Great thread! This was Shanahan's bread and butter for a few years. It made some average running backs look real good. Say what you want about Elway, it was the blocking scheme that got him his rings. Kubiack took it with him to Houston and has evolved it there. While still fairly effective, like all things the other side figures out how to counter it and it loses its overwhelming advantage. Just looking at Denver's history, I'd almost say that it leads to running back injuries more than any position on the defense although I have nothing solid to back that up. Just none of the RB's lasted very long there and did nothing when moving to a different team. The defense hates it most because it makes them look stupid when it works.

"It was the blocking scheme that got him his rings"

That's an ignorant way to look at it. What about the DRIVE or the fact that Elway played against great defenses(ie the 90s giants)? You could say this for basically every qb ever. The way Elway avoided the sack? Plus the teams elway beat in the super bowls didn't have the great defenses anyway(packers) so the blockers doing what they did probably didn't change anything.

Ignorant is a pretty strong word. The Drive was against Cleveland and it got him to the Superbowl, but no ring. He went there four times based pretty much only on his talents and the defense, but no ring. It wasn't until Shanahan brought in the zone blocking schemes that frustrated and puzzled many teams -some with very good defenses that gave Denver an amazing three year (including two championships) run. I'm not taking anything away from Elway's talents. He is one of the greats. It's just it took more than him to finally get there and those blocking schemes were a large part of that.

The defense? That team basically revolved around offense to be honest. I feel that him getting there as many times as he did(and the drive) is just as impressive as him getting the rings( and he got there without the blocking).

There were good defenses. But you should remember that the actual teams that Elway beat in the actual bowl had pretty meh defenses(packers and falcons).

You should also think about the defenses that elways lost to in the superbowls(giants of the 90s). The giants of the 90s were a much different team than the packers and falcons so that blocking scheme may not have worked so well on them.

I'm not knocking you, it's just I consider Elway the 2nd greatest qb ever (with brees at first of course).

Yes even more than Marino and Montanna and Unitas.
Seeing what Brees did after leaving San Diego just skyrocketed him to the #1 spot on my list(And I'd still say that if I wasn't a saints fan). And seeing the stuff Elway did puts him at 2nd for me. Then Marino, then Brady, then Peyton Manning, then Montanna.

Great thread! This was Shanahan's bread and butter for a few years. It made some average running backs look real good. Say what you want about Elway, it was the blocking scheme that got him his rings. Kubiack took it with him to Houston and has evolved it there. While still fairly effective, like all things the other side figures out how to counter it and it loses its overwhelming advantage. Just looking at Denver's history, I'd almost say that it leads to running back injuries more than any position on the defense although I have nothing solid to back that up. Just none of the RB's lasted very long there and did nothing when moving to a different team. The defense hates it most because it makes them look stupid when it works.

I don't agree with you on all parts of that statement. The blocking ofcourse helped Elway, its hard for a QB to be effective without having a good O-line in front of him. But IMO it helped the runningbacks a whole lot more, Clinton Portis and Terell Davis are the only 2 guys they have had that has been real studs, the rest of them just average backs that could read the cutback lane and gain yards in a RB friendly scheme.