Broncos Stun AFC West; Fire Shanahan
It has been a volatile couple days since the end of the 2008 regular season capped by the most shocking move yet coming Tuesday afternoon:
The Denver Broncos fired Mike Shanahan.
That news came down early in the evening after a meeting between Shanahan and Broncos owner Pat Bowlen. Denver just completed an 8-8 season with that late three-game slide where they blew the division lead and eventually lost out on a spot in the playoffs when they were crushed on Sunday night by San Diego.
Bowlen wanted Shanahan to fire his defensive coordinator Bob Slowick. Shananhan refused. He was fired.
“After giving this careful consideration, I have concluded that a change in our football operations is in the best interests of the Denver Broncos,” Bowlen said in a statement released by the team. “This is certainly a difficult decision, but one that I feel must be made and which will ultimately be in the best interests of all concerned.
“I appreciate the 21 years that Mike Shanahan has given to the organization as an assistant and head coach, and the two Super Bowl wins in that time.”
Shanahan has been the Broncos head coach since the 1995 season. His 14 seasons gave him the second longest coaching tenure in the NFL, behind only Tennessee’s Jeff Fisher. Denver won Super Bowl titles after the 1997 and 1998 seasons, but the Broncos have struggled in recent seasons to make the playoffs. In the 10 seasons since that last championship, Denver made the post-season field just four times, and they’ve missed the last three years straight.
Overall in Denver, Shanahan was 146-91 over his 14 seasons. He was 15-14 against the Chiefs, including a victory in the ‘97 playoffs at Arrowhead Stadium.
More to come Wednesday morning on the Shanahan decision and the rest of the movement around the NFL.
This is the ‘only’ way Rin sees Herm being fired -for refusing to fire one of his coaches. Go down sticking to your guns & being true to self… as always, Herm’s The Man!
And apparently, so too is Shanahan!
heh heh heh
Is there anyone truly suprised that Bowlen finally came to grips with reality and sacked Shannarat? If only Elway was still in his prime, you know?
Anyway, this action suggests a most volatile NFL off-season that will hopefully see our Chiefs emerging with a fresh cast of personnel members, far better than what we saw in 2008.
Ah, the sarcastic mockery of Herm by the prolific Mr. Tin. I am a genuine supporter of Herm, probably blinded by my appreciation of his character, but even I am intrigued by Shanahan on a Chiefs sideline. Maybe this surprise firing would humble Shanahan enough to accept a more limited role with a division rival. Imagine the sweet revenge, for coach and fans, of a Chiefs division championship in 2009. Someone, please wake me up!
Let us see, won superbowl, had about 3 losing seasons since he got there, developed a few players like, Oh say, John Elway. THEN THEY FIRE HIM.
Yeah, let us keep herm after all he is arrogant about his abilities, and, almost forgot, HE WAS 2-14 IN 2008, what a fine hire he has been.
Shanny is out of a job…and Herm still has his.
Sure is a messed-up world.
Hey…maybe we could ship Herm off to “re-build” the Broncos. So THEY could suck for the next two or three years…or longer. Ha!
Gotta’ give Shanahan credit, though, for refusing to fire one of his coaches…to the point of losing his own job. That’s called “balls”. I hope KC’s next coach has a pair.
The truth although somewhat obscure is that Shanahan probably could have been the next Jeff Fisher IF THE DEFENSE WOULD HAVE WORKED OUT. Denver has the next Elway, if you cant win with Cutler you cant win with anyone! Defense spelled there doom, they were worse than the Chiefs the last couple of games! What I would like to see is continuity on the offense and a big change on the defense.
HELLO ; Mike Shanahan —– GM !!!!!
He knows as much or more about this team and how to fix it than almost anyone ! RIGHT NOW >
Herm and Mike ?
Larry gone by Wed. New GM by Fri.
Ticket sales Sat. ^^^
Nice thought, Dave. But…we’re not going to have any “continuity” on offense until we can run the ball consistently again. This “spread” offense that we ran with Thigpen is a joke. Sure, he played okay for the most part. But until he can get up under center and run a conventional offense, I’m not too impressed. Name me one team in the playoffs that can’t run the football well. Yeah..Arizona. Okay, so name me TWO.
Defense? We made no gains this year whatsoever. ZERO!!! Yes, we had injuries. What team didn’t? Yes, our young players played. So what? Did they get any better through the year? At tackling? At putting pressure on the QB? None. Nothing. We were actually worse this year than last.
Please bring in some coaches who can get this thing going in the right direction. We need coaches who have the mindset that losing is UNACCEPTABLE! This “we lost, but played well” BS Herm has been spewing has got to go. NOW!!!
I’ve been a Chief’s fan forever…and always will be. But I hate to see a once-proud organization turning into one of those LOSER teams. And that’s exactly where we are. LOSERS. Is it okay with than fans? No way. Is it okay with the players? Ask Tony G. But strangely enough…it seems to be okay with the Head Coach.
Wboa! This has been one crazy season across the board in my beloved NFL and it isn’t over by any means, is it?!? Shanny gone…volatile is right. As much as Shanny makes me CRAZY, I have to respect his tenure out there–Ballz.
Question: All these newbies…I mean…this is Herm’s ‘baby’, this rebuilding (debacle, if you please) has been his ‘baby’…is it right to yank him and give some other dude the reigns, because you know we’re not going to be worse next year, it’s almost mathematically impossible!
I’m not a total Herm hater, and let’s not go down that road, that’s not what I want to ponder, it’s just that I am confused…Maybe he should fire some of HIS coaches. I think his initiative was right on… What to do, what to do…
After next year…sure, sure—but next year really is the tell-all year/performance from the newbies, etc. It should all really be coming together…we all knew we wouldn’t make the playoffs this year, right?!?! So in someways it really doesn’t matter what our record is…you either make the playoffs or you don’t. Sh*t, having a 9-7 or a 10-6 season and NOT making the playoffs is WAY more brutal than this:-) Are ya buying it?!?!
I don’t know, I’m still all weirded out from the so-called “man-genius” getting fired yesterday and now this has just pushed me into crazy-mode.
Blah blah blah Happy New Year Chiefs fans and Bob.
Oh ; They could have got draft pickes , plus they still owe him six mil. —- some one must have drinking at the time .
If Mike was the GM in KC ( Denver— Oakland—-San Deigo ) These guys would be in for the worst news .
Well Scott they wont have a consistent running game until they have a consistent running back who can play every down. Not like LJ who blocks like a adolescent girl. They know whats comin when LJ in the game cuz he can only do one thing. And most of the time that one thing is fall down on your teammates legs at the line of scrimmage. That is the problem with the offense again in the later part of the year, too predictable! Thats what I said, BIG CHANGES ON DEFENSE!!!!
Dave,
You mean LJ can’t block? You’re joking! Ha!
KC needs a badass running back…as much or more than they need ANYTHING.
And unfortunately, they need pretty much EVERYTHING. Running Back, Linebackers, Defensive End, Quarterback, Center…you name it.
Yeah…Herm’s the man alright. Hope they keep him around to continue to build this awesome machine he’s laid the foundation for.
Shanny would make a terrible GM (ie Drafting Maurice Clarett). He’s the last person we should even think about.
But he sure would make an excellent OC, or at least a great QB coach for a season or two, to help develop Tyler Thigpen while he looks for a new HC’ing job.
I don’t think he’s going to be looking for a job for long. Look for him to stay in the AFC West in fact. Profootballtalk.com is reporting that he’s maneuvering for Norv Turner’s job in San Diego… sounds far fetched, but their sources are usually correct…
P.S. I will DIE if the Chiefs hire Shanahan for ANYTHING.
Scott, LJ blocked some one once , I missed that !!!!
Theres a lot of young - fast - tough running backs out there ? Who are you comparing him to ?
The firing of Shanahan marked a clear difference between Pat Bowlen and Clark Hunt. Losing is unacceptable in Denver. Even 8-8 and not competing for the Super Bowl. Clark’s team goes 4-12 then 2-14 and he’s not concerned about the coach. Unacceptable. No coach who wins 2 games should ever be retained. A coach who has won 6 games in 2 years and is still employed is a black eye on the franchise.
(No need to copy-and-paste your canned response Crochity Old B*st*rd.)
aPauled—you missed the combine and draft plus the rebuild Herm Carl & Clark are working with . Unless a whole team of a high amount of rookies are going to win a lot the ———- wait , get your up dates from THE CHIEFS web site.
no more bedtime stories .
good night .
Looking forward to both your draft choices, and free agent signing as Chiefs Head Coach in 2009 Herm - keep up the great work!
Everyone is acting like this rebuild would take 1 year, which is what he has had so far to actually start rebuilding… it’s going to be at least 2 to 3 years before the chiefs actually start winning non-stop, come on people, just because you can get on the internet and see things in a flash doesn’t mean everything works that way.
Shanahan has had 14 years to build-win-rebuild-win. Your giving Herm 3 years to do it… Shanahan had a winning team this year, thanks to the AFC West, they had the division all but wrapped up and lost it all. That has got to be why he got fired, it can’t just be about the defensive coordinator not being fired. If he had no problems with firing people before this, why would he have a problem firing this guy, I mean he fired the GM last year…
The chiefs need to stick with the guy who had the plan to rebuild, otherwise the next guy will have to start it all over and the chiefs fans will be calling for his head also…
I hope Shanahan gets a job in some other division though, even though he will probably go to San Diego after they lose this week…
Also another team that doesn’t have a great running game is the eagles…
Jim please kill the Shanahan for GM crap. Thats the reason he’s not in Denver. Because only out of the last 10years only about 4 or 5 picks have actually panned out Cutler,Marshall,Royal,Clady, etc. Anyway the guy is a heck of a head coach though. Would mine seeing us hire a sharp GM and hiring Shanahan here as the head coach. In this day and age you need to separate the positions of coaches and GM. You just can’t do both anymore. Both positions require too much of one person’s time.
And also in defense of LJ he’s done a good job blocking since coming back off of being deactivated. To add to that the only reason LJ didn’t have a good year this year is we only gave the guy 10 to 12 carries a game when he returned. I the Raiders game was the only game he got at least 20plus carries. Heck there were a couple games he had like 12 carries for a 100plus yards. My thing is this we need to go back to a conventional offense and get back to running the football.
I had no problem with HERm ball or Marty Ball but you just have to be balanced. You can’t running all the time and you can’t throw it 40 times you have to be a balanced team. The reason the Chiefs struggled the last 8 games were because we were passing it too much. ON 3 and 1 or 2 and 1 calling fly routes. Going in a shotgun offense on the goal-line. Just don’t make any sense. Whoever assumes the GM and head coaching position needs offensively bring balance back to our offense. People talked about how explosive Vermeil offense when he was here but it also was balance. Priest had plenty of 1500 plus rushing seasons here in KC. If Herm is retained he needs to sit Larry down apologize for fading him out of the offense and bring in a balanced attack next year to take the pressure off of Tyler. For the last time this is why Matt Ryan is so successful as a rookie quarterback.
I agree with you on LJ ED. He’s still a good player. He played in an offense that was totally out of his element once he came back from suspension and did a reasonably good job. It’s become so fashionable to hate on LJ because he’s an assh*le off the field. On the field, he’s still one of the better workhorse runningbacks in football.
No one will trade for a RB in the NFL right now who has a big contract. The position is quickly becoming a non-priority. Unless we flat out cut LJ, he’ll be a Chief next year.
ED———- sorry , I just cant think of someone that has more NFL football savy than Mike Shanahan !!! help me on who ?
I still cant think of who you could possibly have in mind to top all his background and knoledge , thanks .
jim lloyd says:
“I just cant think of someone that has more NFL football savy than Mike Shanahan !!! help me on who ?”
jim, I would suggest Cower.
Colby,
Some team will trade for Johnson, IF it comes to that. We don’t know whats going to happen with a new Coach. Johnson still has some miles on him, and could/will be a productive Back for at least 3 more seasons given the right situation. That situation may be in KC or not. I don’t see the Chiefs cutting him,If He wants outta KC that bad he’ll renegotiate his contract with another team if traded, to do so would be mutually beneficial.
John, doubt Cowher will come here, it is reported he want specific person for GM before he will even consider it. Of course, that may be just the media saying anything.
I like Shannahan but I cannot imagine him in KC for any reason. I have to hope (although there is not much of it here) clark will find the correct person for GM and he will drop herm like a hot potato. Otherwise the chiefs are looking at a 6-10 and a blown chance in the AFC West while the others are finding their way.
I agree tm, chances are slim and looking damn near transparent now, (looks like Cowers gonna sit this one out) but i was just answering jim’s question, but my thought was for a Head Coach, not as GM.
Happy New Year tm, and continued good health to you and all of yours!
Keep up the great work Coach Herm Edwards of the KC Chiefs!