Sing a Song of Sundquist, Adios, Adios

So the Broncos let Ted Sundquist, their "General Manager," go yesterday evening. On the surface, this sounds kinda ho-hum, because everyone and their talking boil knows that Shanahan runs the whole show. But it ain't that simple.

First of all, this is just another occurrence in a stee-range offseason. The team's penuriousness is kind of shocking, since last year Bowlen opened up that wallet and made it rain. But now we're hearing ominous talk of cash problems--talk that may be a smokescreen/first salvo in the owners' upcoming war against the CBA, common sense, the golden goose and kittens--and noticing that, hey, all these people are leaving...and no one is coming in to replace them.

So maybe hiring from within is a good thing, but I smell something funny. (And it's not my ass, although I could definitely see why you'd think that.) In my biz, the money crunch is, hah, front page news--talk of "doing more with less" is endemic, and the empty desks are a-pilin'. I walk through a sea of them each morning. When I hear about my beloved Denver Broncos discussing belt-tightening, giving assistants more work, etc....makes me nervous. Especially since Bowlen is a poor rich owner, whose major asset is the football team, instead of a rich rich owner like Bob Kraft or Danny Snyder with plenty of other cash flow streams.

Back to Sundquist. Why now? And why did he act surprised, after he wrote a long e-mail two months ago to Mark Kiszla that read like the work of a man who *knew* he'd be let go, but wanted to cover his own ass in advance? This is all very cryptic.

Does Shanahan really need to consolidate his power even more? Or did Tedly have a larger role in player selection than we'd thought? I know that everyone--including, generally, this kid--blames Shanahan for everything, but I'd also heard that he generally listens to the opinions of his scouting staff on draft day.

So maybe we can't lather him with quite as thick a spread of blame. Maybe Sundquist was the impetus behind the concentration, over the last 8 years, on workout numbers and "upside," a poop-flavored cocktail that brought us Willie Middlebrooks, Ashley Lelie and about 15 defensive linemen who are currently working on one of No. 7's dad's construction crews. Maybe. It's hard to tell, because the Broncos are only slightly less secretive than North Korea. Who knows who does what? Does Shanahan really even exist, or is he just an orange hologram?

Alls I know is, if they take DeSean Jackson in the first round, I'm shooting the TV, Elvis-style.

Read more