Well if we believe the Broncos are a train wreck, which I believe personally, then it's almost inconceivable we lose this game.
Of course with backups, you never know.
If it was regular season, I wouldn't be sweating them much. (no more than the usual 'have to respect' an opponent level). Beyond that, they don't deserve any more until I see it. Especially not with (what appears to be) the mother of all implosions going on there.
Broncos may very well go 4-12 this year, even in the AFC west. I would say lower, but it is the AFC west, and as of now two teams (in afc west) are question marks in my mind. If those 2 teams become decent 6-8 win teams, I see Broncos being as low as a 2-14 team. You can't really guess lower than that. (you can but with only a handful of 1 win teams or less in the modern nfl, it's almost impossible to predict something THAT bad)
If the Raiders can go up a notch, (and I think they have a good chance of that) this will only make the two Raider games for the Broncos even tougher. I think McFadden blows up this year.
I also think Haley will make good use of Bowe, and Larry Johnson seems to be healthy and capable of good production. I do not think KC will continue on the trend of losing 23 of 25 games. This also makes it harder for the Broncos.
We're also talking about the AFC, which (may be trending away from it) but it still appears to me, 4 wins in the AFC would be good for 5-6 wins in the nfc in most cases imo.
I DO think Josh McDaniels is a joke. The guy isn't mentally there yet. May never be. He says 'some' of the normal coaches cliches at times, but the sentence that comes out of his mouth directly before and after reminds me of a college kid almost all the time. Like he's missing the bigger picture on everything he says. It's hard to place, but I know SOMETHING is missing.
I'm 31, so I'm just about his age. I see more professionalism from my friend who is a freshman coordinator for a local high school and is younger then McDaniels, than from McDaniels.
Granted I'm not in Denver, and others have seen more, but every time I see him speak, something in what he says, or doesn't say, or the way he says it or approaches things, just seems like amateur hour. Maybe he's great x's and o's, but being a head coach involves not only mastering x's and o's but also how to lead, police, and motivate a team (among others). You also need to be able to do ALL of those things at the same time. Those factors are exactly what at this time imo he is lacking.
So, if you take that into account, I don't see HOW we lose to them. Maybe we do, any given sunday, but I don't see it. We're playing a train wreck of a team that just lost Kyle Orton. Meanwhile isn't Simms out? So our starting defense will be going against their 3rd string QB? ouch. No Brandon Marshall ouch. Knowshon is banged up (if memory serves correct), ouch.
They lack depth, I think we're a deep team. Especially towards the back end. We'll probably cut 5-10 guys that are either going to be picked up by other teams. Those guys are better than the Broncos guys in similar positions.
Lots of guys will be fighting hard on both sides. I suspect we have more of them, and each one should be of better quality on average.
I highly doubt then we go 0-4. The Broncos, who are 0-3 and looked terrible for the parts of games I've seen them play are most likely to be 0-4. Below is their preseason results before cards game tonight.
Fri. Aug.14 at San Francisco Candlestick Park L 17-16 KCNC-TV (CBS4)
Sat. Aug.22 at Seattle Qwest Field L 27-13 KCNC-TV (CBS4)
Sun. Aug.30 VS. CHICAGO INVESCO Field at Mile High L 27-17 NBC
Thu. Sep. 3 VS. ARIZONA INVESCO Field at Mile High 7:00 PM MDT KCNC-TV (CBS4)
Haven't exactly played good teams. Not bad teams, but not good ones. They haven't looked too well against those average/below average teams. (average = 8-8)
If we do lose, based on watching our first 3 preseason games, I think we'll be fine. The only thing that seems 'behind' in my mind, is our passing offense. Which I'm not concerned with.
I don't think we even need to match last years passing totals to move up. I think we can take away 20 percent of our pass stats, and with an expected improvement in our run game (if that is realized), it's a net positive. How can you bet against Warner, Boldin, and Fitz....breaston, urban, et cetera?
So imo the part that (passing offense) has been a factor in the pre-season games that we lost shouldn't continue to be a factor in the regular season. There's going to be down days and games. But I think by week 5 we'll of seen our offensive passing prowess acting like it should at least three times by then.
We already know our strengths from last year. I'm more excited at looking at last year's weaknesses and seeing them improve or even become strengths. I've seen that, especially in our run game.
I think our run game is going to be a strength this year. I'm more excited about the talent we have back there, then well, ever (since '88). I think LSH would of been the best rb on our team about 1/2 those years, then we have TH and BW on top of that. It's sick.
At this point, if James was kept (and I've been on record at saying how well of a job I think Edge did), he'd be a DISTANT 4th in terms of running ability. (not blocking ofc)
Finally one thing about statistics I learned from my ASU professor who is one of the best in the country. It's either a 0 or a 1. It either is or isn't. Each point either is or isn't. Therefore just because a collection of individuals tends to show a trend one way or the other, does not in ANY way lead or contribute to whether or not (THAT SPECIFIC POINT, in our case the Cardinals making the playoffs) is a 0 or a 1. It is a reflection of other teams in the past, not a guarantee, nor even a good indicator, of what THIS team will do.
What the hell does Steve Barkowski have to do with the Cardinals making the playoffs this season? He doesn't.
It merely states that teams that lose in the preseason, generally don't make the playoffs. It does not state (and obviously not conclusively state) that because a team is 0-4 in the preseason MEANS they won't make the post season.
Plus when generally speaking, poorer teams tend to lose more, thus making up a bigger pool of the teams that are 0-4, it would tend to be that more of them wouldn't eventually make the playoffs.
You'll find that in many instances, taking an actual thing and applying it to any statistical model is no more than a guess, at times (if the model SEEMS to be correct through trial and error - which generally is how they treat the variables), an educated guess. Which basically just means it's more correlated one way or the other. But correlation doesn't prove anything.
So the correlation based on their statistical model seems to indicate that 0-4 teams do not make the playoffs. Well the Cardinals of 2009 are not included or accounted for in that model, and I think we'll be fine. I'll trust my eyes over fudged, trial and error numbers, anytime. (It doesn't mean these statistics shouldn't be considered...it just means they don't tell you as much as they pretend to tell you...and one shouldn't make a decision based on that). It's the wrong metric to use. But it has it's usefulness. In this case, the output is imo wrong.
doh! 
