Two years ago, the Denver Broncos made the playoffs after a two-season absence and sported the fourth-ranked defense in the NFL. Still, with things looking up, coach Mike Shanahan did something unusual.
He tore down.
In the seven seasons since the Broncos last went to the Super Bowl, Shanahan's most public role has been to find a worthy successor to quarterback John Elway. But most of the work trying to turn the Broncos from playoff also-ran to the verge of the Super Bowl was performed on defense.
Eight of the 11 defensive players expected to start in Sunday's American Football Conference championship game against the Pittsburgh Steelers were not on the roster two years ago. Another, safety Nick Ferguson, joined the Broncos in 2003.
Contrast that with the offense, where only one of the 11 starters -- tight end Stephen Alexander -- has arrived after 2003.
Whether the defense is better is debatable. Whether it is different is not.
"You're not really sure how much you're going to reshape your team," said Shanahan, who has had three defensive coordinators in the past seven seasons but just one offensive coordinator. "What you try to do is get the best players in to compete, and those players eventually separated themselves on who's starters, who's second team and who doesn't make the squad."
A 41-10 loss to Indianapolis in the 2003 playoffs served notice that the Denver defense was not ready for a serious title run. The Broncos held the Colts to 85 rushing yards but allowed quarterback Peyton Manning to throw for 377 yards.
So the Broncos traded offense for defense. They sent running back Clinton Portis, with back-to-back seasons of more than 1,500 rushing yards, to the Washington Redskins for the all-pro cornerback Champ Bailey. They signed safety John Lynch as a free agent after he was cast off by Tampa Bay.
history repeats
The next season was a near replay. As in 2003, the Broncos and their fourth-ranked defense finished 10-6, went to Indianapolis in the playoffs and were beaten badly -- this time, 49-24. They held the Colts to 76 rushing yards but allowed 454 yards through the air.
Shanahan dismantled the defense as never before. When the Broncos face the Steelers on Sunday, they will have seven different starters and two different coaches from the team that faced the Colts last season.
Shanahan's first move came before the 2004 season ended. The midseason dismissal of the defensive backs coach, David Gibbs - later replaced by the former Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Bob Slowik -- was just the first of Shanahan's eyebrow-raising decisions.
After hiring the former Cleveland defensive-line coach Andre Patterson last February, the Broncos spent March collecting Patterson's former starters -- four players who started on the Browns' defensive line in the 2004 opener, anchors of a team that went 4-12 and fired its coach.
Tackle Gerard Warren came for a fourth-round draft choice. Tackle Michael Myers and defensive end Ebenezer Ekuban cost Denver the running back Reuben Droughns. Defensive end Courtney Brown signed as a free agent.
In April, Denver used its first three picks in the draft on cornerbacks -- a peculiar strategy overshadowed only by Denver's next draft choice: the troubled running back Maurice Clarett.
The moves smacked of desperation, and Shanahan -- at that point without a victory in the playoffs since Elway retired -- was increasingly criticized for his personnel failures of the past and his risky maneuvers that seemed to cloud the future.
"That's the highs and lows of this profession," said Shanahan, his reputation back on the upswing.
Even if the door to the locker room might as well have been a revolving one, confidence in Shanahan did not seem to waver among the players.
"That's all we asked for when we came in," Warren said of the former Browns players' arrival in the locker room.
"Give us a chance to prove ourselves and not let the newspapers judge and tell you guys who we are."
thin browns line
Three of the former Browns should start on the defensive line Sunday, joining the veteran end Trevor Pryce. Ekuban, the exception, plays regularly and shared the team lead in sacks (four during the regular season.
They have helped Denver's run defense improve to No. 2 in the league, allowing an average of 85.2 yards a game -- 15 fewer than two seasons earlier.
In the secondary, the rookies Darrent Williams and Domonique Foxworth have split starts at cornerback opposite Bailey. Denver's pass-defense ranking slipped to 29th in 2005 from sixth in 2004, although the number of interceptions by Denver's defense increased to 20 from 12.
Given those statistics, the best change from last season for Denver may be that it does not have to face pass-happy Indianapolis again, thanks to the Steelers' beating the Colts last weekend.
In Denver's 27-13 defeat of New England last week, the Broncos held the Patriots to 79 rushing yards. Quarterback Tom Brady threw for 341 yards but could not lift his team to victory over the Broncos the way Manning had done twice before.
Denver's statistical consistency of the past three postseasons would suggest that the hopes of the Steelers rest on quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and Pittsburgh's 24th-ranked passing attack.
And it would suggest that Denver's defense, in its third year under the coordinator Larry Coyer, has done little but change its outward appearance, using fresh faces to get familiar results.
But if this year's version helps the Broncos reach the Super Bowl, the result of Shanahan's endless tinkering will be viewed as something far more than familiar, and something more than just fresh. It will be viewed as foresight.
Rod Marinelli, who spent the past 10 seasons in Tampa Bay as defensive line coach, said on Thursday that as the Detroit Lions' new coach he doesn't plan to worry about the team's struggling past.
"The issue now is what we do at this point. The issue is us and how we're going to move forward," Marinelli said during a news conference.
In his time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Marinelli's unit helped establish an NFL record with 69 straight games with at least one sack from 1999-2003. He had the title of assistant head coach added in 2002.
"Football is a show-me game. I'm tired of talking," Marinelli said.
With Lions president Matt Millen's players and coaches, the Lions are an NFL-worst 21-59 over the past five seasons -- since the former linebacker and TV analyst became an NFL executive for the first time. Marinelli has not been a head coach at any level.
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