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KRIEGER: Shanahan fixated on grand scheme of it all

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published September 6, 2007 at midnight

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Looking for the bright side, Mike Shanahan figures there was one advantage to missing the playoffs last year.

The NFL's postseason tournament coincides with the annual job fair among the also-rans. Generally, the music stops and the job fair ends by the time the playoff teams show up. By losing to the 49ers in the final week, the Broncos got to participate for the first time in four years.

"There's no way if we had (gone) to the playoffs that those guys would be here because they had so many other opportunities," Shanahan said of Jim Bates and Bill Johnson, his new assistant head coach/defense and defensive line coach.

Whether this turns out to be a good thing is another question entirely. You might legitimately wonder why the Broncos defense so often needs new coaches and the offense almost never does.

When I suggested to Shanahan that he is particularly unsentimental about his defensive assistants, he furnished lists indicating he has fired far fewer coaches (six) than his predecessor, Dan Reeves (17). Having been one of Reeves' firings — he's No. 14 on the alphabetical list — Shanahan wanted to make this point quite clear.

Still, he is much harder on defensive coaches than offensive coaches. Every coach on the short list of firings he acknowledges — Ray Rhodes doesn't appear because resignations don't count — is a defensive coach. Three were fired at the end of last season — defensive coordinator Larry Coyer, defensive line coach Andre Patterson and linebackers coach Kirk Doll.

"I've always thought that when you're the head of a corporation, you owe it to the company to do what's best for the Denver Broncos," Shanahan said. "And I think that's what I do. I look at everything. And if you think that it's best to make a change, then you have to make one."

The classic weakness of long- term head coaches — cronies and relatives on insulated staffs — does not seem to be a problem for Shanahan, at least on the defensive side of the ball.

But the revolving defensive door suggests another, less obvious weakness: Shanahan falls in love with ideas. When execution disappoints, he falls out of love with the old idea and into love with a new one.

The current enthusiasm for Bates is reminiscent of Rhodes' arrival as defensive coordinator six years ago. Like Bates, Rhodes brought a national reputation. He was going to instill in the Broncos defense the fire and vigor for which he was known.

His record spoke for itself.

By his second season, Shanahan had largely taken over his defensive meetings. The next big thing had become the same old thing in less than two years.

The new big thing is Bates and his "two-gap" defensive tackle assignments. Frankly, this is a counterintuitive solution to the Broncos' inability to rush the passer.

When teams switch to a one-gap system, they generally explain they want to be more aggressive about getting into the opposing backfield. In a one-gap, defensive linemen rush a single gap between offensive linemen.

When teams switch to a two- gap system, they generally explain they want to be stouter against the run, with larger defensive linemen engaging blockers, reading multiple gaps and generally clogging up the middle.

With a hybrid system — the ends rush one gap, the tackles read two — the Broncos hope to replicate the success of Bates' scheme in Miami, where stout interior linemen occupied blockers while Jason Taylor, a defensive end built like a gazelle, circumnavigated the traffic jam to get to the quarterback.

To fill the Jason Taylor role, Shanahan drafted defensive end Jarvis Moss of the University of Florida in the first round. At 6-foot-6, 265 pounds, Moss looks the part. Unfortunately, many more players around the league look the part than play it.

Still, Shanahan is very enthused, as he always is, about this latest brainstorm.

"It's the Dallas scheme when they won the Super Bowls," he said. "It's Miami, what they've done through the years, how they've played it. There's a few tweaks here and there. And then they have bounce-back also with what we've done, our personnel."

Over Coyer's four years as defensive coordinator, Shanahan grew frustrated with a defensive scheme that was able to pressure opposing passers only by the blitz, a scheme opponents figured out as last season wore on. He wanted something new.

"I always believed this: All great defenses have a base scheme," Shanahan said. "You can't trick people forever. You've got to have something you believe in. You always have game plans with blitzes and things along those lines, but if you've got to blitz all the time, that means the chances of winning the Super Bowl are very, very slim.

"You take a look at all the teams in past history that have won Super Bowls. Their defense has been a very solid scheme. They may trick you every once in a while, but it's not based on that."

In fact, of course, most great defenses are known for personnel, not scheme. And personnel selection is Shanahan's responsibility. But watch out, he's in love with an idea again. The question for this season is whether it's a better idea than the Ray Rhodes idea and the Larry Coyer idea he already loved and left.