2011 Season Preview: Denver Broncos

2010 Record: 4-12

2010 Rankings:

Total Offense - 13

Passing Offense - 7

Rushing Offense - 26

Scoring Offense - 19

Total Defense - 32

Pass Defense - 25

Rush Defense - 31

Scoring Defense - 32

Offense

With Wiz Kid/Depth Chart Destroyer Josh McDaniels out as head coach, John Fox takes over and tries to bring some semblance of order to the offense. The offseason debate between Kyle Orton or Tim Tebow as starting quarterback is settled, and the right choice was made to go with Orton. Knowshon Moreno has promise as a running back but has been injury-prone. Willis McGahee was brought in via free agency since he's safe from Ryan Clark in the high altitude of Denver. On the outside, WR Brandon Lloyd had a monster year last year, but we're not sure if he can follow it up. There are some targets, but the offense needs to get the running game on track if they want to compete this year.

Defense

The injury to Elvis Dumervil left the Broncos with virtually no pass rushers. They were last in the league with only 23 sacks last season, which they hope to change with a move to a 4-3 defense this year and with #2 overall pick LB Von Miller (Texas A&M). Their secondary was downright awful last year, and they addressed it in part through the draft, taking S Rahim Moore in the second round. Getting Dumervil back in the lineup will be a huge help, but they will need to be better against the run this season, where they were gashed for over 150 yards 7 times last season.

Intangibles

Having John Fox making the calls should make this team better, particularly on defense. However, there are still a lot of holes and if they can't run the ball or stop the run, it's going to be another long season in the Mile High city.

If the Broncos were a Beer, they would be:

Red Stripe

You see the ads on TV. It's talked about a lot. There is somewhat of a catchy marketing campaign going on. "Hooray Beer" is sort of like Tim Tebow in that it reminds you about what the product is (beer/football) but upon looking deeper into it, you find that it's not really that great of a product. So um...hooray beer?