should have went after him hard and dumped a bunch of money in his lap to come to Denver. But they listened to what the Bronco players wanted and decided to chance it on an unproven, inexperienced Bob Slowik. I hope this decision doesn't destroy the '08 season, like how Bates destroyed the '07 season.

You may be right.

[LarryDean]

The strength of the Broncos has and always will be offense with Shanahan as the head coach....I dont disagree with the title of the thread....Of coarse the Broncos have drafted some good players on defense over the years like the ones that have been listed....I'm not much into comparisons to other teams ... Like the one used as an example the bears etc......Lovie Smith came from school of Tony Dungy ...The Bears have had for the most part a consistent defense over the years....But have had a horrible offense to go along with it.....The saying is defense wins championships but I think the saying should be defense wins a championship teams like TB/Ravens are few and far between ...

If a team is going to be successful in the NFL for any long period of time in the NFL it seems most of the teams have 1 thing in common a hof QB /Hof coach...I think the Broncos need a heavy infusion of drafted defensive players,FA and culture to get the defense where it needs to be..But with that the strength of the team will still be offense...Not looking back at the Super Bowl teams ...The Broncos defense hit near rock bottom the moment it lost Al Wilson....

I'm not expecting the Broncos to have a top 5-10 defense but I expect Slowik to prepare a good enough game plan where if the players execute it properly they will have a good shot to win and can play with anybody...So far this season...The Defense has yet to look like that imo..I think for the most part it has been Slowik fault for not having handle on what he can do with the team and getting out coached by the other teams offensive coordinator ...

The way the Broncos have been changing Defensive coordinators and starters the last few years ...It is no surprise to me at all that the defense would look like this ...But I think with time and some more wins they can start to grow confident and trust in one another a little more and finally start to play as a team and not individuals...I'm still hoping as the season go's forward that Crowder and Moss will start to show some potential and maybe start to catch fire and contribute and maybe JW and Woodyard as well ....The defense starts gel not necessarily winning the Broncos games but losing them games either ...