BRONCOS  // WORLD SERIES

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ANY NFL head coach worth his salary will prefer the safer player option. But he will go for the cautious risk when there’s a fair chance of success. Too, the good head coach won’t mess with ideas that have shown little or no success. Broncos field boss John Fox seems to fit this category of leader, and analysts are saying that his keeping Kyle Orton as the Broncos starting quarterback is no longer the safer option, instead it's become the cautious risk and could soon be the bad idea---Orton’s been on the downward side of the win pole, in spite of significant gains in yardage in the majority of games played since the NFL lockout ended.

And from a game vs. the San Diego Chargers on Sunday, the use of Tim Tebow as a starter has gone from bad idea to cautious risk, the latter because there’s no Tebow guarantee of a swift Broncos climb toward the winner’s circle during the season’s remaining games. Uncertainty is still the bane of the Broncos, and usually is of any team filled with talent yet of talent that can’t seem to rise up from inconsistency, from yo-yoing from superb performances in a single game to the embarrassing, then up and down again.

Orton can pass the ball well but he has had trouble exploiting third and fourth down red zone opportunities for the successful TD rush, and in many a game his passes have been amazingly deep and would have been more accurate if the timing for connectivity with an open receiver wasn’t off. Yes, Tebow needs to pass better and there’s no evidence that he’s any more proficient and more consistent than Orton is at maintaining well-timed QB/receiver connections, though the evidence of Tebow's skills for such came through in the last quarter of the vs. San Diego game. Even so, the better passer, Orton, threw for only 34 yards in the first half against the Chargers and he was but six for 13, while Tebow passed for 79 yards in the second half, finishing 4 for 10.

Starting Tebow against Miami after Bye week would surely reflect cautious risk taking, but why not? There’s no safe option when it comes to Orton, not anymore. The Broncos are 1-4, a place where a team has to put imagination and risk to work. Sunday included two Tebow TD’s, one from Tebow rushing. Fox giving Tebow the green light for starting in Miami could no longer be listed among flaky rushes to judgment. 

Important is that Coach Fox makes sure that his QB options won’t mask the weaker Broncos segments, which are the components of a defense that need empowerment, that still allow responses to an effective offense to be far too reactive. Broncos defenders aren’t commanding and directive enough, causing the defense to lack sufficient chase and block speed, unable to force the opposing offense into positions where it could only gain minor yardage or none at all. Not that the Broncos defense was completely without shining moments on Sunday---a fine interception came as quick revenge for a Charger intercept, becoming a TD, and there were more Broncos interferences than in previous games, except during those tight situations that led to the 29-24 loss..

WORLD SERIES ---  IT’s been going on since 1903, when the American League’s Boston Red Sox beat the National League’s Pittsburgh Pirates. That’s an entire century of World Series games plus seven (no WS in 1904). Of these competitions, the AL has won more WS than the NL, and the NYY have had the most and longest streaks, winning the WS in 1927 and 1928, then each year 1936 through 1939, and each year from 1949 through 1953, again in 1961 and 1962, next 1977 and 1978, once more 1998 through year 2000.

But since year 2000 there have been no streaks, it’s been an 11 year period during which teams much younger than the NYY have been WS victors, among them, the Diamondbacks, the Marlins and the Angels, an era during which the Red Sox have won two WS after not having won since 1918. Between 1903 and 1918, Boston won the WS five times.

Which team has had the most WS wins since 1903? The NYY---26 wins. Another sign of change in the years since 2000 is that no team has repeated as a WS winner consecutively or otherwise. Last year, it was the NL’s San Francisco Giants, eliminated from the LC series this year. The 2009 WS winner? The NYY, eliminated from the opportunity this year by the Detroit Tigers.

Good news is that of the last 10 WS, the NL and AL have each won five, a good balance for MLB.

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