Perhaps the biggest issue Broncos great Terrell Davis sees his former organization facing these days is rediscovering just what it wants to be on the field.

"To me, it's just the inconsistent play on the field," the former running back said Tuesday between Super Bowl Media Day sessions, a full 10 years since he was preparing for the second of Denver's back-to-back championships.

"They really don't have an identity," he added. "Who is this team? What are they trying to do? When I played, you know what we were trying to do."

Rediscovering a go-to philosophy, though, will be the responsibility of new coach Josh McDaniels. The prospect of moving on without Mike Shanahan at the helm remains "weird" and "surprising" to Davis, the NFL's 1998 Most Valuable Player.

And he isn't yet willing to concede the new boss is the same as the old boss.

"I'm more of a wait-and-see guy. I don't know," Davis said. "I know Josh has done great in New England. But you also see assistants leave New England, as in Romeo Crennel, Eric Mangini. You see these two guys go and you expect them to be great because they come from a pretty good program. But that hasn't been the result. I'm waiting to see if (McDaniels) can do it. The fact that he's a young guy, there's going to be some challenges there."

Davis' teams had few problems when he joined the Broncos. By his second season, the team was the No. 1 seed in the 1996 playoffs but was upset by Jacksonville at home. The wins in Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII followed.

But in the past decade, Denver has won only one postseason game, contributing heavily to Shanahan's firing after 14 seasons.

After the firing, Davis went on the set of NFL Network's Total Access program, for which he serves as analyst, and chided the Broncos for unceremoniously dumping his former coach.

In hindsight, Davis has reconsidered his position some.

"Maybe I'm a little nostalgic, so I think about the great years we had with him and how great a coach he was," Davis said. "And I think more so about those times and those days that I tend not to think of recent memory. So I'm a little biased when it comes to Mike because I'm thinking, 'What he had worked. His formula was good.' But maybe in today's game, with the guys that he has, maybe the message was just not the same.

"A nice suit 10 years ago may not be a nice suit today."

Davis is impressed with the Broncos' current offensive core and sees the retention of assistant coaches Bobby Turner and Rick Dennison as a sign the team will retain the tried-and-true Denver running game.

Davis would like to see one back emerge as the workhorse in that system.

"They need one guy . . . ," he said. "The one guy I've heard - and I've talked to a number of guys on that team - is Ryan Torain. They say he's the guy. But I've only got three looks at him. So it's hard to make a (judgment)."

But true work - and identity - is needed on defense, where the team is expected to switch to a hybrid 3-4 scheme.

"They've gone through so many defensive coordinators, it's ridiculous," Davis said.