Was John Fox's Mile High résumé as impressive as it appears?

So John Fox is out after four seasons, four AFC West titles and four playoff appearances as the Broncos' coach, taking his franchise-best .690 winning percentage (49-22) with him to parts unknown.
But is Fox's record really as shiny as it appears?
I've broken the 49 wins and 22 losses down into the following splits so judge for yourself:

Regular season: 46-18 (.719), Postseason: 3-4 (.429)
Home: 28-9 (.757), Road: 21-12 (.636), Neutral: 0-1 (.000)
AFC West: 21-4 (.840), Non-AFC West: 28-18 (.609)
AFC: 38-16 (.704), NFC: 11-6 (.647)
Playoff qualifiers: 12-16 (.429), Non-playoff qualifiers: 37-6 (.860)
Winning teams: 17-17 (.500), .500 teams: 9-2 (.818), Losing teams: 23-3 (.885)
Favorite (SU): 41-12 (.774); Underdog (SU): 6-10 (.375); Pick (SU): 1-1 (.500)
Favorite (ATS): 30-23 (.566); Underdog (ATS): 7-9 (.438); Pick (ATS): 1-1 (.500)
Peyton Manning starts: 40-13 (.755); Tim Tebow starts: 8-5 (.615); Kyle Orton starts: 1-4 (.200)

Some notables from the above:

• 75.5 percent of Fox's victories came against teams which didn't make the playoffs
• Fox's teams were 32-5 (.865) against teams which finished .500 or worse, including 25-1 (.962) during Manning's three seasons
• Fox's teams were 0-4 as underdogs in the Manning era
• Three of Fox's four postseason losses came in games in which the Broncos were favored

7 Denver Broncos Bar Bet-Settling Draft Facts

On the eve of the NFL's first May draft, here are seven Denver Bronco factoids, useful for impressing your friends, flaunting on Twitter and possibly winning a bar bet -- or seven.

Here goes . . .

• In their 54-year draft history, the Orange and Blue have selected seven Hall of Famers, but only two of them -- RB Floyd Little (first round, 1967) and TE Shannon Sharpe (seventh, '92) -- ever suited up for the Broncos. Four of the remaining five -- DT Merlin Olsen (first, '62), S Paul Krause (12th, '64), WR Bob Hayes (14th, '64) and LB Dick Butkus (second, '65) -- spurned the then-AFL upstarts to sign with the more established NFL, while the other (DT Curley Culp; second, '68) was traded away in training camp before ever playing a down for Denver.
• Thirteen players have played 170 or more games for the Broncos, but S Dennis Smith (184 games) is the only Denver first-round pick among the group.
• Speaking of lone first-round Broncos picks, LB John Mobley ('96) is the only one to hail from a non-Division I program in the Common Draft Era ('67- present) after starring for DII Kutztown (Pa.) State.
• Since '67, Florida, Houston and USC are the most common alma maters (12 apiece) for Denver draft picks.
• As for most popular positions, the Broncos have most frequently drafted running backs and linebackers (six apiece) in the Common Draft Era.
• Of the 64 wide receivers the Broncos have drafted in their history, only Vance Johnson (second, '85) and Brandon Marshall (fourth, '06) have recorded 300 or more catches while playing in the Mile High City. Johnson had 415 grabs in 11 seasons, while Marshall had 302 in his four years in Denver.
• We wrap things up by dropping some QB knowledge. The Broncos have drafted 35 quarterbacks in their history, but only Brian Griese (third, '98) and Jay Cutler (first, '06) have more career Bronco passing yards than Peyton Manning had in 2013 alone, when he threw for an NFL single-season record 5,477 yards. Griese had 11,763 yards in 53 games for the Broncos, while Cutler had 9,024 in 37 contests.

Denver Broncos' 2014 schedule: 7 need-to-know nuggets

In case you somehow missed it, the Denver Broncos' 2014 schedule was released Wednesday.
And in honor of Hall of Famer and NFL Network schedule-release show guest John Elway, here are seven need-to-know notables about the Orange and Blue's just-posted itinerary:

• The Broncos' Sept. 7 Sunday Night Football opener against the Indianapolis Colts will mark the fourth straight season -- each year of the John Fox era -- that they've kicked off the season with a prime-time, nationally televised home game. They fell to the Oakland Raiders on Monday night in 2011, beat the Pittsburgh Steelers on SNF in '12 (Peyton Manning's regular-season Broncos debut) and walloped the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night a year ago.
• Incidentally, the Colts will be playing a regular-season contest in the Mile High City without Manning as their starting QB for the first time since 1993, when Elway and the Broncos battered Jack Trudeau and Indy, 35-13, in a Week 5 matchup.
• Of Denver's first eight opponents on the new schedule: each finished at least .500 or better in 2013, six finished with 10 or more wins, six qualified for the postseason and three of them -- like the Broncos -- made it as far as the NFL's Final Four (conference championship games).
• That rugged opening stretch is highlighted by the Broncos' Week 3 visit to Seattle to take on the defending-champion Seahawks in a rematch of Super Bowl XLVIII. The Broncos have faced the defending Super Bowl champ in nine of the past 20 seasons, winning four contests and losing five. As aforementioned, Denver routed the 2012-champion Ravens, 49-27, to open this past season.
• The NFL did the Orange and Blue no favors by slotting them in the first bye-week session (Week 4) of the season. It will be the earliest bye week for the Broncos in recent seasons and will match the 2006 and 1993 campaigns, when the Broncos also had Week 4 byes. That means  13 straight weeks without a break to end the regular season and possibly 16 consecutive weeks of action if they were to make it to the Super Bowl as a wild-card team. That's draining even writing about it.
• While the early half of the Broncos' schedule is demanding -- at least as we peruse it on paper here this spring -- the latter part is no cakewalk, either, with six of  the squad playing six of its final nine games on the road. That stretch kicks off with a run of three consecutive away games -- at New England (Nov. 2), at Oakland (Nov. 9) and at St. Louis (Nov. 16) -- the Broncos' first string of back-to-back-to-back road tilts since 2010 and the seventh such span since the regular season increased to 16 games in 1978. Aside from 2010 -- when they lost at Kansas City, Arizona and Oakland -- the Broncos went 1-2 on their three-game road trips in '97, '95, '94, '81 and '79.
• The Broncos' Dec. 22 game in Cincinnati will mark the final Monday Night Football contest of the season and the Broncos' 23rd straight season with a MNF appearance. The 1991 campaign was the last Denver season without a Monday night tilt.