Biomechanical Reviews Part 2

Paxton Lynch and Mile High Stadium

Feb 2, 2014.  John Elway looks out over a familiar scene.  Streams of green and yellow confetti obscure the scoreboard, which reads 43-8. Elway’s former AFC West patsies slowly jog off the field, meeting instead the inward flickering vortex of press and fans.  Elway is thinking of Dan Reeves.

If someone asked you to name the single biggest advantage possessed by the Denver Broncos, not just this season but every season, what would you name? I’ll bet John Elway could tell you- it’s in the name of the stadium.  The Broncos play a minimum of 8 home games a year at 5280 feet.  The next highest altitude for an NFL stadium is 1,070 feet, at the University of Phoenix Stadium, in Glendale AZ.   

This is an enormous advantage: to train at altitude, and have your opponents train 4000+ feet below you.  

Dan Reeves didn’t get it.  Mike Shanahan understood.

Elway just didn’t have time to put the pieces in place.  Having already hired Alex Gibbs away from the Seahawks in Spring 2013, Elway had to watch the blocking scheme he made famous- the one Alex Gibbs and Mike Shanahan co-created in 1995 and the one that Elway ran to perfection, winning Superbowls in 1998 and 1999- conquer his own Peyton Manning-led creation.

But he had already seen the writing on the wall.  Alex Gibbs was already in the building.

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