Crazy turn of events lately with Brandon Marshall. As it stands right now, he’s requested a trade, there are conflicting accounts on whether the Broncos will honor the request, and Brandon has posted a blog entry confirming that he intends to be out of there.

Here’s my sense of it. Brandon’s been rehabbing away from the Broncos because he feels like his body wasn’t treated with the proper respect last season. That sounds legitimate to me, especially when you consider the recent stories about Kellen Winslow and LaDainian Tomlinson. NFL teams don’t exactly have an interest in disclosing their players’ injuries, nor in protecting their long term futures, not as team-switching becomes more contract - the monetary interests are to squeeze as much mileage out of a player as you can during their current contract, at the expense of their post-contract livelihood.

And so, there is a legitimate argument to be made here for a new contract - if the Broncos have a longer-term financial interest in Brandon Marshall, then maybe Brandon would have more trust that they’d be looking out for his medical future.

But he’s playing this badly - the Broncos don’t have a positive reason to lock up his future now, because there is still a court case pending that could lead to a major suspension of Brandon. It doesn’t help Brandon that the court date conflicts with the contract deadline that would extend Brandon’s contractual lockup - if he doesn’t report in August, his free agency gets delayed a year.

The Broncos have two choices - talk up his potential in an attempt to increase trade leverage, or talk him down in an attempt to reduce Brandon’s leverage - and it looks like they are choosing the latter. If they delay, Brandon damages his future. If they talk him down, then it reduces what Brandon could command in a contract, by reducing other team’s appetite for him. And it looks like that is the route they’re going - check out this quote from Woody Paige’s latest column:

I believe (with no supportive evidence) that Marshall is “rehabilitating” in Orlando instead of at Dove Valley because he doesn’t want his hip to be examined, his health might be worse than suspected and he couldn’t renegotiate.

Woody is part of the Broncos’ system at this point. He knows people will assume he knows something even though he says he doesn’t. I believe (with no supportive evidence) that he wouldn’t float that kind of rumor if it weren’t okay with Broncos brass somehow.

And what with McDaniels going public with his promises of being open to dialogue, this looks like a classic hardball carrot/stick approach of negotiation. Come on back into the fold, Brandon, where we’ll welcome you with open arms, because if you don’t, we might just destroy your future.

Just piping in here with a random posting.

Call me a homer, but I don’t think the 2009 Broncos draft was the disaster that many people think.

The Broncos had a killer offense last year in terms of yards, but not points. They were great between the twenties, and then fizzled. They had a problem with finishing. I suppose it’s even possible that McDaniels concluded this was partly a problem with Cutler, leading to his strange passive treatment of him, but one obvious solution for the red zone problems is a good, powerful running back. Knowshon Moreno could potentially solve several offense problems all at once. He’d reduce pressure on the quarterback both as a pass blocker and a consistent hard runner. Furthermore, the red zone improvement would reduce pressure on the defense. When you’ve got a distance selling out to get the ball back quickly to make up a large deficit, they’re going to often give up even more points, kind of like a basketball team fouling when they’re behind. Additionally, the Broncos had one of the lowest numbers of rush attempts last season, and this is for an offense that racked up a lot of yards. I don’t know what this did to time of possession statistics, but it seems to me that a good consistent runner would also reduce a defense’s exhaustion. I also think that this offense could very well make Orton look amazing.

As for the defense, I had some initial questions after the draft, but they’re mostly resolved now. So much has been written about Denver’s front seven that it kind of distracted from the fact that Denver’s secondary was in pretty poor shape, too, even after the free agent acquisitions. Free agents are good for the near term, but McDaniels drafted a good cornerback and free safety that have been given short shrift by the analysts since they weren’t linebackers.

As for the front seven, my sense with the defense all last season was that they never gelled, and it was because of lack of talent. But a defense can be one or two players away from every player all of a sudden looking a lot more talented. And there was so much defensive staff turnover over these last few years that they really might have been doing a lousy job developing raw talent - see Moss, Crowder, Thomas. I’m holding out hope that these players might actually see rapid improvement now. If McDaniels saw that there was possibility there, then he may have thought it would be worth it to wait until the 2010 draft for more DL work, in favor of shoring up other parts of the team.

As far as the other recently noted objections - Denver saw their early 2nd round pick as having 1st-round talent, and so chose to get better now. Seattle held firm on which 1st round pick they wanted, so Denver didn’t really have the choice of giving them their Chicago 1st rounder instead.

Overall I see it as a creative draft, which can be a bit alarming when you have a young coach you aren’t sure of. But with a bit more perspective I don’t yet see it as a reason to freak out. Although since Seattle has Denver’s pick now, I wonder if that should make me more of a Seattle fan. (Chicago having Cutler doesn’t make me more of a Chicago fan, though… I like Chicago more than I like Cutler.)

And this is it - Pittsburgh reinforces a beatpath over Arizona, for no real change in the graph. This is how the entire 2008 season looked.

Offseason retrospective possibly coming soon.

Tom here with the confidence ranking for the Super Bowl:

Beatpaths has a 3-7 pick record in the post-season. One notable difference between the regular season picks and the post-season picks is that very few of the post-season picks are high confidence. Of the ten games played so far, only two had a confidence rating over 50 (Pittsburgh-San Diego was called correctly, Indianapolis-San Diego was an upset).

The Super Bowl is no different from the rest of the post-season: a low confidence pick, one subject to greater rates of error than high confidence picks. However, Beatpath’s pick (a Steeler’s victory) conforms broadly with the conventional wisdom about this game: Pittsburgh is expected to do better on the strength of having the best defense in the league.

Philadelphia’s loss to Arizona knocks the props out from under them and they tumble. Their win over Arizona was what what holding them up in the rankings, and without it they cause most of the ranking changes.

Hey Folks. Kenneth here, just hours away from the big game, and I’m here with the rankings as they are going into the game. There may not be much to say about every team, but I’ll try to explain what there is.

Also, don’t think this game is meaningless in the final graph. There’s a direct beatpath from PIT=>NE=>ARI in the graph, so a Cardinals win would change some things. So, if it’s an Arizona win later today (my personal favorite–I just can’t help rooting for an underdog), be sure to check here later to see what the damage is.

Rank	Team	Notes	Last Week	BeatPower
1		(Bye) Not much changed for the Colts; they stay at the top.	1	96.3 (25/27 - 0/27)
2		(Bye) Jets move up a bit. Really, this is just them taking over the spot as their New York brethren fell.	3	100.0 (27/27 - 0/27)
3		(Bye) As their beatpath nemesis Jets rise, so do they.	4	94.6 (26/28 - 1/28)
4		(Beat BAL) Beating the Ravens didn’t really matter, as the Steelers already had a beatpath to the Ravens. Now it’s just a double path. Did that boost make them stronger, and thus boost the rep of the Jets and Titans? Or is there something else at play?	5	85.7 (23/28 - 3/28)
5		(Bye) Giants fall 3 spots. But it’s not due to the Eagles falling–they didn’t have a beatpath over the Eagles. There is a possibility that the Eagles losing a direct beatpath over Arizona changed how the tiebreakers work, but that’s guesswork on my part right now.	2	92.3 (22/26 - 0/26)
6		(Bye) Patriots rise a bit. It’s possible that this is due to the Cardinals looking better, as the Pats have a path over them.	7	83.3 (20/24 - 4/24)
7		(Lost to PIT) I guess it’s nice that the team that lost went down in the rankings, but I’m not sure why. As I’ve mentioned, there was no change to the graph from this game.	6	80.8 (20/26 - 4/26)
8		(Beat PHI) Now here’s something I can explain! Simply put, the Cardinals split with the Eagles, which removes a team from on top of them. That allows them to rise a bit.	10	73.2 (19/28 - 6/28)
9		(Bye) Arizona’s rise helps other teams, too. For example, the Dolphins, who found themselves directly under the Cards, get to follow them up the ladder.	11	61.4 (13/22 - 8/22)
10		(Bye) Meanwhile, the Panthers move down a bit. Perhaps the Giants fall hurt them?	8	71.9 (8/16 - 1/16)
11		(Bye) More rising tide effects, as the Boys move up under the Cards. Of course, they’re really only benefiting from a certain team falling…	12	55.0 (10/20 - 8/20)
12		(Bye) Broncos also get to leapfrog someone–the Vikings. The Dolphins looking better have something to do with this, presumably.	14	50.0 (9/24 - 9/24)
13		(Bye) Meanwhile, the Vikings stay still. The Vikings don’t really have a lot of support in the graph.	13	64.6 (10/24 - 3/24)
14		(Bye) Texans move up one on the mystery team’s fall. If you haven’t guessed it yet, you’re not paying attention.	15	58.3 (9/18 - 6/18)
15		(Bye) The Falcons actually make a large jump. Apparently, the Broncos were really weighing them down. Or, alternately, the teams that fell were really shaky.	18	43.5 (7/23 - 10/23)
16		(Bye) Bengals also make a jump.	19	39.5 (7/19 - 11/19)
17		(Bye) Not sure what the 49ers problem is–they look like they have solid beatpaths, but they didn’t rise up like the other teams. In fact, more than one team leapfrogged them.	17	45.0 (7/20 - 9/20)
18		(Lost to ARI) Ding ding ding! Yes, the loss of the beatpath over the Cardinals really hurt the Eagles. Although they still don’t have a beatloss, they’re now relying on direct beatwins over Cleveland and Seattle for positioning, which I think we can all agree leaves them in a more precarious position.	9	61.5 (3/13 - 0/13)
19		(Bye) Meanwhile, why are the Bears moving? The seem to have San Francisco-itis, but even worse. It may be terminal.	16	52.8 (5/18 - 4/18)
20		(Bye) Okay, from this point on the rankings are stable. And, I really don’t think I have anything to say. Maybe I’ll revisit these teams in a season wrap-up rankings, but for right now, I’m just going to stay silent on the remaining teams. You already know their deals. Still, if you want to talk about any of them, just say something in the comments.	20	40.9 (5/22 - 9/22)
21		(Bye)	21	40.0 (6/20 - 10/20)
22		(Bye)	22	37.5 (5/24 - 11/24)
23		(Bye)	23	26.3 (2/19 - 11/19)
24		(Bye)	24	21.1 (1/19 - 12/19)
25		(Bye)	25	14.7 (0/17 - 12/17)
26		(Bye)	26	20.0 (0/20 - 12/20)
27		(Bye)	27	21.7 (4/23 - 17/23)
28		(Bye)	28	12.0 (3/25 - 22/25)
29		(Bye)	29	2.3 (0/22 - 21/22)
30		(Bye)	30	5.8 (1/26 - 24/26)
31		(Bye)	31	0.0 (0/24 - 24/24)
32		(Bye)	32	1.9 (0/26 - 25/26)

Here’s the beatpath graph for after the conference games and before the Super Bowl!

Tom here with the confidence rankings for the two conference championship games:

Both of these picks conform well to the conventional wisdom.

One curious note: Beatpaths has a 1-6 record of predicting the results of Philadelphia games since correctly picking their loss to Baltimore in Week 12. I’ve been used to Beatpaths picking against Philly and being happy to see it proven wrong. Now that Beatpaths is finally picking them to win, I’m suddenly anxious about their winning streak coming to an end in the desert.

In comparison, Beatpaths is 3-4 picking Arizona results over the same period, 5-1 picking Pittsburgh, and 4-3 picking Baltimore.

Tom here with the Beatpaths ranking stability. Last week, the results of only four wildcard round games, instead of the normal 16, nevertheless produced significant changes in the rankings. This week, the four divisional round games produced the opposite results: only three pairs of teams switch places. The total change in ranks was a mere six.

Because of the all the redundant beatpaths built into the rankings at this point in the season, it’s not clear to me that the results of the final three games can produce the kinds of big shifts we saw during the regular season or even as a result of the wildcard round. We’ll see.

While it might strike some as overly geeky to analyze system stability for Beatpaths’ rankings, I’ve decided to outgeek myself, pushing into a second-order stability analysis. Each week’s stability chart includes a logarithmic trendline superimposed over the data, indicating the overall direction in which the rankings were headed each week as new data was included. On a lark, I decided to see how consistent the trendlines were, from week to week. Below are the charts from Week 14 through the Wildcard Round, superimposed upon one another.

I stretched each chart until the axes lined up. As you can see, the trendlines show remarkable consistency from week-to-week despite pretty significant ups and downs in the stability of the rankings. I added red guidelines indicating the range of the trendlines. The trendline terminus stays within the upper-60s each week.

What does this mean? Not only does the trendline indicate that the system’s rankings were getting more stable overall each week, but that the trend toward greater ranking stability itself remained stable. Just as the retroactive pick record seems to lend strong confirmation of the increasing accuracy of the Beatpaths model over time, I think the trendline consistency illustrated above likewise gives us a strong confirmation of 1) the Beatpaths system’s internal coherency, and 2) its ability to interpret and give meaning to each week’s new results within a season-long strength-of-schedule context.

Hey gang, Kenneth back here again with the rankings. I tell you–watching those wildcard games made me sick. Or maybe it was the infection in my sinuses. Whatever it was, it totally messed with my schedule, so the rankings are late this week. My apologies, but I’ll make up for it with poor quality–you know what, let’s just get to the rankings.

Unfortunately for this column, the games all went in the way that provided the least beatpath change, so there are almost no rankings changes–only 6 teams moved at all. So, these rankings won’t be talking much about the beatpaths view of these times. That’s how it goes when you get later in the playoffs.

Rank	Team	Notes	Last Week	BeatPower
1		(Bye) The Dungy news surprised me a bit–just wasn’t expecting it, I guess. I guess they’ll do okay as long as they still have Peyton Manning and that OC who never seems to pursue a head coaching job (Moore–is that his name)? I’m not sure he’s a Hall of Fame coach right now, though. I mean, he certainly seems qualified, but there are coaches ahead of him–off the top of my head I would probably say Parcells, Belicheck, and Cowher–and there are a lot of coaches who seem right at that level–Schottenheimer, Holmgren, Shanahan, Reid or Fisher if they win a Super Bowl, Gruden if he lands on his feet–and how many coaches get voted into the Hall? I’m just saying, I think it’ll be harder than people think right now.	1	96.3 (25/27 - 0/27)
2		(Lost to PHI) Tough loss, but it doesn’t seem like the Giants should be disappointed. They had a good year, and this was a tough game, and no Plaxico hurt them. Sometimes it happens. They still have last year’s Super Bowl win to hold onto.	2	92.3 (22/26 - 0/26)
3		(Bye) Now the Jets get to deal with the Favre uncertainty problem. And unlike the Packers, they don’t seem to have a really good backup plan if he does quit.	3	100.0 (27/27 - 0/27)
4		(Lost to BAL) You knew it was going to be a hard fought, tight game. The good news for the Titans, I guess, is that it seems obvious how you can improve the team–improve the passing attack. Oh, and re-sign Haynesworth.	4	94.6 (26/28 - 1/28)
5		(Beat SD) Steelers beat the Chargers, and just gain a redundant beatpath. I’m a little surprised how far this team has been able to come–they don’t seem as strong as past Steelers teams. And yet they clearly are–they have the number 1 defense in the league.	5	85.7 (23/28 - 3/28)
6		(Beat TEN) The win causes a season split with the Titans, but the Titans have a redundant beatpath through the Steelers. I have to admit I’m rooting a bit for the Ravens here. I’m not sure why, but I think it’s because I find Ed Reed really exciting.	6	80.8 (20/26 - 4/26)
7		(Bye) Actual ranking movement! Yes, the Panther’s loss causes the Pats to move up a bit. Thrilling!	8	83.3 (20/24 - 4/24)
8		(Lost to ARI) As far as my eye can tell, the only actual change in the graph this week is the removal of the Panther’s beatwin over the Cards (replaced by one from the Giants to the Cards). That naturally makes the Panthers look worse, so they slip a bit. This loss seems like it should be a disappointment; I know the Cardinals are playing better, but Carolina should have been better. Watching Larry Fitzgerald run free reminded me of Steve Smith running through the Bears’ secondary in the ‘05 playoffs, so there’s some poetic justice there.	7	71.9 (8/16 - 1/16)
9		(Beat NYG) The win just gets sucked up in redundant beatloops, so nothing changes here. I’m enjoying delusional Bears fans who think we’ll still have a chance at McNabb after this season. I presume Donovan and Philly have kissed and made up, at least for now?	9	90.0 (20/25 - 0/25)
10		(Beat CAR) Beating the Panthers gave the Cards a season split, removing a beatloss from the graph…but no real change in the rankings. I have to admit that I’m pulling for the Cardinals overall–something about the ulitmate underdog really appeals to me.	10	71.4 (19/28 - 7/28)
11		(Bye) Am I the only one who was surprised that a Dolphins assistant was getting head coaching interviews? Don’t you want to see guys for a few years at that level before you move on them? Or am I just really ignorant about the guy whose name I can’t remember?	11	58.7 (13/23 - 9/23)
12		(Bye) Another switch in the rankings. Folks, I’m just as clueless as you are. Best I can figure is that some of the underlying beatpower ratings changed, but how or why? You’ll have to ask TT. Meanwhile, dumping TO seems like an exciting move, so I hope they do it.	13	52.5 (10/20 - 9/20)
13		(Bye) The Vikings are probably going to have a hard time improving, because what they need to do is get a better QB, but it seems unlikely that you’ll get someone who will be definitely able to come in and handle the pressure. Maybe Cassel. But otherwise, you’re probably hoping for a Kerry Collins-like situation to happen where you bring in a retread and he does better than expected.	12	64.6 (10/24 - 3/24)
14		(Bye) So, wunderkid ends up in Denver. I wonder how much of a honeymoon he’ll get–there seems to be too much talent there to be down long.	14	48.0 (9/25 - 10/25)
15		(Bye) Meanwhile, Shanny the Younger lives on. Would Pops work under his kid? Would that be weird? It seems like it would be.	15	58.3 (9/18 - 6/18)
16		(Bye) I saw in an interview that Warren Sapp approves of the Marinelli hiring and thinks he’ll be able to get the full potential out of the Bears’ line, which is nice. Although I think it would be more fun if the Bears just hired Sapp as a coach.	16	52.8 (5/18 - 4/18)
17		(Bye) Here’s how bad it’s getting–I’m reading mock drafts to figure out what to say about teams. So, it seems like people want the 49ers to take a QB, huh? I’m not sure if I’d go that way–they don’t seem to be on their way to being a good offensive team–but if they really like the guy (whoever it is), I guess it would make sense.	17	42.5 (7/20 - 10/20)
18		(Bye) Where do the Falcons go from here? More offense or more defense? I’m guessing convention says D, but I think I’d probably want another weapon alongside Roddy White.	18	41.3 (7/23 - 11/23)
19		(Bye) Is it time to start wondering if Carson Palmer is ever going to be that guy again? Because I have worries.	19	37.5 (7/20 - 12/20)
20		(Bye) Didn’t see that one coming. The question is why now? What happened between the end of the season and now that made that move necessary? I assume there must have been something, otherwise, why the long wait?	20	39.1 (5/23 - 10/23)
21		(Bye) What if they did move to Toronto permanently? Would you still call them the Bills? The Toronto Bills? That’s awful.	21	38.1 (6/21 - 11/21)
22		(Bye) The Saints clearly need more D, which at least gives them flexibility. They can probably go after the best players available. Or, maybe even pick up Haynesworth? That would be scary.	22	36.0 (5/25 - 12/25)
23		(Lost to PIT) Oh yeah, the other team from last week! Well, the one game beatpaths picked right. Which is good, because it was a very confident pick.	23	25.0 (2/20 - 12/20)
24		(Bye) So what’s the current consensus on Jason Campbell? Is he going to be someone that can be counted on and built around, or are the Redskins going to have to start searching for another answer soon?	24	18.4 (1/19 - 13/19)
25		(Bye) I guess the benefit of getting a coach from the same tree as your previous one is that he’s going to implement the same scheme, so you can build with some of the players you have. So the Browns won’t be starting over completely, which seems good.	25	14.7 (0/17 - 12/17)
26		(Bye) The Raiders move up one spot, and this really confused me. Beatpower is the answer, but what’s the question? Well, I guess the question for that is why they moved up, and the real question is why the beatpower changed. Smooth talking there, Ken.	27	19.0 (0/21 - 13/21)
27		(Bye) Are the Jaguars still a threat to move to LA? I was having a heated discussion the other day with a coworker about realignment if that happened. He wanted to change everything so that the Rams would be in the NFC North, but I think that’s just because he hates having St. Louis being in the “west”.	26	20.8 (4/24 - 18/24)
28		(Bye) The thing about the Gruden and Dungy announcements is that it has made me wary that maybe there are still more firings to come. I’m not saying McCarthy would deserve it, but I could see something crazy like that happening.	28	11.5 (3/26 - 23/26)
29		(Bye) Of course, Edwards would be more likely to get dumped, now that he has a new GM. I don’t understand why teams hire coaches before GMs, or expect to keep the same coach across GMs–if the top guy had to change, doesn’t seem likely that the subordinates have to change too?	29	2.2 (0/23 - 22/23)
30		(Bye) Is there a more perfect fit in the draft right now than Seattle and Michael Crabtree? It almost makes too much sense to happen.	30	5.8 (1/26 - 24/26)
31		(Bye) I don’t know if I would go for a QB with the top pick. On the one hand, it seems like a disaster to throw someone into that situation, and the Lions will probably be picking high next year, too, when a lot of other good players are coming out. On the other hand, Calvin Johnson could be a young QBs best friend.	31	0.0 (0/25 - 25/25)
32		(Bye) While on the subject, as far as perfect fits go, the Rams and “best OT available” is always popular. The Orlando Pace era is over.	32	1.9 (0/26 - 25/26)