Denver:
Once again, Denver's defense is unbelieveable! The second half adjustments are remarkable. For the past three years, our halftime adjustments were worthless. In fact, most of the time, we allowed teams back into the games in the second halves. Those days are gone. Denver now makes appropriate halftime adjustments and has shut everyone out in the second half of games. No one has scored on Denver in the second half except for the Cincy Bengals in week one with 20 seconds left. Five and Oh! Wow!

Kyle Orton looked freakin awesome! I mean really awesome! The glove is gone and his throwing hand is on fire! He threw 330 yards and two TDs. Not only that, but he was on target, and was zinging and zipping balls into WRs. Eddie Royal was blanketted by the DB and Orton could squeeze it in to him, like Cutler was doing last year! (some of those should have been pass interference penalties) He did this time and time again. He led a 90 yard scoring drive and a 98 yard scoring drive. Can you say, "The Drive?" Orton could throw over 70 yards coming out of high school, so we see know his arm strength and accuracy on display! Now that he has a real coaching staff and QB coach, watch out! I've been telling people here in Chicago for the past few years that Orton was a good quaterback and is not the problem. They are finally agreeing with me!

This team is very special! Josh McDaniels has brought accountability, leadership, emotion, attitude, and pride! Gone are the days of complacency and disorder! He showed his enthusiasm and energy after the game in the stadium thanking the fans and pumping his fists! GOOSE BUMPS! CHILLS! Wow!

The "Wild Horses" formation was something new. It's not exactly the "Wild Cat" that Miami has been using but it sorta is. Orton lines up as a WR and Moreno as the QB. Orton can return to QB position after reading the defense. It's not that brilliant, just no one else has tried that. It was a nice way to surprise NEs defense. It kept them honest and simple. It worked. And we drove all the way downfield. In most Wild Cat situation two running backs are in the backfield and the defense knows it's some sort of run play. With Orton having the option of coming back under center, suddenly the defense no longer "knows" that it has to be a run play. It can be a downfield pass too! Miami let's Ronnie Brown throw ever once in a while, but it's not that same as having your regular QB still on the field. It's brilliant in that regard.

McDaniels said he is going to do somethings that the "NFL has never seen before", I am excited and waitng to see what that is. I think we have seen some of it with the Wild Horses and the other part is the reliance on the "Magic Three" (the three Tight End formation). HoosierTeacher has written on this extesively on my football website. Check out his awesome write up! Can't wait to see what else McDaniels does.

Denver could go undefeated this year! I've been saying this since preseason when I saw our third and fourth string defense hold Arizona's first team offense to zero points through 3 quarters. And scoreless by the end of the game. (If you care for preseason). We held Cincy's explosive offense to a measly 7 points. We beat the Number One offense in Dallas, and shut the Patriots out in the second half! Did you catch that? No score for New England at all in the second half! Wow!

We still play KC two more times, SD twice, Oak once more, Philly, Indy, Pitt and the NYG. Not easy by any means, but doable. Only two teams have ever gone undefeated, so we will see what happenes. Odds are against us. But I am very optimistic. I love analyzing football and am a student of the game. This team has all the players, the schemes, the coaches, as well as the emotional capital to go undefeated. We will see if it happens.

Monday Night Football:
I love the new Monday night crew! John Gruden brings an amazing energy to this crew and you can feel it! It's palpable! He's a great complement to Ron Jaworski, who was already awesome enough! Loving this crew!

Sunday Night Crew:
Much better with Collinsworth. Got tired of Madden. Glad he is gone. He should not be a hall of famer! What'd he do?

Indy:
Manning is amazing once again! 5-0. Wow! Is it possible that neither Indy nor Denver lose and are both undefeated when they meet later this year? That'd be crazy! It's also wishful. The way to beat Indy is to run your big backs against their smaller, faster defense and just wear them out. Tennesee had success when running with LenDale White, but not Johnson. They should have stuck with LenDale. They should stick to LenDale all the time, he wears people down.

Miami:
What a fun team and fun offense to watch! What a awesome Monday night game. Henne versus Sanchez? Big Ten versus USC? Wow! It was a boring game until the fourth quarter when a go ahead touchdown was cored five times (NFL record?). Five teams a touchdown was scored for the lead and the win. Sanchez and Henne were playing lights out and were on target. I have never seen a game between to young quarterbacks like this.

I love Miami's Wild Hog/Wild Cat/Single Wing/Veer offense. This is the most exciting offense to watch. They practice this every day. They work on it. They care about it. It is their bread and butter, not a gimmick. Most teams run a gimmick version of this. They run their single wing/wild cat offense looking to run first. Similar to Urban Meyer's schemes. Run first. Having studied and written extensively on Urban Meyer's spread option offense (read my article), this closely resembles it. They don't pass much out of this attack, but Ronnie did it once to Fasano, and it worked brilliantly. And he is left handed, and rolled out to the left. The Jets defense was shocked and stunned. Then they threw in Pat White, who used to run a spread offense at West Virginia with Rich Rodriguez. They aren't sure how they are going to use this yet, but they are finding ways to use him. Meyer's studied Rich Rodriguez's system.

Why run the Wild Cat? It's a numbers game. Read my article above. Urban Meyer, Rich Rod, Linehan, and Walker figured it out and perfected. Rich Rod loved passing out of the spread. Meyer loves running. It's all about numbers! With two running backs in the backfield you are playing 10 on 11 football. A quarterback in the backfield drops the number of offensive players to only 9. The QB can't block nor distract, he just hands off to the running back. Why waste a player and waste a step? Let their be two amazing athletes in the backfield that can be used to either block, or distract defensive players, or run the ball (or pass?).

The problem with the way Miami is running it, is that defenses know that there will be no downfield passing threats. Unless Henne comes back into the game. Denver is running it with Orton still having the option to come back under center. With Pat White, now Miami can pass downfield AND run the spread read option running attack. Brilliant! And they will win games as well as chew up clock. They can still win their division!

Looks like Miami has learned a lot from Gainesville.

Ravens:
Ray Lewis, Shut Up! Stop complaining about referee calls. Ray Lewis cost his team the game. So did Suggs. Cincy was down and out. They were going to lose. Two penalties on the Ravens defense kept them alie, and they came back to win. Ray Lewis loves to complain about the referees. Shut up and play! I have never seen a bigger whiner! Cry baby? The Ravens need to stop blaming others for their misfortunes. Just own up and shut up! Play the damn game. I hope Cincy wins that division. I have an inert dislike for the Steelers and Ravens. Ray Lewis, what a clown!

Cowboys:
If their receivers could actually catch, they'd be ok. Wow! I ahave never seen more dropped balls. They finally discovered Miles Austin. Feed this guy the ball.

Raiders, Browns, Bills, Rams:
Still can't decide which one is the worst. At least Cleveland won.

Jaguars:
How did they get skunked by the Seahawks? Wow!

Bengals:
Are they "for real" now? 4-1 and winning their division. One bad Roy Williams play away from being undefeated! If only Williams would have played his position, instead of coming down and trying to lay out the WR. What a clown!

Couldn't watch all the games this weekend. I have them saved and will go through them throughout the week though. It was definetly an interesting week, lots of great games and great matchups. Enjoy the update!

Denver:
Looked good once again! Of course people are already starting to say, "Who have they played?". We can only play the teams on our schedule. We played Cincy (who just beat the defending Super Bowl champs), the Browns (yes, they are very bad), and Oakland. When you beat three NFL teams, you are doing pretty well. No game in the NFL is cake walk, and anyone can win on any given Sunday. If Cincy is such a bad team, how come they beat Green Bay and Pittsburgh? We held them scoreless for 59 minutes and 20 seconds.

Our offense finally had a turnover, someone fumbled the ball. But we quickly got it back after forcing a fumble ourselves. Orton is playing mistake free football and distributing the ball well. We are marching up and down the field taking tons of time off the clock. Our offense isn't sputtering like we did in week one and the glove and stitches in his throwing finger are gone! I see our offense getting better and more in rhythm every week. I like what I see. It's not the West Coast offense that Shanahan had with the timing short routes, it's a lot of underneath drag and crossing routes, hitting WRs in stride and letting them make plays after the catch.

Denver's defense is allowing 5.3 points per game. That is as good as it gets! That's number one in points allowed. That's all that matters! Mike Nolan has this defense playing very well and McDaniels and Xanders have brought in the right personnel. In fact, over 50% of our players are new to Denver. Plus we have 8 takeaways.

Our front seven is generating tremendous pressure and out secondary is getting interceptions. We have the best secondary in the business (Hill, Dawkins, Champ, and Davis).

To all the media clowns, and non-media clowns who don't understand football: In a few weeks you can't make any excuses. Denver goes on a stretch of games that is "difficult" by media clown standards. We play Dallas, New England, Philly, NY Giants, Washington, San Diego, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis. Is that good enough? We'll see what everyone is saying after we demolish Dallas at Mile High next week.

Florida:
Before we get to the other NFL games, anyone watch Florida? Wow! Urban Meyer has always intrigued me, I wrote a very lengthy article on his new offense and have always been intrigued by all Ohio coaches that move on and make it big (Belicheck, Meyer, McDaniels, Stoops, Brown, Miles, Pinkel, Pelini, Pete Carroll, Shula, Knoll, Schembechler, Hayes, Parseghian, etc). Read my Urban Meyer article here. What Meyer is doing at Florida is very exciting and amazing. Can anyone stop these guys?

Saints:
The finally came down to earth in Buffalo. Buffalo found ways to pressure Brees and they had to resort to running the ball. Imagine that! No passing TDs? Wow!

Lions:
They won, as I predicted last week. Washington is in disarray. Strong work Lions! They actually looked crisp and looked like they belonged.

Favre:
Spent the entire game looking ordinary and mediocre, but then on that last drive, he turned it on. That was one of the more miraculous finishes I have seen in a while. The catch was far more impressive than the throw. Favre just launched it and it could have ended up being one of his usual interceptions. But, Greg Lewis not only caught the ball, he demonstrated full possession, and came down with two feet in bounds. Wow!

Tennessee:
Starting out 0-3 has to be tough for the team with the best record last year. They have played some tough competition, but they need to get it together.

Cincy, Bal, and Pitt:
So Baltimore is undfeated. Pitt lost to the Bears and Cincy. Cincy beat GB and Pitt, but lost to Denver. Where does that leave the AFC North? Is Baltimore the best team? Cincy has a top 10 defense and a top 10 offense. They will probably win this division when it's all said and done. But Bal also has a top defense and offense and with the injury to Troy Palomalu... who wins this division? It's gonna be a battle and little things may determine who wins. It's pretty obvious now that Denver's shut out a damn good Cincy team. Their offense is explosive and doing a good job. Denver let them catch ball's but then punished them. So we will see how Denver does this week against Dallas, then New England the following week.