Stunned

The Broncos fired Mike Shanahan.

I didn't see it coming. In fact, after Sunday's night's debacle, I was wondering to myself how long it would be before Shanny fired Bob Slowik, since firing the defensive coordinator has become an annual tradition for the orange and blue. So I logged on to denverpost.com this afternoon just to see if anything had happened in Dove Valley - and oh, boy - it sure did.

The press conference isn't until tomorrow, so we don't know yet how it all went down. But I'm guessing it was Shanahan the general manager getting fired more than Shanahan the coach. He pretty much dug his own grave after blowing half a decade's worth of drafts. But still, this was shocking. I didn't see Shanahan going anywhere for another five years or so - I figured Pat Bowlen would wait and see if he could turn things around with Jay Cutler. But I guess not.

This move makes a lot of folks around town happy - the ones who have been calling for Shanahan's dismissal for a couple of years now. I've always pretty much been in support of Shanahan - mainly because who else are they going to get that's better?

So that's the question now - who is Bowlen going to hire? Is he going to hire a GM and a coach to fill the void left by Shanahan? Probably. I don't think anyone on their current staff is equipped to be the next head coach. Gary Kubiak is still with the Texans. A lot of people are calling for Bill Cowher to come, but I don't see that happening. I don't even know who's out there. Maybe Dan Reeves wants to get back into coaching. Shanahan will have a job somewhere next year, if he wants one.

So do I agree with the move? It's a bold one, but something needed to happen. They may have been worse this year than last - but being in a weak division masked that so well. I'm guessing maybe Bowlen wanted Shanahan to give up some of his responsibilities on the personnel side and to focus exclusively on coaching, only Shanahan didn't want to, so they decided to part ways. I guess we'll find out in the future. So yeah, I agree that something needed to happen, and that something shouldn't be firing the d-coordinator again. So if they couldn't agree on reformatting the job description, then he needed to go. But that's all speculation.

All I know is that whoever takes over needs to spend at least 8 of the 10 draft picks on defense.