FanHouse AlphonsoSmith

Training camps have wrapped up, the NFL season is right around the corner, and it's still hot as sin outside. But instead of cooling you off with a warm island song, FanHouse break out ye old heat check for our 2009 NFL Season Previews. We'll rate each club in 5 categories on a scale of 1 to 10, high score wins.

Give Josh McDaniels this much: He's willing to make an impression. Before he's even coached so much as one regular season game, he's assured that he will either be remembered as a bold, brilliant leader who won because he had the courage of his convictions, or as an abject failure whose hiring set the franchise back by years because he had the courage of his convictions. Some of that has to do with Jay Cutler's career trajectory, but McDaniels needs to win and he needs to win quickly.

Josh McDaniels' honeymoon as the Broncos new head coach was a short one. As soon as Pro Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler commenced with the whinging, fans, for the most part, blamed the 32-year-old McDaniels. He has no prior head coaching experience, and obviously inherited his people-person skills from mentor Bill Belichick.

The confluence of all this eventually led to the Broncos trading Cutler to the Bears for two first-round picks and Kyle Orton. And it was hard to make the case that Denver was better without Cutler, despite the extra draft picks and the steady-but-hardly-spectacular Orton.

It's been more than four months since Pat Bowlen fired close friend Mike Shanahan. The subsequent search to replace the man who gave Denver 14 years and two Super Bowls was, at times, bumpy. It got bumpier after Bowlen settled on 32-year-old Josh McDaniels.

A fresh-faced Bill Belichick protégé, McDaniels had coordinated up the most explosive offense in NFL history: the 2007 New England Patriots. As often happens when coaches relocate, McDaniels wanted to bring in his "his" players to run "his" system. Hours into free agency, the Broncos inked former Pats wideout Jabar Gaffney. And then, after Denver tried to acquire Matt Cassel, incumbent Pro Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler demanded a trade, things got messy, and, ultimately, the Broncos ended up with a couple first-round picks, Kyle Orton and a lot of questions.

Who moved to the head of the NFL class during the draft? Find out with FanHouse's team-by-team 2009 Draft Grades.

"You go into this thing understanding that you're not going to fix everything that you may want to fix."

That's Broncos coach Josh McDaniels speaking, likely about the team's failure to improve their awful run defense. He's speaking the truth. There were too many issues facing Denver for them to solve them all over the course of seven rounds.

McDaniels' wisdom does nothing to explain why the team chose to trade away its 2010 first-round pick so they could draft cornerback Alphonso Smith in the second round, however. That seems more like creating a problem where none existed, something that could easily come back to haunt the Broncos in a year's time.

Just after the first round ended, FanHouse's Will Brinson worked up a list of the five biggest mistakes of the first 32 picks. Number two with a bullet was the Broncos' decision to choose Georgia running back Knowshon Moreno with the 12th overall pick. Moreno is talented, but he went too early and he failed to address the biggest needs on the Bronco team.

So it was a rough start for Brian Xanders and Josh McDaniels, the new G.M. and coach of the Broncos. Unfortunately, the Broncos were just getting warmed up. The first day of the first McDaniels/Xanders draft was full of questionable moves, and could wind up making 2010's draft another day to forget.

NEW YORK -- The Broncos just made a deal with Seattle to get Wake Forest defensive back Alphonso Smith with the 37th overall pick. In exchange for the pick, Denver gave Seattle its first-round pick in next year's draft.

The Broncos were one of the biggest pre-draft stories because of the personality conflict that led new coach Josh McDaniels to trade Jay Cutler to the Bears. With the two first-round picks they were left with as a result of that deal, the Broncos picked running back Knowshon Moreno and defensive end Robert Ayers, and they just made a move to get Smith. So they addressed three needs in the first 37 picks (and got Kyle Orton) as a result of moves they've made in the past month.

Not a bad haul, but it strikes me that unless Orton's the answer, they're still going to need a quarterback. And they just traded a first-round pick from next year's quarterback-rich draft?

Believe it or not, there is going to be an important storyline at next week's NFL draft that won't involve Matthew Stafford, Mark Sanchez or offensive tackles.

Even through all the posturing and coach-speak, it's still fairly easy to pinpoint just a handful of locations where Stafford or Sanchez might wind up. You can also more or less figure out which team needs a burly lineman or linebacker upgrade, and guess where guys like Eugene Monroe, Brian Cushing or Ray Maualuga might end up.

But I dare you to find a team that doesn't need cornerback help. There aren't many out there, which is why that position's fluidity heading into New York is a large part of the reason draft boards are still so uncertain.

Because the NFL season never ends, we present our 2009 Offseason Roadmaps for front offices to navigate through the summer.

Mike Holmgren has long been one of the primary identities of the Seattle Seahawks. He took them to the Super Bowl and made them a perennial winner of the NFC West. Then last year happened. As Holmgren's retirement tour rolled along, more and more injuries piled up, Seneca Wallace had to start at quarterback for a few games, and the Seahawks stumbled to a 4-12 record.

Earlier today, MDS noted that Ohio State cornerback Malcolm Jenkins' draft stock may be dipping after he ran a disappointing 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine on Tuesday. Connecticut's Darius Butler does not have the same issue, and could wind up reaping the benefits of a Jenkins slide.

While Jenkins clocked in with a 4.52 40, Butler managed to record an unofficial 4.45 -- slower than he hoped, but still the second-fastest time posted by a cornerback, behind only the 4.41 time of Norfolk State's Don Carey.