FanPost

Orton Overthrowing Royal is a Good Thing?

In a Yahoo sports May 4th article titled “Denver ’s coach and quarterback in this together”, Charles Robinson writes;

‘It could have been perceived as a negative moment, but Josh McDaniels saw more promise than virus. The Denver Broncos coach watched wideout Eddie Royal blister a path between a safety and cornerback 50 yards downfield, stretching his arms out in the end zone. But the arching spiral from quarterback Kyle Orton was inches too far, dropping to the earth with the thud of a manhole cover.’

 

Now I was an Orton guy, really I was, I rooted for him to succeed, and I was looking forward to his play in 2009, but I wasn’t looking forward to a scene like the one above.

‘Kyle’s arm,” the coach would later pointedly say, “was strong enough to overthrow Eddie Royal today.”  …  So when told of critics inside the Bears franchise who lacked faith in Orton’s arm strength, McDaniels simply protested and offered Sunday’s snapshot, when his fastest wideout couldn’t catch up to Orton’s deep ball.’

No one ever questioned Orton’s arm strength (he overthrew Devin Hester on more than one occasion), it was his deep ball accuracy that was the question mark.  Bears fans saw Orton miss deep passes time and time again last year, occasionally getting bailed out by a pass interference penalty, sometimes getting bailed out by some acrobatic plays by Brandon Lloyd (probably the first time any Bears fan had something nice to say about Lloyd's tenure in Chicago), but Bronco fans, for your sake, I hope Orton’s overthrowing days are over.

This Fanpost was written by a Windy City Gridiron member and does not necessarily reflect the ideas or opinions of its staff or community.