FanHouse Denver Broncos

Each week in the NFL, there are players that impress and players that distress. One week a certain quarterback might toss four touchdowns and run around pointing skyward, while the next he's laying on his back, holding his facemask as the other team returns one of his three interceptions for the game-winning score. With that in mind, here's Studs and Duds.

Studs

Kurt Warner, QB Arizona (22-32, 261 yards, 5 TDs, 0 INTs) -- Last week, Warner had five interceptions, looks his age, didn't appear to be comfortable with a receiving core most would quarterbacks in the league would die for. This week, in a much-needed victory over the Chicago Bears, Warner flipped the switching, tossing five touchdowns to tie his career high and put his Cardinals back in the driver's seat of the NFC West.

In case you hadn't noticed, sports these days are all about Goliath. In 2009, the Steelers, Lakers, North Carolina Tar Heels and now the Yankees have all won titles in their respective sports. Cinderella is yesterday's news. The teams that win these days are the teams that always win, and if you think that's boring, well, tough. You can kiss one of Derek Jeter's five World Series rings.

So with that in mind, we need to be really careful about overlooking the Dallas Cowboys.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All you ever hear about the Cowboys is what's wrong with them. Terrell Owens was a pain. Roy Williams is a loudmouth, too, and isn't good enough to replace T.O. Tony Romo's too concerned with his golf game and his high-wattage love life to ever attain his potential. The new stadium is ridiculous...

DENVER -- Wherever Brandon Marshall had been hiding throughout much of the Denver Broncos' 17-10 victory over the overhyped Dallas Cowboys at Invesco Field on Sunday, quarterback Kyle Orton was able to find him at the most opportune time.

With just under two minutes remaining and the score tied 10-10, Orton connected with Marshall along the right sideline on a stunning 51-yard catch-and-run touchdown pass with 1:46 remaining, a play that may help doubters understand how the once-overlooked Broncos are now among the NFL's elite teams at 4-0.

"Yes! Yes!" Marshall screamed as kicker Matt Prater's PAT sailed through to give the Broncos a 17-10 advantage that they would preserve when cornerback Champ Bailey smacked away a potential game-tying Tony Romo touchdown pass to Sam Hurd on 4th down at the Denver 2-yard line in the closing seconds.

NEW YORK -- Well, as long as old Al Davis is still kicking around, the NFL draft is always going to come laced with at least a little bit of crazy. The Raiders owner didn't disappoint Saturday. His first-round pick made Radio City Music Hall laugh, and his second-round pick darn near made Mel Kiper Jr.'s head explode.

But Davis wasn't the only thing crazy about Day One. With no clear superstar talent on the board to justify the superstar first-round money, it seemed that the NFL's 32 teams came up with 32 different ways to handle this year's draft.

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?

NEW YORK -- Merry Christmas morning to Nutso NFL fans the world over! Draft Day has arrived. The first pick has already been made. The mock drafts are six hours away from the shredders, and angry Jets fans have already begun staking out Radio City Music Hall on this summery New York City day in anticipation of their team's seemingly annual first-round blunder.

The best thing about today may be that the lies and the posturing can finally stop. Everything you've heard from every team, every agent, every player and every anonymous source about this draft over the past few weeks has been misinformation designed to throw you off the scent. Everything has been a smokescreen designed to help the position of the person or organization issuing it. It's become an art form, with dozens upon dozens of skilled practitioners.

So in honor of the annual end of the deceit, I hereby present a Draft Day feature I like to call Six Things I Don't Believe:

Well, not really, but it felt that way during a two-hour conference call that NFL.com draft guru Mike Mayock held with members of the media this afternoon. I'm pretty sure every NFL writer and every college writer in the country was on the call, and that everyone got to ask a question. Mayock is, I am 100 percent certain, either a computer or the 21st-century version of the robot 2XL (without, of course, the 8-track tapes). Only one time in the entire two hours did he fail to answer a question, and that was because somebody asked about a kicker, and he admitted he didn't really look at kickers in the draft.

What a mess. This whole Broncos-Jay Cutler thing has devolved into one of those movies where there's no character to like, nobody for whom to root. The team and its new 32-year-old head coach obviously shoulder plenty of blame. If Josh McDaniels' first act as coach is to run a Pro Bowl quarterback out of town, he'd better turn out to be one heck of a coach. But this is a failed first test. A good coach, a true leader of men, could have found a way to pull Cutler through this and make him into a productive player for the team in spite of the rocky start.

But to lay all of the blame on the team is to let the quarterback off easy. Cutler has conducted himself like a gigantic, spoiled crybaby for the past several weeks. He deserves no sympathy, and the Bears have to be wondering what kind of man, exactly, they just added to their team.