Rod Smith – statistically the best receiver in Broncos history – will ascend to the Ring of Fame at Mile High Stadium. Appropriately, Smith will become the 23rd player to grace the Ring of Fame when Denver hosts the Houston Texans on September 23rd, 2012.
Colorado Avalanche center Paul Stastny and the US Men’s Hockey Team are just getting warmed up at the 2012 International Ice Hockey Federation Men’s World Championship. Stastny logged a goal and two assists on Tuesday in Finland as the US Men dropped Switzerland 5-2 to close out preliminary play.
Imported infielder Marco Scutaro launched his first home run of the season over the left field fence. Rafael Betancourt earned his 7th save, and the Rockies headed home to face Arizona. Not that it’s all sunshine and puppy farts in Colorado.
The Denver Nuggets took no prisoners in their second straight do-or-die contest against the LA Lakers. Denver streaked to a 13-0 first quarter lead in their Game 6 victory on Thursday night. The Nuggets never let the Lakers get closer than 5 points to force a Game 7 in Los Angeles on Saturday night.
JaVale McGee may be a playoff rookie, but he took on the behemoth front line of the Los Angeles Lakers Tuesday night and came out on top. The Nuggets built a 15-point fourth quarter lead and withstood a rain of LA threes for a 102-99 win in Game 5.
John Elway has been less than shy about his complete overhaul of the Broncos organization. Elway brought in a new coach, new coordinators, and famously engineered the entrance of Peyton Manning – along with the exit of Tim Tebow.
This was just Elway’s second draft with the team, but he knocked it out of the park. Not that John’s first rodeo was a failure. In 2011 John E teamed up with defensive-minded head coach John F to draft and develop pass-rush specialist Von Miller with their first pick. Von just so happened to end up the NFL’s defensive rookie of the year, and was as much of a spark during Denver’s big 7-1 run as the departed Tim Tebow.
It may look like the Denver Nuggets got lucky when they landed a less potent first round playoff opponent by drawing the LA Lakers instead of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Luck was definitely part of it, but not the whole story.
The mock drafts have been spewing forth from every dark corner of the sports journalism world for months. “Mock draft experts” have unloaded upon the unguarded public entire series of mocks – each one more contradictory than the last.
The Denver Broncos enter the 2012 NFL Draft with a wide range of needs – as well as the need to balance building an offense around Peyton Manning with the need to improve an improving defense.
