Guest blog by Woody

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First of all, I’ll preface this by saying that I am and will forever be a Mike Shanahan fan.  I love a run oriented west coast offense.  But I do think it was time for a change in Denver.  After Elway retired, the Broncos only managed to win one playoff game in nearly a decade with Shanahan.  Over those years we got embarrassed by the Colts two years in a row and had a monumental meltdown in the final weeks of last season.  It was time for a change.

Enter Josh McDaniels, protege of Bill Belichick.  I live in Boston and am forced to listen to people idolize Belichick on a weekly basis (with the exception of the 4th and 2 call against the Colts).  I hate the Patriots and I hate Belichick, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re the most successful team of the last decade.  Cheating scandals aside, he won three Super Bowls, four AFC Championships, and had eight playoff appearances in the last ten years.  That doesn’t mean McDaniels is going to do the same thing with the Broncos, but he comes from a system that is proven to work.  Part of that system however, includes ruling with an iron fist and making controversial personnel decisions despite heavy criticism.  When Belichick decided to stay with Tom Brady over Bledsoe, it was not an obvious choice.  He kept a three time All-Pro QB on the bench in favor of someone who had simply gone 5-3 in this first eight NFL games as a starter.  Looking back it was the right decision, but he took plenty of flack for it at the time.  This season, he kicked Randy Moss out of practice for showing up late to a meeting the morning we had a blizzard here in Boston.  I could go on about when he released Lawyer Milloy or traded Seymour, but I think the point is made that Belichick does somethings that a lot of people don’t agree with and some of them probably are mistakes.  But he wins games, he makes the playoffs, and he wins Super Bowls.

Josh McDaniels has done similar things his first year with Denver.  He got rid of Cutler, he had an early feud with Marshall and then he won six straight games.  Yes, we then ended up going 2-8 to finish out the season and had more than our fare share of personel controversy with Marshall, Sheffler, etc.  To reference Belichick yet again, he went 5-11 his first year with the Patriots but hasn’t had a losing season since.  So, yes McDaniels has made some mistakes, but this controversial coaching philosophy can be very successful.  It was successful with Belichick and it was successful with Parcells before him.  For it to be successful requires sticking to the plan.  Belichick is an arrogant prick, but he does not bend to outside pressure.  He sticks with his plan and it works.  McDaniels is going to do some things that look terrible from the outside.  He’s going to piss people off and get bashed for this or that.  But that doesn’t mean he won’t have success.

I’m not saying we should applaud McDaniels for what he’s done so far.  But we should give him a chance.  We might not agree with all his decisions, but if we make someone a head coach we need to give them a chance to succeed.  Let’s trust that he has a plan.  After all, that highly criticised Cutler trade looks good in hindsight, at least to me, especially if we make good use of the draft picks.  The Broncos would have won the Super Bowl in Shanahan’s second year if it hadn’t been for the Jacksonville disaster, and Belichick won one in his second year.  I don’t know if we have the weapons to necessarily win the Super Bowl next year, but we should be in the playoffs.  If we finish 8-8 again next year then go ahead and throw McDaniels under the bus.