A primer on Broncos going from Peyton to Payton

As the upstart Denver Broncos come to Baltimore 5-3, Shawn Drotar of Mile High Sports gives Nestor some perspective on the struggles of a proud franchise that lacked leadership until Sean Payton came to the Rockies and put Bo Nix under center.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Broncos recovery, Sean Payton, defense performance, Russell Wilson, Brandon Allen, playoff hopes, Deion Sanders, Colorado Buffaloes, Denver sports, NFL coaching, quarterback dynamics, team chemistry, road wins, defensive strength, game preview

SPEAKERS

Shawn Drotar, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

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Welcome home. We are W, N, S T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore, positive. We hope you’re setting spot out on the radio dial. Yeah. We even have number six on the second thing on the car. I’m good with all that. We’re having some fun around here. World Series in progress, perhaps over by the time you check this out, the Denver Broncos headed here. We also have a lot of election coverage. This week. I did some skip jacks, old school talk. We do the Maryland crab cake tour. It’s all presented by our friends at the Maryland lottery. Have Raven scratch offs to give away. I got dates in places like we’re going to be a Cocos on December 4. We’re going to be Gertrude zone December 5 at the BMA. We’re going to be fade these on December til sort of holiday, everything, with the mistletoe probably, and the 19th, we’re going to be a Costas doing our big holiday show. But I’m working out in November, because I was working through October, and, you know, I thought ravens are going to be like 15 and two before it’s all and then they go to Cleveland and lay a steamer. So we’re talking Broncos here this week. I appreciate some of our Denver friends for coming together. Brandon stoke is going to be here this week on some other friends as well. If you hear Finn McCusker from mama’s on the half shell, it’s all from the crab cake tour here this week. But Sean drozdar is one of those guys that’s come to me from the Mile High City. I love Denver. Love coming out there. Got good memories, bad memories. I remember Peyton Manning out there. I remember Peyton Manning out there. Peyton Manning remembers us. We’ve had good days, bad days. I got Mike Cleese coming on. I’m talking about John Elway, who was drafted here. We had all of this stuff going on. And I’ll be honest, Sean, I like Sean Payton. And you know, I want to take the Bronco seriously as the Orange Crush that will rise again in honor of Craig Morton and, you know, all these other legends, but I haven’t paid attention to the Broncos, and we were all like smelling our purple selves around here. You know when you’re five game winning streak, and the slap of water that was Jameis Winston for the defense here, leads me to be a little bit more focused here this week. Even though I am focused on the American election, I can, I can walk and chew gum. It’s good to have you on. I needed to get some recon on the Broncos because they’re five and three, and all I really see is sort of a little bit of red zone here. And again, I’m sort of impressed by which Sean Payton’s pretty good at what he does, huh?

Shawn Drotar  02:17

Yeah, it turns out that, not surprisingly, that all those wins aren’t, you know, by luck, and it’s nice to be able to join you. We haven’t been able to do this in a little while, so nice to catch up. But yeah, look it’s you look at this game on the schedule this week, all of a sudden, you looked at it a couple months ago, and you’re thinking, okay, for both sides, on the Denver side, on on the Baltimore side, you’re like, Well, we know who’s going to win that one. And look, we probably still do, but all of a sudden you’re talking about both of these teams being five and three, surprising for both clubs, quite frankly, to be five and three. And there’s no question that the Broncos don’t have the playmakers the Ravens have. And we can get into that as we break this game down a little bit. That’s part of it. But they are sort of getting it done, and they’re getting it done with the legitimately very good defense. The Broncos, in rushing yards against per game are ranked seventh in the NFL, and passing yards against their fifth in total yards against their third by any measure, you’re talking about a very good defense, and it’s impressive because the defense only has one first round pick on it, of course, that’s the electric Pater can the second and another interception in his last game. Obviously, one of the elite players in the NFL, but that’s the only first round guy on that entire Denver defense. They’re getting it done in waves. They’re getting it done with a lot of different pressure brought from a lot of different angles there, and it makes things interesting. They’ve had to do the job because Denver’s offense is a work in progress. The running game, they haven’t quite solidified that. Javante Williams still coming back from that very serious knee injury at a couple years ago where he tore more than the ACL. He tore all the CLS except for the PCL, so he tore three of those. And he isn’t quite Back to Full Burst, but this is a team that’s trying to figure out what it is behind Bo nicks, I think they made the right choice by starting in day one. I think that was evident the second they got him in, that this is Sean Payton’s guy. However, he is not Drew Brees, and even at times, Sean Payton has had to be able to check that throwing too many passes in a lot of these games, obviously, the last game against the Carolina Panthers, a team that they knew they could be the team that’s in absolute disarray. Andy Dalton misses the game. He’s hurt following the car accident that he had suffered earlier in the week, but the Broncos do get it done. They basically set up a game plan where Nick’s gets a chance to throw the ball as much as possible. Get some confidence, get some timing, and it seems to have shown because he has gotten better. What I like about Nick’s? You talked a little bit about baseball, about the World Series, uh, Nick’s really didn’t have a huge baseball background, but he’s got that good mindset the all good say relief pitchers have right sometimes you’re just going to throw one and it’s going to go 450 feet. What are you going to do? Are you going to fall apart? Are you going to say, hey, whatever, the other guy gets paid too. I’m going to go back out there and get the next guy. Nicks, has that kind of mentality. He has a bad drive, he has a bad play, he makes a mistake, he flushes it fast and goes back and approaches things fresh. Three. Touchdown passes and a rushing touchdown in the previous game that finally got him above water. Though, this is a guy that threw fewer than five interceptions in his final year at Oregon. He already has five this year with the Broncos, and even though the Broncos are five and three Nestor, keep this in mind, they’re combined wins for their opponents in which they’ve beaten Tampa Bay, being the big name 11 and 29 so it’s not as if they’ve knocked off murderers row of opponents. This is a five and three team, but let’s face it, at the moment, it’s a soft five and three well, and

Nestor Aparicio  05:30

then the Chiefs next week on your side, right? Sean trotar is here. He is with Mile High network. Tell everybody what you do. So we can get to that. And you know, it’s been a little while since we’ve had yawns. I want to do a little revisionist history here. Yeah, yeah.

05:43

I’m with Mile High sports out in Denver. We’ve been around for just about 25 years, doing all basically everything you can imagine in Colorado sports the magazine, right over my shoulder there our latest with Bo nicks on the cover. So we’ve made a magazine for more than 20 years as well. So we do print, we do online. We have videos. I host Mile High sports today with my co host, Nate Lundy, we host that both live on video and then on the radio as well. That goes through drive time in Denver out of Mile High sports. So it’s, it’s a great place to be, and it’s obviously a very busy Sports City out of Denver. You know, you have basically all the stuff going on at once. So it’s, it’s never a dull moment. And now, even besides the Broncos and the buffs, pardon me, the Broncos and the the nuggets of the Colorado Avalanche, you’re now talking about the Colorado Buffaloes being ranked number 23rd in the nation, with Deion Sanders coaching that I am a buff alum. So obviously that’s a treat for me as well, to have an opportunity to see that program make a little bit of noise. Never a dull moment in the Mile High City,

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Nestor Aparicio  06:46

Dion. We’ll get to him in a minute. He spent some time here. He came out and did my show on a Monday night back in 2004 sort of famously with Cordell Stewart wearing mink coats in Parkville. And of course, there, there’s great video there, there’s there’s pictures, there’s audio of the conversation, but it was 20 years ago, and to see what’s happened to prime you know, all these years later, Sean, I want to bring it back. And I said a little bit of revisionist history. I think of the Broncos is sort of sucking, and then Joe going there, and then, you know, change in leadership and and problems at quarterback and dangerous, and it not going so well at all two years ago. And leadership problems, just all of that, and the death of bowling, and just what has happened since I was out in Santa Clara that night when Cam Newton didn’t want to win and you didn’t want to fall on the ball and and seeing Peyton ride off on the white horse, and and Von Miller, and you know what that was, at That moment for Denver coming full circle on the disappointments of John Elway, the triumphs of John Elway, all of that, and now the leadership of John Elway, we had that here with Ozzy Newsome, be it, albeit from the brown side, where they still can’t figure it out, but they beat our ass the other day. Um, the the last, I don’t know what 567, years of Broncos history has been this sort of, are you guys about to become the browns? Is it? Are things about them really? Not go well there, and then you spend all of this money on Sean Cayton. But you know, the Raiders spent all of that money on Jon Gruden and, you know, and in places like Pittsburgh, Baltimore, even in New England, where they kept Belichick and now they can’t figure it all out. That there is something to be said for some continuity. And I, quite frankly, Sean Payton did a week of Super Bowl radio with five feet away from me on radio row in LA get his daughter there. She’s nice. Her boyfriend I was talking to them, talking to Sean Payton. He’s doing whatever gambling stuff everywhere. The big tent was out after doing three decades with Super Bowl radio, his last radio row I’ve done, I do a charity thing now Super Bowl week instead of doing all that other crap. But he didn’t seem like he was going to go back to work like it shocked me that he took the gig in the same way. I guess Francona taking a gig at Cincinnati. I mean, I had there with Marvin Lewis six weeks ago. He’s running around with the Raiders. I i Raiders. I I’m like, sort of like, dude, at some point you gotta turn it off. Some of these guys can’t turn it off. And some of them, it’s what they do. It almost makes me think Belichick could go back and have, like, a Vermeil run in him quickly, if he had the right spot in some sort of weird way, because once you know how to do it. I mean, it feels like to me, this is about leadership and about finding the right guy to sit in that seat, and we’ll figure the quarterback out and all the rest of it

09:46

a little bit. And I think you’re right. I think, quite frankly, even Sean Payton was surprised at how quickly he came back. I think had he realized he was only going to take a year to recharge, he probably would have just sort of asked the saints for a sabbatical. Goal and come back and probably would still be their coach. But I think it surprised him to realize how much he missed it, and he finds himself looking for a gig. I think that he believed that the Dallas Cowboys would be open. The Dallas Cowboys might be an option for him. Turns out they weren’t. For all the things that you can say about Jerry Jones, you cannot say that he has a quick trigger when it comes to firing head coaches, and Peyton is sort of left without a team. The first meeting with Peyton and the Broncos did not go well. Part of the new ownership, Condoleezza Rice specifically, reportedly, got the the sides back at the table and and there they are. The challenge, of course, was before they landed Sean Payton, they landed Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson just does not play the kind of style that Sean Payton wanted to play, and he it’s not really the guys were just oil and water and there’s, there’s not a right or wrong. Obviously, I don’t think anything badly about Russell Wilson. I think that sometimes he has a tendency of being a bit of what, what you know, when you hear Russell Wilson talk, it’s a bit of what? If you were to ask chat GPT, hey, plug in what a quarterback should say about this week’s game, that’s what you’ll get out of Russell Wilson, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  11:03

it felt a little diva ish to me. I mean, I’ve been here in Baltimore a long time. I’ve seen Vinny Testaverde, I’ve seen Jim l Jim Harbaugh. I’ve seen Joe Flacco, and I’ve seen Lamar. I mean, like, there’s a different flavor for every and it has to work the coach in the quarterback. It has to work, right? Like, yeah, these two, it did

11:23

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not. I mean, there was no circumstance. It was. It was really obvious from day one, you know, Russell Wilson style of play that had led him, at least, you know, to what looked like a Hall of Fame track before getting to Denver. Is a guy that tends to go off script. You know, he holds the ball, he rolls out. He’s looking for a deep shot down the sideline. That’s just not how Sean Payton likes to play. He likes to use the middle of the field. He wants to get the ball out quickly. That’s the style of play that he prefers. Now he doesn’t have that roster with that he had saints with the Broncos, and they are especially short on top end play makers. But Bo Nick sees the game the same way, and when it was obvious that Wilson’s best success came when he was going off script from what Peyton wanted. This was just going to be something when it wasn’t going to work out. And it got ugly to the point where there was a, you know, there have been multiple reports and that they were confirmed, that the Broncos have basically let Russell Wilson know, hey, we’d like to, you know, waive your injury situation on your contract, which no quarterback in his right mind, no NFL player in his right mind would or should do. So Wilson obviously pushed back on that, and then they basically let him know, like, Hey, we’re just going to move on from you. And then now they are dealing with the first of two years, which will be the biggest dead cap hit in the history of the NFL, and it doubled

Nestor Aparicio  12:34

well until Cleveland gets along. Come on now. I mean, like, so this is really the story for me, was they went all in on the quarterback, right? And only guaranteed contractor went through two coaches, right? Like literally trying to figure that out, three coaches, if you consider Payton too, right? Because they went through coaches quickly, and got the wrong guy in that seat, and they had the right they had the wrong coach and the wrong quarterback, and they went all in on the quarterback and threw him out. And you have to pay for that when you go all in on the coach. I mean, shot, he hated Billick here, just fired him and said, We, you know, in well, in Las Vegas, there were lawyers. It’s the law, I think. But when you go wrong on the quarterback, you feel like as a fan, if I and I’ve been talking about this all week, all last week, with all the Cleveland guys like you, until they beat our ass, right with Jameis Winston. And maybe you can win seven games with Jameis Winston. Maybe you can win nine games with bone X or, I don’t know, but there is a point where you feel like, when you take the quarterback hit, you’re going to hell in a hand basket, and you’re staring down two and 15 and you’re trying to get into the popcorn lottery and having two years of awfulness to get Deion Sanders quarterback, or whatever, whoever the quarterback is going to be. And here you guys are five and three. That’s kind of why I was like, Peyton’s taking this situation. How quick can he turn this around the cap? It’s going to be Al, but there is a a little engine that could when you can play with players below the cap. Look baseball. That’s, you know, 80% of the baseball teams try to do that against the Yankees and the Dodgers every year. But it’s in the NFL. It’s not normal, right? I mean, and you’re the first, Cleveland’s the second. But this gives Cleveland hope that if they get the right this, or the right that, that you can be five and three two at the turn. Because I think as you sit here, Sean, you’re shocked, they’re five and three, right?

14:30

I am. I am the over under in Vegas on wins for the Broncos, was five and a half. I thought that was just about right. You know, they were going to be win five or six games. I am shocked to see them at this position, and the surprising part has been the road performance. They have three road wins. A team that is still comparatively young, that has a rookie quarterback has three road wins, and the play of nicks is part of that. He is. He’s still a rookie. You will see him look like a rookie at times, but I think when you look at his numbers, when you look at the four. Happens when you look at the wins, the only rookie quarterback that’s playing better, of course, is Jalen Jaden Daniels, who’s been transcendent for Washington. I mean, there’s, there’s a totally different level that he’s on, but Nicks has been the equal of Caleb Williams, essentially, at this point. Will it stay that way? I don’t know, but it does show that. Again, it is less about maybe just the quarterback and the coach. But as you pointed out, it’s about the combination of the two. When we think about all the great Super Bowl teams that were that became dynasties, you’re always thinking of the coaching quarterback combination throughout history. You think about Walsh and Montana, or Walsh and young you go back to Landry and Staubach. You can go to Nolan Bradshaw, you can go to Belichick and Brady. You can go to any, any situation you want, Dungey and Manning, you call it and Peyton and breeze. And in this case, nobody thought

Nestor Aparicio  15:48

anything of breeze. I mean, nobody wanted breeze, right? Like he was, like, totally damaged goods. And it was almost like the career Jamie Moyer, right? Like, just sort of unbelievable. And I would think the same thing for, you know, Peyton Manning, like, at the end his neck was bad, you know, like all of that, there’s always the risk reward for all of this and trying to figure out the quarterback. But like, you guys took on Flacco. I mean, who was the guy that was dancing on the sidelines? And I always see the funny meme, I mean, Drew, I can’t even name, right? I can’t even name the six quarterbacks that came along, and then, like Shanahan, figures it out with Brock Purdy, right? Tom Brady’s a six round pick is going to the Hall of freaking fame. So it doesn’t always have to be a one, one, even though we saw how much damage James Winston can do in a game, right? But I, I’m, I am intrigued by what’s going on there, that they could even beat bad teams on the road. As you’ve pointed out, like to be five and three is really Coach of the Year stuff is so, far as I can tell.

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16:50

Well, it might be. Obviously, the AFC is not stacked up the way I think any of us envisioned it. You know, some of the teams that were expected to be in the mix. Of course, Miami’s had its issues injuries. Part of that Cincinnati is kind of hanging on by a thread, despite the fact they’re a remarkable oh and four at home. That was a team that I be thought would make noise. The Chargers look okay, but haven’t really gotten all their, you know, ducks in a row under Jim Harbaugh. So the AFC is also a little bit topsy turvy. So for the Broncos, it’s an opportunity, and they’re doing it the old fashioned way. They’re leading with a really, really good defense in five of their games. Thus far, teams have not gotten to 20 points on them in only because of a garbage touchdown at the end of the Carolina game on Sunday, the Broncos have held teams that would have held teams to 10 points or fewer in four of those games. So the defense has been very good. Some of it’s been the the opposition. They haven’t played a Baltimore yet, but yeah, in Peyton’s case, in nixes case, there is an accountability about Sean Payton. There are things that can be difficult with Sean Payton. He’s definitely one of those guys that he’s the smartest man in the room, and if you have any questions about that, you can just ask him. He’ll tell you. And that can rub people the wrong way, for sure, but he does Coach consistently, and one of the messages you get from the Broncos is the understanding that that he’s gotten this team to believe that when we win or when we lose, it’s because what we do, not what the opponent does, that makes that difference. And I think that accountability does have value, especially on a young team that hasn’t won anything. The Broncos have had the longest stretch of playoff less seasons since winning a Super Bowl of any team in the history of the Super Bowl era, no one’s ever won a Super Bowl and then vanished from the postseason for as long as the Denver Broncos have since winning Super Bowl 50 so they’re in unprecedented territory. And then when you get Peyton in there and things start moving the right direction. Yes, he’s overhauled the roster, not only in the first year, but in the second year. Now, the majority of the 53 guys are really guys that Sean Payton has brought in over the last two off seasons. And that tends to show, I mean, you run into some familiar names, Lil Jordan Humphrey, who follows Peyton where he goes. He coached him in New Orleans. Humphrey is now the number two receiving for the Broncos while Josh Reynolds recuperates. So you’re seeing some familiar names, for sure, but, but there is a kind of a new vibe here. And in nixes case, it’s interesting. I kind of charted him out as being a Derek Carr type of quarterback, highly accurate. You know, can move a little bit, but it’s not out there to make a lot of noise with his feet. But the truth of the matter is that he’s gotten at the NFL level. He looks, quite frankly, a little bit more stylistically similar to Jalen Hurts of Philadelphia, in which the legs are definitely part of the equation. He’s not going to be a run first guy, but he’s going to be a run often guy. He’s opportunistic. Nicks does have a good instinct of when to go ahead and run. And he gets a lot of first downs. He converts an awful lot. So there’s some similarity there. And I think opening that up is interesting, because that is a kind of quarterback that we haven’t seen Sean Payton coach, at least with much success, and we haven’t seen him basically have a lot of stress of anybody besides Drew Brees, although he did put up a nine win season with Jameis Winston, one of those years up in. New Orleans as well, but we’ve never really seen him with a mobile guy. And moreover, this is also new. Prior to to Bo nicks, only one rookie has ever started even a game for Sean Payton. Ian book started a game for Sean Payton lost that game. That’s the only time prior to Nick’s START to begin this season, that Sean Payton’s ever had a rookie quarterback start an NFL game. So watching Peyton, when Nicks work together is fascinating. And I think for Peyton, quite frankly, he appears to be a little revitalized, not only from that year off that he took and he’s a new place in Denver, but now he’s got his quarterback. He understands that his legacy in Denver is now tied to the success that he and Nicks will have together. But it honestly seems like he’s enjoying getting back to some old school. Get your hands in the dirt draw. We work with the guy and coach a quarterback up. And Peyton seems to recharge and revitalized, and it seems to impact not only Nick’s, but the Broncos as a whole

Nestor Aparicio  20:53

mile high sports. Sean trotar is here. He’s in out in Denver, Colorado. You know the meaty scene in Denver. Maybe it goes back to the the post and the Rocky Mountain News always, even around the avalanche was always tough column this there. There was always woody page. And, you know, there’s always something going on there from the and now Dion floats into the into the cosmos there, as part of all of that, when the quarterback and the coach spin on each other and three, four games in, and the kids a kid, and the other guys probably going to the Hall of Fame, and they have press conferences, and it’s comedic to some degree, and they’re winning football games. Um, that’s an interesting little dynamic to be a reporter on in the Sunday evening after that, or taking phone calls, as I only did here for about 23 years.

21:40

Yeah, it really is, because now that the bus they won their sixth game, they are bull eligible. And in Sanders case, obviously it’s fascinating, because this was sort of the great experiment, right? There were only 2d one schools, or what we used to call d1 schools, that were really interested in giving Deion Sanders a head coaching job out of Jackson State, even though he did a brilliant job there, and that was Cincinnati, who the buffalo just beat last week, and Colorado, Colorado was willing to give Sanders what he wanted, which was a large pool for the assistance. Because Deion Sanders doesn’t call plays right, not on offense or defense. He’s sort of a CEO coach. He’s the ring leader, he’s the guy, he’s the circus master. He’s running all of it, and sort of your front man of the band. And so he does a very different role that was a risk,

Nestor Aparicio  22:27

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sort of like David Lee Roth, as opposed to Sammy Hagar playing, yeah,

22:30

yeah. Less musician, little more of a showman, right? And I think when you saw the

Nestor Aparicio  22:36

Bosie Bob, did he bop? Yeah? The Hey, you know the best part about Dion, I’d be really honest with you, and and he was fine here. I mean, he came out, did my show. I’m not anti Dion, you know, like at all. It’s sort of like Queen. I loved queen, and then I listened and I got queened out, like people got Phil Collins out, period. I completely stopped watching the NFL network because it was too much Dion. So I love that Dion has a gig where it just doesn’t come to me. So even you talking about it, it’s the first time I’ve thought about Deion says, other than when he shows up in a TV commercial, which there’s a lot of that, quite frankly, still plenty of that, I find the whole n, i L, the whole I, I’m just, I’m 56 and I think it’s just gone from me. You know what I mean? I don’t I don’t know what to say, but you’re talking about it all. I don’t know any of it, so please do tell I know there’s a circus around it, and I know his kid and all of that, and I know the circus came to town for you and for everybody there, but I don’t really understand. We had Maryland kids here storming the field when they beat USC, not South Carolina, the other USC, but not OJ Simpson or Matt Leinart, or anything good a three and three team. So like, I am and then I’m laughing at it, and they’re y’all yelling at me. The most viewed thing I did on social media this month was apparently take a side swipe at College Park for storming the field when they beat a three and three team. Right? That wasn’t even Duke. I’m kidding, it’s a Maryland joke. But, like I it is amazing the mindset that’s gone on how young people would view Deion Sanders and what is education? What used to be the NCAA, what used to be Division One, what used to be bowl games, what used to be student athletes. I don’t know, dude, you’re there. But you have the biggest circus in the country, right? Like, yeah. And

24:24

obviously, you know, people have kind of they, they’re either excited about it or they want to see it fall on his face, this experiment up in Boulder, and it seems, and you’re a boulder guy, yeah, yeah, I am, yeah. I’m a former buff myself. And I’m actually the the press box announcer for Colorado football. So I’m no So,

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Nestor Aparicio  24:42

but how many years you’ve been doing that? This is just year two for me. So I would say this man like boulders, a place with Mork and Mindy, right? Like I have been once in my life to Boulder. I spent two days there, and I told my wife I don’t want to leave. I said I would live here. And they’re very, very, very I’ve been all. Over the world, and I don’t I rarely think. I live here for a while, you know, Boulder, and I haven’t been back, but I did the Mork and Mindy in the stadium, and I’ve had chances to see the dead there and chance to see football games. I woke up in Denver one day and they were playing like some crap ball San Jose State. They’re playing somebody no good. And there was years ago, and it looked to me like I could have gone down and had a lunch box. There were 20,000 people. There was nobody there, right? Like, am I am I right? Am I wrong? That 20 years, yeah, there was like, I could have gone to a game there. I kind of regret it, you know? I mean, I’ve never been to the stadium there, Morgan Mindy and all, like, I want to go. I had chances, and I just haven’t been the day I went by there, I went to the snooze. Am, you can wink me, you know, good pancakes when you have them. I went to the snooze. Am, three blocks from campus, they were having, like, a big thing there, and I think there might have even been a concert there that night, but I was going back to Denver for a game, like, I love Boulder, and I think that the circus that’s come there is, I don’t know. I just don’t like Dion enough to to want to be in on it, you know what I mean. But I’m glad you’re having fun with it, Sean, I really is fun. And

26:09

in Colorado’s case, it was smart, because this, we’re talking about a team that, when they when they hired him, that was a one win program, one. I mean, you are irrelevant Colorado. Colorado is one of the few teams, and over the years, I get it, there’s a lot, but Colorado won a national championship in 1990 that’s obviously a long time ago, but they have won on their resume. There are a lot of universities that don’t, and for a long time, for about a 10 to 15 year span surrounding that, that was a regular, not only top 25 team, a regular top 10 team was an outstanding program that it felt brown

Nestor Aparicio  26:39

reminds me every time we we Yes,

26:41

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yes, of course, absolutely. Dude, it was a stealer. No, I’m

Nestor Aparicio  26:47

not making that now. I love Tomlin. I love Rob Woodson. He was a great stealer. That’s all I’m saying. And a real buff, I mean, a real buff, you

26:56

know, national champion, National Championship buff, as a matter of fact, on that team, but, but that’s a one win team, and so they could gamble on just letting Deion Sanders take the reins and say, do what you do, because we can’t go backwards. And what it worked for Colorado immediately is the fact that no matter what they paid Deion Sanders, they could not have envisioned, even if they had just had a big pile of money and said, to raise the awareness of the University of Colorado, raise the awareness across the country. You couldn’t have done it any better with 10 times the money they paid Deion Sanders to get the word about the University of Colorado out across the country, every single game this year has been on national television. All but one has been in prime time for the remainder of the year. Every single one of their games is going to be on national television. That’s hard to do, and you’ve been to Boulder. It’s scenic, it’s gorgeous. There isn’t a you know, there are great college mascots. They’re great traditions, and I won’t say it’s necessarily better than all of them, but there, there, I won’t tell you that there is one that is better than watching Ralphie run at the beginning of a game a legitimately live buffalo dragging a handful of frat boys around a lap around the stadium. There’s not much more entertaining than that in college football. And

Nestor Aparicio  28:05

great pizza in Boulder. So you get good pizza there. It’s a great place in Boulder.

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28:09

So I mean, it’s, it’s really a fun scene. And you go from one win and last year, when they started out so well, and then then the wheels came off, they looked at and said, Oh, they’re four and eight. CD on the fraud. Well, the problem was five of those losses were by one score, and I think people missed that when they were looking at it. And so this year now, all of a sudden, they’re six and two. They could have easily been seven and one, and they got a little bit luckier against K State, and now they’re going to be going to a bowl game, even if that’s not all that impressive for you. Take Deion Sanders name out of it and say that your school that has not been relevant on national landscape in 15 years, and say in two years, you’ll go from one win to bowl eligible, you’d be saying, Wow, that’s a great turnaround at that program, no matter what name is attached to it. And he’s

Nestor Aparicio  28:53

turning around. He’s a great coach at Fresno State. Nobody notices that’s the problem, right? Like when it’s Dion in a major market like you, when all of the people that follow Denver sports for sports, start to pay, hey, we have that problem here at Maryland. I mean, under armor. If Bucha could buy Maryland, he would have, right? He said that to me, right? It’s in my book, like and under armor and all of that money and they can’t. Nobody in Washington cares. Nobody in Baltimore cares. It’s really a strange thing. And I would say boulder would be that way, that like, we got the avalanche, we got the nuggets, we got the mountains, we got red rocks, we got legal cannabis. We got things to do here. We’re not driving down to Boulder to see them play Washington State to lose 48 to 70. Like, I like, literally, I didn’t go to a game they’re playing. Might have been UMass or something, somebody really weird and awful, and I’m like, and it was 38 degrees, because it’s you would have had

29:52

a section all to yourself. And one thing about Boulder is, you’re right, you’ve been up there. It’s 38 degrees, but it’s 38 degrees in Boulder and it’s windy. And that wind cuts right through you. So in the winter it is, it is something. But, yeah, maybe

Nestor Aparicio  30:04

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I don’t like Boulder as much as I think Sean,

30:07

well, you’ll have to come back and give it a give it a try for sure, animal in the winter, but, but it’s fun to watch, and it’s just great to have that be part of the landscape as well. How long it lasts, I don’t know. I don’t think Deion Sanders is going pro. There’s always the idea, you know, the talking heads at ESPN every single week can’t come stop themselves from talking about where Dion should go next. The funny thing is, if you’re Deion Sanders, why go anywhere else you you’ve now built this program into a top 25 program. The Colorado entered the the polls at 23 this week, you’ve built it into a top 25 program. The program lets you do things the way you want, how you want. Deion Sanders has his own video team that’s following him, 24/7, including on the sidelines. You want to invite the top rappers in the world to be on the sidelines and hang out with you. You want the rock to be there, whoever Sure. Go for it. You want Kevin Durant to stand next to you during one of the games. Yeah, go for it. He was there a couple of weeks ago. So so they let him do that, and the city has completely embraced him. And there is something to be fair about Colorado, right? This isn’t Georgia. This isn’t Alabama. This isn’t Ohio State. This isn’t if you’re not competing for national titles, we’re ready to get rid of you. This is boulder where, hey, we’d love you to hover around the top 25 make some noise every three, four years, and you’re good for Deion Sanders, he can’t find a better place to be. And so the idea that he’s going to hop somewhere else, he’s not going to go to the pros, because he’s not a pro style coach, like doesn’t call plays, that’s not going to work. And then the pros, you can’t just go, Hi, I’m Deion Sanders, and people are going to fall over themselves. And the pros, they don’t care. They make more than you they’ve that doesn’t matter. He’s got to stay in college. He knows that. So, you know, that’s kind of funny. And I think for Boulder and for Colorado, people are just enjoying it as it goes, however long it lasts, we know that shader Sanders is going to go pro. He’s going to be a high first round pick, possibly the first quarterback selected Travis Hunter, if he doesn’t win the Heisman as a remarkable two way players, also going to be a first round guy. You know, what will he do to replace that? Will? We will see. But it’s fun. It’s an awful lot of fun. And so all of a sudden now, with the Broncos being interesting again, and certainly the arrow is going up again. This, this program looks like it’s going in the right direction for the Denver Broncos. They they’re going in the right spot. Sean Payton has them moving in a way that makes sense, and I think that’s awfully exciting. So it’s fun time to be a sports fan in Denver, but this game between the ravens and the Broncos, the ravens are better. They have top end play makers that are better. The Broncos are woefully short on top end play makers. If, if the Broncos have to score 2627 points to beat the ravens, it’s not going to happen. But we haven’t

Nestor Aparicio  32:39

seen the Ravens defense lately. I mean, they’ve really been some leaky issues. My question on the game is, how do the Broncos contain Lamar? How? How do they tackle Derrick Henry? How to how to trap Lamar back in the pocket the way all the Jim Schwartz has made a diet on that over the weekend and having the play players to do it and and match up. I mean, the Ravens have been, you know, they’ve lost to the Raiders. They’ve lost to the browns. There’s no reason here to be smelling themselves any longer, or for you to say, you said earlier, I wrote this down because I listened to you a Baltimore. They’ve never, the Broncos haven’t faced a Baltimore. And I’m thinking, I don’t even know what that means. I mean, you know what? I mean, especially defensively, where they’ve really not played well at the end. I mean, the Dallas game at the end, they play great. In the Buffalo game, they had a couple of games where, you know, things were firing for them, and then the injuries have taken you know, that’s one thing Luke and I would talk about. We we spent a segment two weeks ago, must have been the Nestor Jenks talking about how healthy they were, and then all of a sudden, no. Humphrey, no. Wiggins, Simpson can’t play right now. Travis Jones is hurt on the defensive side. They have no pass rush. That was very obvious again. Then they lose to a guy who hadn’t played football in two two years, and a program where they just cheered their two $50 million quarterback getting hurt, and a road game that they were heavily favored in. And now they come home then for Sunday, Cincinnati, Thursday, they got a lot of football here the next couple of days. So when you say a Baltimore, I don’t I’m trying to figure out what that means. Sean,

34:23

yeah, well, I think in the beginning of the year, I looked at at the chiefs and the Ravens and the 40 Niners, to my mind, is the three best teams in football, and I thought there was a big gap after those three to the other ones. But you’re right. I mean, the loss to the Raiders was probably a bit of a canary in the coal mine where you realize, wait a wait a minute, this isn’t going to be as easy as a lot of folks thought it would be, and then this loss, and you bring up the Dallas game a good point too, a game that was one sided as could be, and somehow it ended up being closer than it ever had any rights to be. So yeah, the defense has been problematic. It gives the Broncos a puncher chance to be sure, and a guy that is creative with Sean Payton, and now that you have a Broncos team that’s got some. Confidence and understands no one’s expecting them to win this game. It’s, it’s not the same as it’s college kids, where you’re, you know, saying nobody can nobody. Everyone’s counting us out. Blah, blah, blah, it’s the pros. Anybody can beat anybody. All you have to do is watch the most recent NFL weekend to find that out. But yeah, it will be interesting where the Broncos to win it. Obviously, things really change in Denver. The dynamic becomes, wow. Could this team make the playoffs? And at that point, it becomes, you absolutely must make the playoffs. You can’t go six and three and not have the playoffs be your goal. But yeah, it’s It will be fascinating. I do think the Broncos have the ability to limit what Baltimore can do on the ground. They are a good team against the run. They are stout on the defensive line. Adding John Franklin Myers from New York made a big difference. They are big DJ Jones, Franklin Myers, Allen, on the other side, there’s there’s some talent there. They have linebackers that fly all over the place. They have good safeties. I don’t believe that you can stop both Derek Henry and Lamar Jackson. I don’t think that’s possible. But can you limit them? Can you hold them a little bit back? Maybe just enough for the Broncos offense to maybe get a little bit lucky here or there, or if you stop them on

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Nestor Aparicio  36:07

fourth down, right? You know, get the ball back, right? Or you strip a ball, or you you make a play right? Like, I have no question they’re going to move the ball. They’ve moved the ball against everybody. It’s mistakes. Guys jumping off, holding, you know when they’re in second and one, they will beat your ass when they’re in second and 19 because of their mistakes, um, or holding penalties, or whatever it is, then all of a sudden it gets slippery and and

36:33

when they hold the Broncos hands, yeah, yeah, Denver is second of the league in sacks, they bring pressure. Their pressure rate is high. They’re they get it successfully. They get it from a lot of different guys. It’s not coming from, say, you know a TJ watt, where everybody knows where the where the pressure is coming from. It comes from a lot of guys. You know, Nick Benito. They’re probably Raven fans going, I have no idea who that is. Nick Benito has saxes six consecutive games. I mean that this is a team that brings a lot of pressure from a lot of different angles. They can bring it from the corners. They can bring it from the safeties. They have a lot of guys that get sacks. They go after the quarterback. The one thing I would say against the Denver Broncos, you don’t want to find yourself in the second and long and third and long, because that plays right into their hands. They get the sacks, they get the pressures, and they are opportunistic when getting the turnovers both sir tan, obviously, we know how good he is, but keep an eye on Riley Moss, opposite of Sir tan, one of the young, up and coming corners who really, really looks explosive and talented. The Broncos can pick you off too turnovers. If the Ravens make those mistakes, turnovers can not only let the Broncos back into the game, they might be able to give the Broncos the

Nestor Aparicio  37:39

game. Sean trotars. Here he is mile high sports out in Denver, Colorado, Rocky Mountain High. Hey, man, I can’t wait to get back at the Red Rocks. I’m still plotting that, um, you know, it’s one of those things like my bucket list was the Northern Lights, and we got him outside my door three weeks ago. So now I’m like, going to, like, the Hollywood Bowl and maybe Royal Albert Hall, some things. But then I think of places like Red Rocks, where I’ve been, I’m like, that’s a place I gotta go back. So Morrison, Colorado is always, should be on everybody’s bucket list, to go watch a show on the Hill out there and get out to Denver. But you guys are coming in this time. We’ll have the crab case waiting for you here. We got legal cannabis here, but we don’t have those mountains. I mean, you got things out there? We don’t snooze. Am you guys got good stuff? We don’t have D on anymore, but we had him for a minute, but we hope for a good football game this week. I really appreciated the visit, and I look forward to visiting you

38:27

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later on in the week, anytime. Thanks so much. Looking forward to it. Don’t

Nestor Aparicio  38:30

show talk. Can be found out at Mile High sports. We can be found doing the Maryland crab cake tour courtesy of our friends at the Maryland lottery. I’ll have the Raven scratch offs to give away. We’re in the middle of the oyster tour, the 26 days, 26 ways, 26 oysters for the oyster recovery partnership, curio wellness, our friends and foreign daughter, as well as Liberty pure solutions. One 800 clean water is the way to do that. And Liberty pure solutions also great, great plumbers. But also they keep my water clean. I have well water. I don’t have that rocky mountain spring water they have out there in Golden Colorado. We got the we had to make our water clean, otherwise, at that green stain going on liberty pure solutions. Takes care of my water treatment for my well water. Luke Jones takes care of our football. It’s all brought to you by Jiffy Lube, as well as our friends at Royal farms. Real fresh, real fast, and he’ll be bringing real fast updates to you on the W n s t tech service you can get on that service, 410-821-9678, just text, join or w n s t and you join up with 7000 other people, getting breaking news real fast. All of that brought to you by Cole roofing and Gordian energy. I am Nestor. It’s been football week. It’s an election week, reminding everybody vote responsibly. Please gamble responsibly, but please vote responsibly. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S, T, A M, 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stopped talking Baltimore. Positive. Still don’t like John Elway. I.