NFL: Pre-Season; Denver Broncos, 1-1 // MLB: League & Division Leaders Advancing; Colorado Rockies--In Defeat, For How Long?

FOR more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner) . . . NFL --- NO NFL pre-season contains enough time for a head coach to determine precisely how his players will perform across a 16-game regular season, nor is any NFL pre-season enough for analysts and fans to predict regular season player/team outcomes with pinpoint accuracy. Then there’s the testing of playbooks in the pre-season: will this or that strategy and the tactics they require take a team from first down to the next and then to points? On that first day of the regular season, no-one is absolutely certain about what will work and that which won’t, in spite of the many reviews and analyses during the four game pre-season. And, during the pre-season a huge share of 50+ players per each of 32 NFL teams will be thinking mostly about “Me,” “Will I make the cut?” while coaches will keep looking for the opposite of self-realization, for the “We” instead of the “Me,” wondering at the end of four exhibition games if a team has jelled properly, can come together in 16 regulation contests, coordinate in a timely manner game after game, seal a post-season slot. Surely the NFL’s four-game pre-season is inadequate for full understanding of what a football team can do September through December 31, but it’s about the best there is that’s close to getting the job done, all there is for preparation, for readiness, just as the few weeks of training camp is a weak indicator. Thus the NFL pre-season is more than player + team trial & error; it’s hurried exams and then final exam, it’s “the Separator,” “hatchet-time,” lots of suitcases packed and men gone after game four, playbooks adjusted, “all on the fly,” something uncomfortably new inside the 32 teams as that first week in September approaches, “Crush time!” Still, this year, as in previous years, the temptation to look at the pre-season as Round One, Super Bowl XLVIII (February, 2014) draws like a powerful magnet; the lights have come on and before us are the teams that dominated in the previous season. Yes, the New England Patriots give the impression that "the Repeat" is their domain, that they own it---six trips to a Super Bowl since year 2000. The Pittsburgh Steelers are next in most Super Bowl appearances since 2000---three. But where were the N.Y. Giants last year, after winning Super Bowl, 2011/12, and Super Bowl winner 2009/10, the New Orleans Saints---the high-end championship essence of these teams went south, way south. Fact: the number of one-time-only Super Bowl appearances since 2000 outdistances the number of "repeats" by several miles + nine yards, to wit: the Arizona Cardinals, Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, Tennessee Titans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Oakland Raiders, Carolina Panthers, Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Seahawks, San Diego Chargers, the Saints. Yet the division-strong seem to stay that way for two, sometimes three years straight, and it’s likely that this year the one or two division teams mightier than the rest last year will “repeat,” e.g., AFC East, the Patriots. To continue, AFC West, the Denver Broncos; AFC North, the Ravens and the Steelers; AFC South, the Houston Texans and the Indianapolis Colts. NFC East, the Washington Redskins, N.Y Giants, the Dallas Cowboys. NFC West, the 49ers, the Seahawks; NFC North, the Packers, the Bears. NFC South, the Atlanta Falcons. But beyond that, that is, how division and conference championship games will line up, such will be like the pre-season, uncertainty prevailing, the end the same as the beginning, anyone’s guess, and that’s what makes the NFL game more than just interesting. DENVER BRONCOS --- THE Denver Broncos led the AFC West in 2011 as a .500 team, eight wins, eight losses, while the seven other division leading teams were above .500, the San Francisco 49ers and the New Orleans Saints at the top numerically, .813 and 13 wins/three losses each. Last year, the Broncos led the AFC West again, this time above .800, 13-3, while the 49ers led the NFC West but finished 11-4-1. The two teams played their first game of 2013 last night, Denver the winner, 10-6. Rational analysts braving predictions have listed the Broncos and the 49ers as the teams for next February’s Super Bowl. More than a pocketful of probabilities exist for this notion, though the same can be said for other NFL franchises, e.g., New England, maybe the Seattle Seahawks. The money seems to be on Denver, however, and not just because of the 2012 Denver addition of quarterback great, Peyton Manning. No quarterback does offense alone, which is why making Manning “the Man” again can be from wide receiver Wes Welker being added to a WR pack that includes Erik Decker, Demaryius Thomas, backup WR Trindon Holliday, plus as running backs, Knowshon Moreno, draftee phenom Monte Ball, RB C.J. Anderson (Willis McGahee is recovering from an injury), left tackle Ryan Clady, tight end Joel Dreesen, plus a defense that includes super pass-rusher Von Miller, also LB Nate Irving, RE Robert Ayers, CB Champ Bailey. Add, kicker Matt Prater; punter, Briton Colquitt (2d best in league last year). Were a Pro-Bowl to organize today, these Broncos would be among candidates for it. But especially important is filling the vacancy left by lineman, Elvis Dumervil, having gone to the Baltimore Ravens, who will be gunning for QB Manning on Sunday, September 5, the Ravens being Denver’s first opposing team for the 2013 16-game regular season, dramatized by the Ravens having defeated the Broncos last season in double-overtime for a conference title that may have led to a third Denver Super Bowl win (the Broncos won the Super Bowl back-to-back, 1998/1999, New England the only franchise to accomplish that since, 2004/2005). Last night, the Ravens humiliated the Buccaneers, 44-16, and last night’s vs. 49er game said this about the Broncos: (1) Denver will be the AFC team to beat if its formidable offense can go the extra yardage for points, and that’s possible even when backup QB Brock Osweiler is afield and situations call for the short pass and/or the run; (2) a defense that is alert for the unexpected is essential whenever good offense drives fail to become points. Were it not for a 49er fumble picked by Denver’s LB Shaun Philips for a touchdown, the Broncos might have lost last night’s game, 6-3; (3) If the C. in RB C.J. Anderson’s name if for “Consistency,” he could be the force of insurance for that series of first downs and the extra TD (he was 15-69 vs. the 49ers last night); (4) For passing yards dominance against an opposing team, such will have to be from QB Manning---the 49ers were way ahead on this, 227 over Denver’s 103; (5) To meet expectations, the Broncos will need to make better use of “time of possession.” Versus. the 49ers, they purchased only a field goal inside of 35 minutes, while the 49ers possessed the ball for much less---25 minutes, though the Broncos achieved 16 first downs. MLB --- IN just a few days, five division leading teams increased their edges over second place clubs, while one fell back, the AL West’s 64-49 Oakland Athletics now tied at first position with the 65-50 Texas Rangers, having fallen from two up. The NL West’s 64-50 Los Angeles Dodgers are now two instead of one game ahead of second place team, the Arizona Diamondbacks, the NL Central’s 70-44 Pittsburgh Pirates and four over the St. Louis Cardinals instead of two, the NL East’s 70-45 Atlanta Braves are 15 ahead of the Washington Nationals, no longer 13. In the American League, the AL Central’s Detroit Tigers rose to seven over the Cleveland Indians from four, and the AL East’s Boston Red Sox are two instead of one atop the Tampa Bay Rays. Leading the NL, then, are the 70-44 Pirates, the AL being led by the 70-47 Red Sox, the Pirates leading both leagues. No third place club has altered its fate substantially this week, and spiraling downward fast are the 52-64 Colorado Rockies, fourth in the NL West, just one game ahead of fifth place team, last year’s World Series winning club, the San Francisco Giants. COLORADO ROCKIES --- LESS than 10 days ago, the NL West’s Colorado Rockies were in third position and six games behind first place. Today, the Rockies are fourth in the NL West and 13 games behind first position. On August 1, the Rockies away-from-home record was 20-30, the team’s at-home record, 31-26. As of today, the Rockies away-from-home performance is 21-38, home-record the same as that of July 30. That’s one win out of nine tries into August. It’s at a point when if you believe in curses, you are nearly convinced that the Colorado franchise is indeed cursed. Of course, that isn’t so, though something is beehive-busy against the Rockies. About as close to a possibly fair answer as to what this is, is an argument that “the something” is “Everything,” that is, “Everything that can go wrong,” which may seem unlikely for a ballclub with the Rockies obvious high above-the-margin talent, but the idea is surely within the realm of possibilities, a lot more believable than if we are to think it’s a curse or a nuance about the Rockies that the so-called baseball Gods dislike immensely. Think about (a) Injuries across much of the line-up at the wrong time; (b) Insufficient depth for player replacement, certainly untimely; (c) A schedule pitting hot teams vs the Rockies at the wrong time, and poorer teams at the wrong time; (d) Excessive reliance on too few players for home runs and extra base hits, again untimely; (e) Too many runners left in scoring position game after game; (f) Starting pitchers that weaken in fourth and fifth innings; (g) Relief pitchers unable to bury with enough strikeouts the amount of opposing team runs earned by starters, While batters haven’t been able to surpass that number from mid-game on (again, the pressure is from less time to do a job well enough to win); and more specifically, (h) Inability of the team to exploit the advantages inherent in multiple home games against mostly beatable teams, this for insurance against nights when better teams would be taking the Rockies down. It’s been said that constant bad luck in any team sport is from a team being at the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong way while doing the wrong thing “numerous times,” and this can happen to many among the MLB’s 30 franchises when new pathways fail to show up. The Rockies know that they have to find those new paths, but unfortunately there’s little time, little space for clearing the way now that more than half of the MLB season is gone. This is that time of year when we believe with some assurance that we’ll be saying in late September, “Better luck next year.” YET ON AUGUST 9, THE ROCKIES DEFEATED BASEBALL'S CURRENT BEST TEAM, THE 70-44 PITTSBURGH PIRATES, 10-1, THE BEST DOUBLE DIGIT WIN THAT THE ROCKIES HAVE HAD SINCE MID-JUNE. SURELY THE JUICE IS STILL THERE, AND MAYBE THE WIN WAS THE START OF A ROCKIES TURNABOUT, UP TOWARD .500. END/ml