Mike Shanahan is still wanted in Denver

by James on April 11th, 2007

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Coach Shanahan says - it gets so old explaining all these victories

Mike Shanahan has averaged 11 wins in the regular season as coach of the Broncos. That included two 13 victory seasons and one 14 victory season.

As a Lions fan, your intrepid author can only feel the impossible has been accomplished.

Still in the what have you done for me today NFL, many Bronco fans think Shanny should go.

Well, too bad for them since the Broncos coach just signed a 3 year extension.

Mike coached under George Seifert, which makes him a part of the Bill Walsh coaching tree; although Mike runs a run oriented West Coast Offense and has produced a flurry of 1,000 yard rushers out of nobodies.

NFL Football Mike Shanahan factoid -

Posted the most wins in pro football history in a three-year period (46 in 1996-98). source

Is Shanahan perfect?

John Elway

No, he actually had a losing season the year after John Elway retired.

Now admittedly having John Elway can certainly lead to a lot of victories. For those of you too young to have seen John Elway, the master of the last minute drive, let’s discuss your gallivanting author’s recollection of John Elway.

Oddly, it was a quarterback challenge show put on by the NFL in the off season to promote football, what else.

The quarterbacks had the option of throwing at a cardboard cutout receiver at 15 yards or 30. Most quarterbacks chose 15 and struggled to put it through the hole in the receiver’s picture as it was dragged across the field by a golf cart.

John chose 30 yards and chucked frozen ropes through the hole time after time. It was a sight to behold.

Then in the long distance pass, Elway through ball something like 80 yards.

Still, Elway was not exactly surrounded by a lot of top shelf players in those years and yet Shanahan got them to the Super Bowl.

Shanahan’s victory total with Denver is 11th-best by one coach with one team in NFL history. Since he became their coach in 1995, the Broncos have led the NFL in points, total yards and yards rushing. source

Mike has the knack for getting his team into the playoffs.

No NFL head coach has won more game than Mike Shanahan’s 130 victories since the start of the 1995 season. During his NFL career, Shanahan has been a part of teams that have played in nine conference championship games and six Super Bowls.

In 27 seasons as a pro and college coach, Shanahan’s teams have participated in postseason or bowl games 22 times. Under Shanahan’s guidance, Denver has set and NFL record by posting the most victories in both a two-year (33, 1997-98) and three-year (46, 1996-98) period. source

Current Reality

Unfortunately with Elway retiring and spotty quarterback play at best; Denver has had only one playoff victory in the last 8 seasons.

Finally last year they replaced the inept Jake Plummer with rookie Jay Cutler and ended up narrowly missing the playoffs at the end of the season.

The Broncos have since then added Dre Bly, a true cover corner, from my Lions (arguably our best defender), plus Travis Henri at running back and a host of other players to set themselves up for a great season.

Last year the Broncos had on of the top defenses in spite of a schedule of high scoring teams like St. Louis, Indianapolis, San Diego, and Seattle.

Coach Mike Shanahan still has a lot of victories left in him. Yes, Mike is still wanted in Denver to take the Broncos past the first round of the playoffs!

NFL Football Fan Question Would you hire Mike if he became available?

As always, any NFL Football related comments are welcome.

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