1st & Goal: Alfred Williams, Super Bowl Champion

The NFL season is inching closer and closer. Who are the contenders and who are the pretenders? We have four downs to figure out your team's future.

It's time now for First and Goal on the Zach Gelb show. Alrighty, time to preview the Denver Broncos. Alfred Williams, of course, the former defensive lineman for the Broncos, won two Super Bowls. 1996 was a first team All-Pro, and Big Al is kind enough to join us right now.

Alfred, appreciate the time. How you been? Man, I'm so good, man. Just getting excited about training camp and so excited. I'm just watching reruns of NFL games on the NFL network. Well, that's how I know that you're a former player, because you just said you're excited for training camp. If this was towards the end of your career, you wouldn't really be all that excited to go to training camp. You know, I was one of those guys that did not mind training camp because it got me away from my screaming kids at home. So I was good with it.

Absolutely love that. So last year, everyone was excited about Russell Wilson, right? You're getting a future Hall of Fame quarterback.

He was a disaster. Now you're getting a future Hall of Fame coach in Sean Payton. Is the excitement there with Sean now being at Denver? Is it like, okay, let's not do this to ourselves two years in a row if you're a fan of the Broncos?

Zach, man, I got to tell you, man, it's been night and day the way that this organization has behaved since last year at the same time. I mean, we were so excited. There was so many opportunities to see Russell Wilson on social media. We even saw him for a little bit at Wimbledon right around this time last year.

He was everywhere on everything. It was going to be a great year and then became one of the worst years. And I guess not just one of the worst years, but expectations were just absolutely blown out of the water.

And what we thought that we were getting, we got just the opposite, man. I mean, it was it was it was awful. I mean, being around here as a former player and watching this team struggle the way that they did. It was it was one of the worst years we've ever experienced around here in Denver. And I've been here since 1987 as a CU football player and a former member of this team.

It was the worst year ever. And you know this, a big part about football are the relationships. And Russ just did not connect with that locker room.

I know they tried to patch it up down the end of the season, the final two weeks. But where do you think that dynamic is at with Russell Wilson and his fellow teammates in that locker room? Well, we have a true captain that's leading this this ship with Sean Payton.

I think that's where you have to start. I think Russell Wilson basically got everything he wanted last year. And what he found out is that the things that he wanted to do, he just wasn't as good as some of the other Hall of Fame elite players, the guys like Tom Brady and and Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers.

That doesn't mean he's not a Hall of Fame player. He just couldn't execute the kind of plays that those guys were executing. And he found out the crude way and on a Monday night football game to open up the season, we were the laughing stock of the NFL.

And it continued all the way through. You know, the running joke in Denver was where Russell Wilson have more touchdown than he than he has bathrooms. And he had 14 bathrooms in his new house. So the question was, will Russell Wilson have more touchdowns in bathrooms? And it was like I said, it was disastrous. But now we have a grown up in the room with Sean Payton.

And I do believe that everything is going according to scale. When you see Russ again, he's gonna look fantastic. I mean, he looks like he's ready to go. Let me ask you this just you understand the player side of it. When you have that embarrassing of a season the way that you laid it out so eloquently and perfectly. What would you be saying as a veteran player in that locker room where some people may be afraid to address what happened last year or some people just want to forget it?

What would your message be? You know, last year's last year. I mean, no matter what you do in professional sports, it doesn't carry over necessarily to the new year. And you have to reassert yourself and start over every year like your training doesn't carry over. You know, the guy that you played against last year is not the same guy. You know, the situation. Maybe you played Green Bay last year in September.

This year could be in December. And it's a much different game. Everything changes and it's a moving scale.

And you just have to be able to balance everything and make sure that your mental are good. And I don't believe that Russell's mental were good last year. And I think it really affected the entire team. Let's get to the next down. Big Al here with us dominating KOA radio right now and former Denver Bronco, two times Super Bowl champion. So as you said, and we've seen the photos, Russell Wilson looks like he's in awesome shape. He's putted in the work. But where's your confidence level in terms of what we're gonna see out of Russell Wilson on the field this year? Man, I got us winning 11 games. I think this is a total turnaround. Russell Wilson goes back to the playoff quarterback that we remember him as. You know, we'll see Samaj P. Ryan, you know, carry the load early in the season and Javonte Williams is gonna come in and bust out that offensive line. Our right side of our offensive line is just unbelievably powerful. The defense has playmakers in the secondary. We have new pass rushers up front. This is a different team for all of those people who out there who don't understand who the Denver Broncos are.

We will be back to where we were. We will be R. T. D. Return the dominance. Those are big time statements because the AFC is loaded and that AFC West. You got the Chiefs. You got the Chargers as well. You could forget about the Raiders.

11 wins. I wasn't expecting to hear that from you, Big Al. Oh, now I'm telling you, I think, you know, I was in Vegas not long ago there. They had the line at 8.5. I hammered it, man. I hammered the 8.5. And you know what? For any of you guys out there that that love to win easy money, the 8.5 on the Denver Broncos is the easiest money going right now.

Well, I hate to say it to you. You're gonna lose that bet for one reason and one reason only. My producer extraordinaire, we call him hot take Hickey. He puts the Hickey hex on teams. Last year, he said Nathaniel Hackett would be a top three candidate for coach of the year. He said Russell Wilson was gonna win a Super Bowl, win a Super Bowl MVP, and it was absolutely horrible.

He has similar confidence to you. So if you're on the side of Hickey with hot take Hickey, that's not looking to be a good season for the Broncos. Well, that was last year.

Once again, he's doubling down. Well, well, well, I think Nathaniel Hackett this year is gonna look really good with Aaron Rodgers. I think everything that he does centers around his success with Aaron Rodgers. And you know, for the for the people in New York that love football, man, you're gonna have a chance to see a talented coach with a talented quarterback that can do it all. Russell Wilson's not in the same category. You know, I'm once again, it does not mean he's not a Hall of Fame quarterback.

They just do things differently. When you look at this offense this year, so we expect to bounce back here for Ross. I like Javante Williams when he's healthy, right? Offense line and injuries last year. You look at the receivers.

Do you think the receivers are good enough? Because Jerry Judy, I thought he would be a whole lot better professional football player than what we've seen so far. You know, I think what happened is that Jerry Judy, it came too quick for him. You know, I think everybody thought that, you know, when the Denver Broncos draft the core of a wide receiver in the first round, he's gonna get a gold jacket.

And maybe that's what Jerry Judy thought coming in here. And it was just not that too many drop balls. You had mental mistakes and it just became just a terrible situation with Drew lock in him. And it never got better because Drew throws a hard football. And then things changed when Teddy Bridgewater came in here. He was soft tossing them.

And of course, Jerry Judy caught all of them. And Russell Wilson, another guy who is a soft toss kind of quarterback. He doesn't necessarily drill it.

So they throw easy catchable football. Jerry duty shows up now big. And I think when you look at at the end of the year, he'll have a good year. I think he'll be a thousand yard receivers, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he is a great receiver. A thousand yards in this business now in 17 games, you know, is not a great number.

When you start seeing guys around 16 1700. That's a guy having a great year, but Jerry Judy will get over 1000 in this new offense. Let's get to the next down. Few more moments of big Al here with us on CBS Sports Radio.

This is that Gelb show. We know that Broncos secondary is tremendous. It's tough to find the better secondary in the NFL, the one that they have. How about the rest of the defense? What stands out to you with this defensive unit? Well, I think when you look at it, I think you start with the defensive coordinator Vance Joseph and what he wants to do.

I think he's want he wants to attack and you know that that's a that's a that when you have a coordinator who wants to attack and put some pressure on your cornerbacks. But luckily, you know, we have a young guy who can match up with pretty much every wide receiver in the NFL and I think it's going to work out great. We have great athleticism at the linebacker position. Our defensive line has been bolstered and is strong.

And once again, I think we have the kind of safety zone. If you go back through the history of the Denver Broncos, you can look at the safety position and it's always been great and it continues there. Our defense was third last year and third down seventh and red zone.

I mean, we that's the strength of this team. We're going to be good on the defensive side of the ball and let's get to the final down. You know a thing or two about hitting the quarterback. It's so difficult at the quarterback. Now you've been a former defensive player. How about the way that you watch the game now with all the rules that prevent defensive players from being what they once were. You know, I actually love the way that the game is being officiated now. You know, there's a there's a part of this game that is beautiful and but it's got to be played right up into the whistle.

And then, you know, you got to give your opponent a chance to escape. But you know, there's a problem when you have quarterbacks that run outside of the pocket and escape the pocket and they're running with the football. Bro, we got issues.

We got issues. If you're going to take off outside the pocket, you should not even be allowed to slide. If you ask me, you stay your ass in that pocket and you throw the football or you take a punishment. I like that. I like the intensity.

Last thing I'll ask you. You said 11 games that they're going to get this year. The Denver Broncos. Where does that put them in that division? Just behind Kansas City? Right behind Kansas City.

I think we split with Kansas City. I think we sweep the Raiders and I think that we will sweep the new I want to say San Diego, but the Los Angeles Chargers. This is going to be a great season for the Denver Broncos as a bounce back here.

Russell will be vindicated. You know, we'll have the kind of season. I was talking to Big Al about this only because I understand what they've done on the offensive lines, the defensive lines. You know, we got Frank Clark, D.J. Jones, Zach Allen, free agents at the last year or two. And I'm telling you, they make a huge difference on the defense and the offensive line with with McGlinchy. And I'm telling you, that was a big pickup. We haven't had a right tackle man.

The right tackle position for two years consecutively in 15 years. So this is going to be big for us. I'm ready for a great football season. You guys should, too. Big Al, we appreciate it. Thanks so much. Appreciate the time, Alfred Williams. OK, buddy. Take care.