Mike Martz has been there, stunned that. He was the offensive coordinator of the Rams when they won the Super Bowl a year after winning four games, the greatest single-season turnaround in NFL history. We mention it only because, when Martz looks at these Denver Broncos, of which little was expected, he is reminded of those Rams. 'We started adding some guys, and things started falling into place. And then we just knew,' Martz said. 'You'll know when you're going to be a good team. You just know. It's about how guys go about their craft, their attention to detail, how passionate they are, how much it means to them. We had guys who were passionate and fun to be around, and the Broncos have that too.' There will be no turnaround in Denver to match the one in St. Louis circa 1999. There can't be. The Broncos won eight games a year ago and led the AFC West for most of the season. But if you witnessed the depths to which their defense fell, you know just how dramatic their turnaround has been. Dramatic? Yes, not to mention unlikely and improbable. But unbelievable and impossible? No. Not in the NFL, where the salary cap has rendered most teams a few savvy free-agent pickups from contending overnight. 'Give Josh McDaniels credit,' former Redskins and Texans GM Charlie Casserly said of Denver's coach. 'They made some good personnel moves, and they've done a good job scheming people. You do that and you can turn things around in a hurry.' It happened in St. Louis 10 years ago. It happened in Baltimore a year later. You remember the 2000 Ravens. One year after defining mediocrity at 8-8, Ray Lewis was dancing the dance at the Super Bowl. Oh, and the 2001 Patriots, who won the first of three Lombardi Trophies in a span of four years. Anyone remember their record the year before the dynasty left the launch pad? That would be 5-11. Dramatic turnarounds happen nearly every year. In 2008, the Dolphins won the AFC East a year after winning one game. Of course, these things work both ways. The Packers were 13-3 in 2007 and 6-10 last season. Then you have the Panthers, arguably the league's most unpredictable team in recent seasons. They finished 7-9 in 2007 and 12-4 in '08 before stumbling to a 2-3 start through the season's first six weeks. The Broncos? They're not the only 8-8 team from 2008 that has taken the league by storm. The undefeated Saints have marched over everyone, and Drew Brees has stamped himself as an MVP candidate. How do these turnarounds happen so routinely? It starts at the top. The Dolphins and Ravens turned things around after hiring new head coaches. Same with the Broncos this season. There's no one factor, or even a handful, that explains the Broncos' turnaround. But Pat Bowlen's hiring of McDaniels sits atop all the others. 'There's a big difference between coaches in the NFL and coaches in baseball or basketball,' Broncos tight end Daniel Graham said. 'In those sports, you could almost have a player/coach per se. In this sport, you can't do it. The coach has a huge part in how a team plays.' Said cornerback Champ Bailey: 'Coaches are going to get the best out of you or the worst out of you. It's one or the other. In the NFL, the talent is spread so evenly, the best coaches are the ones who get the best out of their players. That's what Josh is doing.' For starters, anyway. McDaniels the coach has been well served by McDaniels the personnel evaluator, the man who hired defensive coordinator Mike Nolan and defensive line coach Wayne Nunnely before embarking on a free-agent shopping spree that netted Brian Dawkins, Andr? Goodman, Renaldo Hill and Andra Davis. Even when McDaniels had to make a decision by default, he pushed the right button. To wit: With several teams pursuing Jay Cutler after he fell out of favor with the new coach, McDaniels swung a trade for Kyle Orton when he could have pursued Brady Quinn, who has been benched in Cleveland, or Jason Campbell, who is barely holding onto his job in Washington. It isn't just the hirings and signings, though. McDaniels has done an amazing job of instilling a new attitude at Dove Valley, where several insiders, Bowlen and Rod Smith among them, have admitted there was a sour mood around the locker room in the latter stages of the Mike Shanahan regime. 'Don't get me wrong, I think Shanahan is a great coach,' Bailey said. 'I just think we had people ... whether it was in the locker room or on the staff, we had a lot of doubters within the building. You can't win like that.' Good luck finding any doubters around Dove Valley right now. 'The reason players buy into what you're doing is because you're detailed,' Martz said. 'When you're detailed in every aspect, you can tell a player how he can be a better player. Then you have him in the palm of your hand because better players make more money and all that stuff. 'Dormant talent is one of the worst things in the NFL. When a coach is really outstanding, he can show a player, 'OK, here's where you are now, and here's where you can be.'And he can show him how to get there. When guys aren't quite sure, this game moves so fast that, with just a fraction of hesitation, you get beat.' The key moment in the Broncos' turnaround? Chris Simms says Brandon Stokley's 87-yard Immaculate Deflection at Cincinnati was a major momentum builder. But Martz believes it was something else. To him, the snapshot of the Broncos' season came during the Dallas game, when McDaniels and Brandon Marshall hugged after Marshall's game-winning 51-yard touchdown catch. The same Marshall whom McDaniels suspended a few weeks earlier for conduct detrimental to the team. Said Martz: 'Here's what happens: When a new coach comes in, the veterans say, 'OK, does he really mean it?'When Josh suspended Marshall, he was saying, 'Here's how it's going to be, and I'm not going to tolerate anything. Here's the standard for everybody, players and coaches.'When you do that, you instill trust, and great confidence and chemistry starts to build. 'Those players trust each other, and that's one of the coolest things for an NFL team. It wasn't just Josh embracing Marshall. All those veterans embraced him too. It was their way of saying, 'Hey, welcome back.'When you have that kind of trust, there's no telling what a team can do.' 