Josh McDaniels, meanwhile, is one of the big stories of the 2009 season. Following Denver's 34-23 win over the Chargers Monday night – another victory CHFF anticipated when a incredulous pigskin public did not – McDaniels is just the fourth rookie coach since the AFL-NFL merger to win his first six games.

 

But that doesn't mean the hoodie-bedecked Mini Me of NFL head coaches is destined for success, at least not yet. In fact, the career-long track record of the three 6-0 rookies who came before him is spotty at best. Different teams. Different situations. Different men. We're not pretending they offer some sort of crystal ball into the future of McDaniels. But it's such a small group of men who started out so successfully, that we thought it was worth looking into.

 

Interestingly, only two organizations have produced these four coaches. Also, keep in mind that Indy's rookie head coach, Jim Caldwell, is 5-0 right now heading into Sunday's inevitabble 60-0 destruction of St. Louis.

 

The Rams were consistently one of the best teams in the league in the 1960s, under Hall of Fame coach George Allen. But mediocrity became the standard in two years with Tommy Prothro as their head coach.

 

Enter Knox, who instantly revived the Rams organization. He kicked off the 1973 season with six straight wins on his way to a 12-2 finish. His Rams were dominant during his five years at the helm, posting a 54-15-1 record.

 

Knox was known to some as "Ground Chuck" because of what was considered his emphasis on the run in his later years. But in his five seasons with the Rams, three different quarterbacks reached the Pro Bowl under his tutelage, John Hadl, James Harris and Pat Haden. That's pretty impressive. It's a sign that he advocated the high-quality passing system that's been a necessisty of success in the NFL for seven decades and a sign that he could quickly get a variety of different quarterbacks to successfully execute his system. Knox was a good coach, in other words.

 

Knox left the Rams at the end of the 1977 season and coached 17 more years in the NFL, returning to coach the Rams, unsuccessfully, for this last three seasons (15-33 from 1992-94).

 

But he never recaptured the hope and the magic of those early days in Los Angeles. Knox today is considered the proverbial coach "who couldn't win the big game."

He led three different organizations to the playoffs (Rams, Bills, Seahawks) but went 7-11 in postseason play. He earned more than one playoff victory in the same season only once, in 1983, when his 9-7 Seahawks lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion Raiders.

 

We got a glimpse of things to come in his very first year: Knox's 1973 Rams dominated the NFL but went down without a fight in the postseason, falling to the Cowboys in the opening round.

 

Those 1973 Rams, fueled by a 6-0 start, were named by the Cold, Hard Football Facts one of the 10 "almost-greatest teams" in NFL history in our list of dominant teams that failed to win the Super Bowl.

 

The Broncos were easily the worst franchise in the AFL during the 1960s and those struggles continued after the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.

 

Denver earned the first winning seasons in its history under John Ralston (7-5 in 1973). He followed that with a 7-6-1 mark in 1974 and a franchise-best 9-5 record in 1976.

 

But the Broncos had plateaued: exit Ralston. Enter Miller.

 

Like Knox a few years earlier, the turnaround was instant: the 1977 Broncos raced out to a 6-0 start, ended the year 12-2 and bested the two dominant AFC powers of the decade in the playoffs (Pittsburgh and Oakland) to reach the Super Bowl.

 

It was a dizzying period of joy for Denver fans. After all, their team had failed to reach the playoffs even once in its first 17 years. Now, in their first playoff appearance, the Broncos had ousted the mighty Steelers and Raiders and were poised to play the Cowboys in Super Bowl XII.

 

There was plenty of reason to be excited: the "Orange Crush" Broncos of 1977 fielded the stingiest defense in franchise history (10.6 PPG) and looked up to the task against America's Team.

 

No such luck: the Cowboys embarrassed the Broncos, 27-10, in a game that wasn't as close as the score indicated.

 

Miller was gone after the 1980 season and never coached in the NFL again. His team's 17-point loss in his rookie year was as close as Denver would get to a Super Bowl victory until John Elway & Co. beat the Packers 20 years later in Super Bowl XXXII.

 

The Martz story is fairly familiar to contemporary football fans. He was the architect of the Greatest Show on Turf and must still be considered one of the great offensive minds of his day.

 

But his 6-0 start in 2000 is certainly the lest impressive of the four on the list. The 1999 Rams, led by head coach Dick Vermeil, had won the Super Bowl behind their prolific offense, solid defense, and the MVP performance of unknown supermarket stock boy Kurt Warner.

 

Sitting on the summit of his profession, Vermeil pulled an Alexander the Great and cried because there were no more worlds left to conquer. Of course, the old softy also cried at the end of "Mandy." But that's a story for another day.

 

 

 

To his credit, the teary-eyed Vermeil went out like a man: on top of his profession. (We hope to go out on top of a hooker ... but we're simple men with simple dreams.) Vermeil left his team in the hands of Martz, his offensive coordinator. Despite the 6-0 start, the 2000 Rams struggled to a 10-6 finish thanks largely to a defense that collapsed in the wake of the Super Bowl championship.

 

But the defense recovered in 2001, while the offense kept humming along – right up until the dynasty-ending/dynasty-creating defeat to the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVI.

 

The team never really got it all together after that, and Martz's career ended in 2005 amid a series of health issues and battles with team executives. He's never held a head coaching job again and today works for NFL Network.

 

It should be noted that the Rams have gone just 17-48 since Martz last stood on the sidelines.

 

So the lesson for Denver fans is obvious: there's plenty of reasons to be excited about the Broncos right now and about the success of their new head coach. But winning your first six games is not a portent of great success to follow.

 

But check back with us in February. You know where to find us: we'll be sitting at the back of the bandwagon, tooting away at the sousaphone.

 

Trolling the Broncos fan boards over the past couple weeks, it's become apparent that there's a lot of Denver fans who still aren't hanging the Horseshoe over the front door. We don't get it.

 

These Broncos fans must remove their head from their rectum, because Kyle Orton continues to win games and continues to make life hard for his (shrinking) legions of critics.

 

Sure, Denver's defense swarmed all over San Diego's Philip Rivers Monday night. He suffered five sacks and played well despite the pressure.

 

But this is a bottom line league. And once again, the Horseshoe outdueled a more highly touted quarterback.

Orton, the quarterback nobody wanted, is eighth in the NFL now with a 100.1 passer rating. That's better than Tom Brady, Donovan McNabb, Kurt Warner and Matt Hasselbeck. And all those guys have played in Super Bowls. It's also better than sophomore phenoms Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco.

 

More importantly, the Horseshoe leads the NFL in TD to INT ratio (9 to 1).

 

He's producing on offense while minimizing mistakes – and those quarterbacks who do both win games. Just ask Brady: he's the winningest quarterback since Otto Graham, and he holds the all-time NFL record for TD-INT ratio (an amazing 2.4 TDs for every 1 INT).

 

Despite the success, we've found a legion of Broncos fans out there who still believe that the team would be in its same position – unbeaten and perhaps the class of the AFC – six weeks into the season with last year's starter, Jay Cutler, at quarterback.

 

But here's how Orton sizes up this year against the player that many Broncos fans still covet:

We can tell you in no uncertain terms that the Broncos would not be undefeated with a quarterback who's thrown seven picks this year.

 

Each pick reduces your chances of winning by 20 percentage points and that extra pick in every game would have definitely cost Denver the Cincinnati and New England games, and quite possibly the Dallas game.

 

Now, we're not saying that Cutler, behind the wheel of the Denver offense, would have thrown seven picks like he has in Chicago. It's all hypothetical here. 

 

But it's also very reasonable to expect that Cutler would have thrown a lot more than Orton's one pick – and it's reasonable to assume that a single extra pick in any of these three close games would have cost Denver victory in all three.

 

Bottom line: Quarterbacks with high passer ratings and who make few mistakes win games. The Horseshoe is Denver's quarterback. Denver has yet to lose a game. So you do the math.

 

For the record, the Horseshoe is now 27-12 as an NFL starter.

 

The great statistical story of the 2009 season, as noted earlier this year, is Denver's sudden turnaround on the defensive line.

 

The Broncos have been No. 1 in this indicator pretty much since the opening gun in Week 1. But now, after their victory over the Chargers, they're starting to get a little separation from the herd of second-rate swine.  

 

Click here for a complete look at their dominance of our Defensive Hog Index. Remember, teams that are better in our Defensive Hog Index are 20-2 in the playoffs since we introduced it two years ago. 

 

Denver's win at San Diego marks yet another outright victory for a CHFF-selected road dog this year.

 

In fact, this one was like taking fish tacos from a San Diego baby. As we noted in our Friday picks: "This is a no-brainer of an upset by a road underdog."

 

And when we talk road dogs, you should listen.

 

Nine times this year we've picked a road underdog to win outright. These road dogs are now 7-2 against the spread, and six of the nine have won outright. 

 

We went 2-0 this week (both ATS and straight up) picking road dogs to win outright. While the Denver-San Diego game was a no-brainer, we also picked the winless Chiefs, 6.5-point road underdogs at Washington, to win outright. The Chiefs delivered a 14-6 victory.