I appreciate the dialogue and opinion, but some of these rebuttals are a bit absurd. Ware had 11.5 sacks in 2012 and was injured much of last season. He recently had surgery on his arm and seems to be ready for Week 1. Even with his recent years under 12+ sacks, he never played opposite Von Miller, which means he won't be double teamed every play. My whole statement about 12+sacks is if Ware and Von play together. Von is supposedly ahead of schedule, and will probably start week 1.
As far as Von being on PEDs, that's just ridiculous. Von was never in question over PEDs, he was suspended for marijuana. As you stated, recovery from the ACL is not a huge concern.
Many argued that Talib was your best defender prior to getting traded. Now he was always injured and replaceable. DT struggled every time he faced Talib. Taking him away and adding him to the team is definitely a plus for the Broncos.
As far as Decker vs Sanders, they are completely different players. Decker is not horrible, but he struggled vs physical CBs. He ran good routes when he wasn't jammed and Peyton found him a lot. Sanders makes his money from making people miss and picking up huge amounts of YAC. Even with Welker and Julius Thomas underneath, Denver only had Demaryius Thomas who could take a short pass and make people miss.
Re: Ware. If I had to guess, I would project him for 10-12 sacks. He's a very good edge rusher. But you seem to be projecting that an over-30 guy coming off of a down, injury-plagued season is going to automatically rebound to 2011 form in 2014 because he's playing opposite Von Miller, and I think that's just as foolish as assuming that he's not going to be any good. If he can get back to his 2012 form, that's a good benchmark IMO. The issue, then, is that his 2012 form is better than Shaun Phillips' 2013 form, but it's certainly not $8M better. So my guess would be that you'll be better at DE, but at a lower cost effectiveness. Which, to be frank, says more about how much of a bargain Phillips was last year than it does about Ware.
Re: Miller, didn't he test positive for MDMA as well? In any case, the point still stands since that it's not a PED. I don't see any reason not to expect a full-ish, healthy-ish season from Miller. He might be rusty at first, pending recovery, but he should be at full strength down the stretch, which is what really matters since Denver's making the playoffs with or without him, even with the brutal schedule that they have.
Re: Talib, you could absolutely make the case that when healthy he was the best player on our D. It was either him, McCourty, Mayo, Wilfork, or Chandler Jones. But FWIW, prior to the start of FA, both last year and this year, I expressed a lot of nervousness at the prospect of committing long-term guaranteed money to him, and I was far from alone in that regard. After seeing how the contract is structured, and specifically that the last 2 years are fake and that the commitment is much smaller both in terms of years and in 'guaranteed' money, I don't think the dela is nearly as bad for Denver as I did originally. I still think they paid for healthy Talib when precedent suggests that they'll be getting something much less valuable than that the majority of the time. But it's hard to get shutdown corners, and there's usually some risk when you sign them in FA. That's his risk, for better or worse.
Re: Decker, I actually think that Sanders isn't a huge downgrade in terms of skill. Where he is a signfiicant downgrade, IMO, is fit. You say that Decker couldn't make guys miss and pick up a ton of YAC, but that's true for almost all 6'3" WRs. What he could do was go down the sideline, body up the corner, and catch anything that Manning lobbed his way. Sanders can't do that. So if last year you were an offense with two big-bodied sideline receivers and only one of them could pick up YAC, now you have two guys who can pick up YAC and only one big-bodied guy who can work the sidelines. Considering what Welker and Caldwell bring to the table in their own right, Decker gave the Broncos more versatility in how they could attack defenses. But even if Sanders is a downgrade on that front, he's still a good WR, and they can still afford to regress quite a bit from "best offense in NFL history" and still remain top-tier.
Go figure.
