Hole Punch Sports

1. Javon Walker...wow. Nice run. 2. Speaking of Walker, Madden said that Mike Shanahan likes having a receiver who wants the ball on every play. As opposed to Ashley Lelie, whose catchphrase was, "I'll show you the money!" 3. Tony Scheffler, the rookie tight end, is interesting. One on hand, he clearly has size and ability. On the other, he plays like he just went through a growth spurt and isn't yet coordinated enough for his size. I'm just saying. 4. D.J. Williams destroyed Kevin Faulk near the end of the game, but Faulk just bounced back up. Manly. 5. Stat of the night: I can't believe Mike Shanahan's regular-season winning percentage with Plummer is better than it was with Elway. In Shanahan's first year with Elway the Broncos didn't have much of a team, while Plummer was more of the last piece of a puzzle. But still. That is incredible. Those Super Bowl years really spoiled me, and I'm definitely too hard on the Broncos now. Is this what i...

1. I feel bad for Patriots tackle Matt Light-who's already back in the game-but if I never see another knee injury in a slow-motion replay, I think I'll be okay with that. 2. The Jake Plummer-Mike Shanahan argument after the field-goal drive: Obviously, I don't know what happened, though I enjoyed Madden's incredibly vague take, which basically boiled down to: "Either Mike's mad at Jake, or Jake's mad at Mike, or they're both mad." But Plummer was catching fire on that drive and the Broncos still had room to work with when they switched into pound-the-ball mode. I'm a big fan of the running game, but if I was Plummer, I'd have been ticked, too. When the Patriots answered with a similar drive right after, they kept the ball in Tom Brady's hands throughout (though the Broncos ended up forcing and blocking a field goal). 4. Lawrence Maroney is a beast. Al Wilson got a good-if-not-great hit on him on a shovel pass. Maroney just absorbed it ...

As you've heard, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wade, the reporters who wrote "Game of Shadows", could be heading to prison. This Associated Press story on SI.com has the details in the clearest form I've seen them. In fact, why don't I just quote the first two paragraphs: A federal judge ordered two San Francisco Chronicle reporters jailed Thursday, pending an appeal, for refusing to testify about who leaked them secret grand jury testimony from Barry Bonds and other elite athletes. Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada published a series of articles and a book based partly on the leaked transcripts of the testimony of Bonds, Jason Giambi and others before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a Burlingame-based nutritional supplement company exposed as a steroid ring two years ago. Got that? They're not going to jail for telling the truth, and they're not going to jail for writing about the leaked testimony. (I'm not sure...

I almost got hit by a car today. Remember those old "Must Be Football Season" ads? Like the one where office workers celebrated by slapping each other on the butt, or the one where a shopper drops fruit on the floor at the grocery store and everyone dives to try to recover the fumble? Great ads, especially since I can't remember who was running them. (I'm thinking maybe Southwest Airlines, but what does football have to do with flying?) Well, my morning was like that. I work at a university, so I just walk out onto the crosswalk assuming everyone will stop. When I'm driving I hate this, which is why I don't drive on campus. I knew a car was coming, but surely they'd see me. Soon I realized that the car to my left was a Jeep-and not a Wrangler, but a big SUV-and the driver not only wasn't slowing down, he or she was probably speeding up. So I burst forward and instinctively stuck out my left arm, as though I was going to stiff-arm a Jeep. Luckily, for t...

This will be the last HPS update until after Week Two thanks to vacation-related reasons. (Yes, Week Two-tomorrow all loyal Americans switch from the Gregorian to the NFL calendar.) In Week One, the Broncos go on the road to face the St. Louis Rams (CBS, 7 p.m. Berlin time). Are there interesting storylines and subplots? Apparently not. ESPN dedicated the first six paragraphs of its ten-graph preview to the Rams' new coach. That is so boring that we should immediately stop talking about it. Anyway, there are plenty of things for Broncos fans to watch for: 1. Can the running game pick up where it left off last year? I sure hope not. That's because, as the Denver Post reported, the Broncos went more than a half during the AFC Championship without calling a running play. The Broncos are really good, but they suffer when they throw too much. I don't know if the Rams will pass as much as they did under Martz, but they have enough talent to score early and often. Hopefully we c...

The news is a couple days old, but I still need to talk about the Broncos finalizing their 53-man roster . The good: So long, college rival. The best name you don’t see on the list is Bradlee van Pelt. Hallelujah. I could have told Mike Shanahan years ago to save his time, but I’m just glad it’s over now. Can you imagine if van Pelt had had to fill in during a playoff run and we had to root for and rely on him? Thank goodness it never came to that. Now we just need to cut Cecil Sapp, even though he never plays. (Hey, this is the one week a year I acknowledge CSU, though I’m not about to talk about Montana State.) Promising young players. The Broncos were 13-3 and went to the AFC title game last year, but I like that rookie class more and more as we close in on the season. Jay Cutler has everyone in town excited, Mike Bell may start, and while I don’t think I’ve seen him play, I have faith in Elvis Dumervil. Second-year man Cedric Cobbs only played late in games, but piled up yards an...