FanHouse NateWebster

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

It's a brave new world in Denver, where the Broncos will take the field without Mike Shanahan on the sideline for the first time since 1995. Josh McDaniels, their new coach, was 19 back then, and has one of the shortest resumes of any head coach in NFL history. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, but it was clear that Shanahan's system was no longer bearing fruit and the team may benefit just from the change of voice on the sideline.

The Denver Broncos are in the midst of some serious turnover on defense. The team flat-out stunk defensively last season, and the Broncos have already overhauled their coaching staff. Now, it's the players' turn to experience some change.

After cutting six defensive players Monday, the Broncos weren't done. They released veteran cornerback Dre' Bly Tuesday.

NFL Offseason Roadmap is a series focused on the needs of NFL teams as they begin the offseason.

How far do the Denver Broncos have to go to return to the playoffs? Their team was ravaged by injuries en route to a 7-9 record this season. A healthy team could have easily won another couple of games and found itself battling for a wild card. A more pessimistic view might point out that they got old in several spots because they haven't built well through the draft. That would indicate there's a longer road back to success. Either way, the good news is that, in Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall and Elvis Dumervil, they've got building blocks for 2008 and beyond. Here's where they need the most immediate help.

1. Defensive Stability – Jim Bates was hired as defensive coordinator and immediately installed a scheme predicated on big defensive tackles. It was a total flop. Sam Adams and Amon Gordon couldn't occupy blockers, leaving the middle of the field open to all comers. They overhauled the line during the season, but found no better results and that led to Bates's firing. New coordinator Bob Slowik must establish a strategy and stick to it if the team is to improve defensively. Be they big DTs or athletic ones, the team can't afford to veer wildly in such a short amount of time.

Every week, NFL FanHouse hits the lowlights from Sunday's action, looking at those players who did the most to move their head coaches that much closer to returning to the Bed and Breakfast business.

Joe Gibbs, Redskins
Gibbs comes across as a swell guy, a grandfatherly type who says things like "dadgummit" or "horse feathers" when he's angry, and always carries Werther's in his pocket for wide-eyed young fans. It all seems very Rockwellian. Except that reality for the Washington Redskins is nothing like the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.

Gibbs, who came out of retirement in 2004 for a second run with the Redskins, has looked out of sorts and overmatched for most of the last four years. And Sunday's game against the Eagles was a microcosm of that. The Hall of Famer and three-time Super Bowl winner now spends his weekends watching the his players -- in horror, no doubt -- repeat mistakes they were making in preseason. In yesterday's 33-25 loss to Philadelphia, the 'Skins committed 11 penalties for 74 yards, and on four occasions, penalties resulted in Eagles' first downs.
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