BRONCOS ---   WHAT did Thursday night’s versus Cardinals game reveal about the Broncos and the team’s chances for a winning record in the upcoming regular NFL season? And what had the game uncovered about new Broncos head coach, John Fox? Answering the first question, if anything was obvious it was that the Broncos reserves may not be of the caliber needed to replace Brandon Lloyd, Elvis Dumervil, Champ Bailey and other top starters should they be injured early in the season, though Eron Riley proved to have positive juice as a starter, to wit: his catch of Tim Tebow’s pass for a 43 yard TD within a six play/94 yard drive, then his 89 yard run to just a few feet from a TD in the last quarter.

Also, pre-season game four suggested that neither Brady Quinn nor Tim Tebow should be a starting quarterback for the Broncos this year, unless the already selected starting QB Kyle Orton is injured or loses his mojo suddenly and completely.

As for Broncos head coach John Fox, his playing the reserves in the year’s final pre-season game was indeed wise. Not only did Coach Fox learn what the reserves were capable of so that he could better trim and arrange the Broncos 2011 roster, he opted for prevention of injuries to his already selected starting players during a game that wouldn’t count except as a recon into player-competencies that he was still unsure of. Losing starting players to injuries is bad enough, losing them in vain is worse.

Now to the QB question which shouldn’t be a question: Quinn or Tebow? My take is that both should be number two, and Mark Weber upgraded to more than a QB who’d play only if Orton, Quinn and Tebow are out on stretchers. Neither of the four are fully rounded QB’s, neither of near-perfection regarding every situation that a QB has to face, which is the case with more than 95 percent of QB’s in professional football. Orton seems to be the better leader when it comes to fundamental plays and conservative improvisation, especially within the passing game, while Tebow seems to be the less cautious, which he’d find himself wanting to suppress by playing enough minutes in the NFL, but until then he’s likely to fail more than succeed when driving the ball forward, which doesn’t mean that when success comes it can’t be spectacular.

Quinn is definitely a smart responder, having a good mind for what a particular situation calls for him to do, but he has to close the gap between what he chooses to make happen and the best way to execute. Weber seems to be more like Quinn than Orton or Tebow, a good thing in that he’ll prioritize the reading of situations and how to decide on the right response quickly. It’s my take that Coach Fox sees his QB options as described herein and that he’ll consider playing the backup QB’s as situations dictate, though Orton will start the season as first QB and remain so as long as the Broncos offense does well.

How will the Broncos offense perform under Orton versus the Oakland Raiders during the season’s opener? If Coach Fox can keep Orton rushing the ball forward with short but significant yardage in mind, instead of Orton being tripped up by his urges to pass the ball deep when a guarantee for the caught pass is almost nil, then we’ll see Orton placing points on the board. If that happens, it’ll be up to the Broncos defense to be the D that it was often enough in games one through three of the pre-season, rarely giving away the points gained by the offense. Coach Fox and Orton have a lot to work with, all to their advantage: Lloyd, Eddie Royal, Willis McGahee, Eric Decker, Riley. Key then and crucial for prevailing against Oakland will be what Coach Fox knows all too well from being a defense coordinator, pass protection insuring that Orton has the freedom to engage with his open receivers. If that works, the Raiders may be shedding tears even before endgame.       

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ROCKIES  ---  THERE can’t be a more frustrated MLB manager than Jim Tracy. And whatever high degree of frustration it may be, it is certainly justified, for the Colorado Rockies have become poster guys for the greater irony in professional baseball, that a ballclub can be better in skills than teams that keep leaving them behind. Yesterday the Rockies were .471 at 66/74, 14 games behind in the National League-West, yet the team and several of its players have done well in important game categories; for instance, by late August the Rockies had more total runs for the season than most other NL teams. In addition, as of Sunday the Rockies had a higher team batting average (.258) than the Arizona Diamondbacks (.249) and the San Francisco Giants (.239), teams in first and second place of the NL-West respectively. The Rockies also held a higher batting average than the NL-W Los Angeles Dodgers (.255), which tells us that when it comes to team batting average the Rockies are best in the NL-W.

Now add that the Philadelphia Phillies have a lower team batting average than the Rockies, (.254), 10^th best in the NL while the Rockies hold seventh place re. team batting average.

Too, the NL-W third place Rockies have won more games than they’ve lost against more than half of NL teams ahead of them in games won. Moreover, four Rockies players are among the 30 that have the year’s best batting averages in the NL (as of Sunday): Todd Helton (.306), Troy Tulowitzki (.305), Carlos Gonzalez (.298), and Seth Smith (.289). Helton and Tulowitzki are 10^th and 12^th respectively on this list. Moreover, Helton, Tulowitzki and Smith appear on this list before any players from the Diamondbacks, Giants or the Dodgers appear, except for L.A.’s Matt Kemp.

Way too often this year the Rockies have seemed like a football team that gets inside the opposition’s 20 yard line often and then never scores enough TD’s to win a game. They have been “weak in the clutch,” Rockies are up, two or three men on base, two out, then a strikeout and the half inning is over, not enough runs in the inning for the Rockies to overtake the opposition. The Rockies score until there’s pressure on the weak end of a line-up that fails to capitalize on the hits + base-running that comes primarily from Helton, Tulowitzki, Gonzalez, Smith or, yes, Dexter Fowler (now batting above .285).

Furthermore, in too many games the runs that the Rockies put on the board are given back to the opposition from weaknesses in pitching in the first six innings and from a bullpen unable to turn that around.

When it comes to the ERA’s of its pitching staff, the Rockies are third worst in the NL (4.36), hardly above Chicago (4.46) and Houston (4.53). Chicago and Houston have the two worst win/loss records in the NL. It certainly isn’t mere coincidence that the pitchers of the two worst teams in the NL also have the worst ERA’s, and that the best team in the NL, the Philadelphia Phillies, has the best total ERA (3.05). Look at this relative to the fact that the Rockies have a higher team batting average than the Phillies and that Colorado has four hitters ahead of Philadelphia’s hitters on the individual NL best batting average list. The lesson is simple, it’s Baseball 101: games are won from hits that result in runs, and runs without “outs” keeping the opposition from putting runs on the board are also crucial to winning games, which the guy on the mound has to contribute toward the most. So, the Rockies have played to win, but not enough to rise above .500 because of (a) the lack of follow-on hits when bases are filled, and (b) the weakened pitching factor, that is, Ubaldo Jimenez a disappointment, Jorge De La Rosa and Juan Nicasio on the DL, Aaron Cook unable to return to his better pitching self, Jason Hammel having the worst ERA in the NL (above 5.0).

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