Earlier this season, there were few players in the NFL who would have wanted to trade places with Denver special teams player Domenik Hixon.
It seemed like "Hix" had a "hex" --on himself.
The Broncos took him in the fourth round of the 2006 NFL Draft. He promptly broke his leg and missed his rookie season.
In his second year in Denver, he lasted all of two months. As usual, when something goes wrong, head coach Mike Shanahan, instead of looking in the mirror, looks for a scapegoat. Special teams was anything but special and as a result, in October, Hixon got a one-way ticket out of Dove Valley.
Today, Hixon is healed from his broken leg, while Denver fans are mending a broken heart over yet another non-playoff season.
At this point, you might expect Hixon to gloat. After all, the Broncos thought such stalwarts as Glenn Martinez and Andre Hall could return kicks better than Hixon, so he became expendable. Martinez did something that Hixon never did in a Broncos uniform: he took a punt back to the house for a touchdown. Small victory for Denver. Domenik is going to the Super Bowl---huge win for the Giants, thanks to a huge postseason contribution from a player they claimed off of Denver's scrap heap.
In fairness to Shanahan, when they released Hixon, they were hoping to put him on the practice squad. Then again, if you have somebody on the practice squad as opposed to the active roster, how much confidence do you really have in him?
What bothered me more than anything about this story is how dour Shanahan has become over Hixon's success. Instead of crediting Hixon--a player Shanahan saw potential in when nobody else did--he chose to instead take a skeptical approach to Hixon's accomplishments since leaving Denver.
For the record, in a Week 17 loss to the Patriots, a game the Giants can seek revenge on in the Super Bowl, Hixon had eight returns for 221 yards. Included in that total was a 74-yard touchdown kick return for a score.
This could be one of those rare occasions when Shanahan, a questionable evaluator of talent, could say, "I knew Hixon had it in him and that is why we drafted him."
Instead he said this: "Just because a guy has an 85-yard kickoff return [actually, 74 yards as stated above] doesn't mean that guy's arrived." Come on, Mike, be happy for the guy.
"I still think he's got a ways to go before he arrives," he added.
Hixon summed up Shanahan's thoughts on him by saying, "I can tell how he feels."
Shanahan saw something in Hixon that others didn't. Though, by listening to him, it seems like his reaction is nothing but sour grapes. Too bad because ask anyone who covers this team, Hixon is a good guy, and what's that saying again? "Good things happen to good people."
Congrats to Hixon, good luck in the Super Bowl, kid.
Mike Shanahan, like the rest of America, will be sitting home and watching....and wondering what could have been.
-"Z"
