All of you Broncos fans who are still debating the value of this stable of quarterbacks should stop it, that ship has sailed. Brock Osweiler and Siemian are, at best, career backups while Paxton Lynch is fighting like hell to overcome that ankle injury (wink, wink) and prove he even belongs in the NFL.
I totally understand Lynch's fears given the toxic combination of our offensive line, crappy play-calling and over-inflated expectations of every quarterback. But even with one eye, you can see that the pirate Paxton is headed back out to sea soon. In other words, unless we commit to a full rebuild and wait for him improvement plan, that ship has sailed too.
Deciding to play Lynch in an inconsequential game because Kansas City has secured the AFC West title doesn't lessen the dangers of playing any NFL player who isn't desperately angling to display his skill and will to win. Unlike Lynch, Siemian is tough as nails and eager to play with pain as needed. If the Chiefs aren't okay with losing prior to the playoffs, this game could send Lynch back to hijacking forever, assuming our offensive line and play-calling jump ship again.
Nonetheless, if there remains any debate in the Denver quarterback conversation and you'd like to flip a coin between Siemian and Osweiler, I will save you the trouble and give you Osweiler on an ounce of durability Siemian hasn't proven to possess.
It's not really important that the Broncos fans or the coaching staff have finally sort of accepted the mediocrity of their quarterbacks even if it has helped them to start calling more of the kind of plays that gives NFL QB mediocrity a chance in hell. CJ Anderson looking like CJ Anderson should have been our primary quarterback plan from day one, but too much conversation about Jamal Charles, Devontae Booker and bringing the "juice' confused all of that.
While a fair amount of losing has shined a light, exposed our weaknesses and shown us a direction for winning, recent games still point to a coaching staff hell-bent on proving to Elway that they can bring that juice he hired them for, despite every attempt to do so leading to turnovers, losing and a bunch of excuses why they have no choice but to juice it up when down one or two scores early, as if the smart fans of Denver forgot who hired you and what he asked you to bring.
At least Vance is no longer sprinkling this rancid tasting juice he and John concocted with that excuse of no identity anymore. Someone in the GM office must have informed him the two guys that are responsible for establishing such things.
Though we seem reluctant to embrace it, the identity of this team is the identity of winning in this league. We should know it by now because Seattle set the tone when they destroyed us with it in Superbowl 48, and every team since (Denver in Superbowl 50, the Patriots in 49 & 51) either mimicked the same formula or they don't have a ring on their fingers.
Tom Brady and the New England Patriots may have been forced to abandon it when coming back to win the crown last year, but even Brady and Belichick employ the run the ball and play defense approach until you make them change it. No name after no name has proven effective running for New England, and the Atlanta Falcons were clearly the team trying to win with the offense during last years Superbowl defeat to the Patriots.
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| Like Floyd Little and The Orange Crush D, are Terrell Davis and great defense more symbolic of the Broncos identity than a scrambling Elway and his rocket arm? |
Interceptions dating back to our championship season two years ago have created a collective longing for the days of the No Limit Soldiers. Now, you can virtually hear a collective exclamation all across Broncos Country of "run the damn ball....please", each time the team goes three and out.
When the Broncos have won in recent years they have primarily committed to a single back approach and to running the ball twice as much as they pass. When they lose, no particular running back get's enough attempts to find a rhythm and the run to pass numbers reverse themselves. It's that simple. Elway desired something juicier than Tebow from the moment he first acquired Peyton Manning and he continues to look for better and juicier stuff like he enjoyed from his younger years when he was a young stud Californian turned Bronco trying to cheat the process with a rocket arm and coming up short in the end.
In a search for something juicier, Elway lets go of an older John Fox in a move that was mutually desired. Friendship or not, the exact same thing could be said of the Kubiak departure. Elway's current marriage to Vance Joseph came with a couple of years of courting him and with a prenuptial expectation of something that sounded to fans like a return to the run-first approach in Denver that was famous for a salute and for making household names out of anybody who took to the Broncos backfield. Why John isn't a bit wiser about the dangers of the juice only John, and maybe his ex-wife Janet, understands.
If that last paragraph was too outdated or double entendre-filled for some to follow, you can trace Denver's commitment to an identity to very recent history when we begrudgingly ran the ball behind the legendary Peyton Manning en route to a Superbowl victory. The more this team attempts to win in a way diametrically opposed to methods of a recent past, our Superbowl 50 magic starts to look more and more like the wisdom of Elway's former love, Gary Kubiak, who decided to salvage their friendship by ending the coaching relationship.
Kubiak and tons of smart fans might have left that championship season feeling towards Elway the same way the rest of us are starting to feel now. Even in victory, those skeptical fans were right to question Elway's general ability to manage tough situations, much less to be the full-fledged General Manager and VP of Operations over a proud and accomplished organization.
From my personal Kharma-inspired view of life and sports, much of the bad luck is the byproduct of Elway's Tim Tebow mistake, when he ironically had no choice but to manage around someone else's mediocre first-round QB pick who was also learning to play but was actually winning while doing it, unlike now. That also worked way more than Elway anticipated and Tebow earned a chance to stay in this league, at the least, to learn the game behind Manning.
With Tebow and Kubiak, Elway shunned the hoopla and results to prove he could do better.
On the surface, Superbowl 50 appeared to be Elway's fulfillment on that promise, but once again, it's beginning to feel more and more an accident with every passing day. Well, not an accident, but certainly not as much of an Elway creation as we thought at the time.
Since that Superbowl victory, a few of the players Elway determined expendable (Malik Jackson, Danny Trevathan, TJ Ward) have left some to wonder if he even recognized the elements that stirred our defense into greatness. Some of the same concern applies to his drafting of quarterbacks.When you look at his quarterbacks on paper, they all have "the look" though none have shown the 'it' factor that makes Russell Wilson or Drew Brees not need the statuesque look that Elway seems to covet.
The slight against Elway and his current coaching staff is for their passionate departure from an identity that won a ring, and for possibly putting politics over championships by rejecting Colin Kaepernick. Kharma is a ghost. Letting go of Tim Tebow and head coaches more capable than Vance Elway while deciding Kaepernick didn't deserve the same cup of coffee you gave Mark Sanchez are coming back to haunt Dove Valley and everyone who works there.
TIn fact, it might be the ghosts at Dove Valley that have apparently forced some folks on the Broncos coaching staff to start accepting their identity and return to the Tim Tebow formula for winning games, making winning much more likely regardless the competition. Control the ball and limit turnovers and Denver still has a defense able to dominate teams like the Indianapolis Colts, the New York Jets or even a Kansas City Chiefs team that has little to nothing to play for this today. Turn the ball over and the Broncos make pathetic teams with pathetic names like the Washington Redskins look special.
If the juice John covets is actually just creative play-calling, he's actually on the right track. Denver will need something juicier than Vance Elway and his staff could muster this season if he is fortunate enough to find his voice and return to introduce himself to fans who still don't know much about him.
Assuming he is not retained, Vance at least can start trying to recapture whatever remains of his own forgotten name and reputation. If I were Vance Elway, I would take solace from the reality that this team has looked virtually the same no matter who has coached it in recent years, so it might not be the head coach causing this.
Hindsight and the tape say had they given CJ the ball another 15 times for 88 yards versus the Washington Redskins, they probably would have eliminated the passing game turnovers that turned a very winnable game against them.
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| Ovussly, the recent championship history did not make this job the jewel Joseph hoped it would be. |
I would call Vance Elway a wife who needed a better prenuptial lawyer, but that five-year deal doesn't kiss ass even if Vance clearly does. If he stays or goes, he'll be like Tiger Woods ex-wife, just fine.
There's really no way Vance is the main reason we have switched quarterbacks like underwear from preseason on anyway. His devotion to Elway created that mess. My biggest problem with Vance Elway comes when he is questioned about his quarterbacks. He almost never says 'I", preferring instead to describe every decision that is made as "We decided", which means "Elway made me do it" to us smart Broncos fans.
When addressing the brilliant media of a smart fan base, Kubiak often had to differentiate between decisions where he made the final call versus decisions when Elway might have felt differently. Kubiak demanded freedom from front office intrusion when he took the job and regularly shot back at reporters with the words "John understands that I have a team to coach".
In hindsight, did John understand or did he have an issue with the previous coaches he couldn't intrude upon? Ovussly, Vance Elway and a five-year commitment to a company man coach who tows the company line kinda answers that question fo' us, doesn't it? Reports say John will announce his future with Vance after the final game ends, so we'll soon see.
Warning, Vance Elway!!!
Simply towing the company line might appear to be in the best interest of your career, but not necessarily in a town like Denver where fans are just too smart and too engaged to even endure HOF coaches for a minute too long when it's time for them to go. It's also not so smart if you are building a future resume of coaching style expectations for other teams to examine. Eventually, Vance will need to divorce himself from being John's newest love interest just to establish his own name as an NFL head coach, especially since John is treading water at GM and seems more focused on becoming an owner someday so he can do his intruding like Jerry Jones does it.
Vance would also do well to realize that John's history with coaches thus far has not been any better than his quarterback drafting skills. Smart fans of Denver are willing to give John and Vance Elway time to grow with the rebuild, but we haven't forgotten the kind of coaches John already let go of. A coach with any less a spine than our last three runs the risk of becoming like Jason Garrett or whoever is the next Jerry Jones puppet in Dallas.
John and Vance need to immediately take a knee and pray together. Partially to stay together beyond one year- which will look terribly bad on both men- and partially that Kyle Sloter never turns into much of anything so Broncos fans don't have to burn John and Vance in effigy as we continue searching for a future at quarterback that isn't currently in-house.
Instead of squeezing through impossible Superbowl windows, I'm all in favor of drafting and developing offensive players who can catch a punt return or play with pain to open a Superbowl door in the near future instead of just beating these two frightened ponies called Isaiah McKenzie and Paxton Lynch to death.
Even if they finally play every player we need to know about on today, John and Vance Elway should both be held accountable for this team's lack of player development, the unwillingness to play players you trusted enough to keep after preseason, and for an overall directional stalemate.
If you follow the talk radio circuit, you realize that Elway is catching heat for sure. Yet, crap notoriously runs downhill where Vance and the coaching staff that Elway gave him currently reside.
A GM who recognizes his own mess-ups, and isn't pressing his new coach to clean up poop he inherited would have already forced Paxton to play, bad ankle (wink, wink) or not. The accountable GM would also take to the same talk radio circuit that is lambasting him and his new coach to explain the team's direction just as he readily did when dumping Tebow for Manning or stealing coach Kubiak's Superbowl 50 credit.
Any GM who DOES NOT care to clean his own mess and chart a comforting path towards correction for his very smart fans to follow would also readily allow a coach he signed for five years to continue to play mostly veterans players, and to try and save a lost season against teams that stink and are a lot more experienced with tanking than the Broncos.
It's as if Elway doesn't realize our team stinks too and will need major free agency luck or a major draft and wait overhaul, not just another aging quarterback who will struggle mightily behind our crappy offensive line just as Peyton and everybody else has.
And for certain, we do not need another rookie quarterback unless John and Vance Elway now understand what waiting on a rookie quarterback entails. Any team unwilling to develop and wait for its young talent needs to be like the Patriots and reconsider the draft as a primary building component beyond stashing trade-bait like Jimmy Garapolo for some other desperate team.
You also will need to have Tom Brady playing quarterback for a few decades if you want drafting not to matter nearly as much. We will all soon see if Belichick can coach without a legend playing quarterback or will the Patriots be forced like so many others to accept the 'tank and rebuild' approach after Brady hangs it up?
Is Von Miller A Denver Bronco For Life? Should He Be?
I realize fellow Broncos fans might appreciate the break that winning for a couple of games had given us from those Broncos haters who love to razz us when we are down, but those teams haven't won in a long time and are enviously staring at our Superbowl 50 ring when they talk. Their emotions are not to be treated as genuine or as a reason to see winning as terribly necessary right now. The time it will take to build this back up might take longer than our most expensive players have to wait. We run a dangerous risk that emotion might slow our willingness to release, and thus acquire key assets at crucial moments.
Who we have coaching our team isn't quite as important as the question of who that coach will be asked to keep or discard going forward. Yet, if John is truly evaluating the same coach he's on the hook to pay for the next five years instead of simply evaluating his young talent and letting his coach learn, prepare yourself Broncos Country, for the fourth Broncos coach in 5 years as Elway tries to alleviate the pressure smart fans are presently mounting against him.
On the other hand, even if Vance is still John's main squeeze after he hyphenate's his name next year in a liberation statement, Vance Joseph-Elway cannot be expected to develop long-term confidence in his on-going relationship with John or in any of these players if John is forcing him to play certain guys while also looking for a new coach to love. Whenever an NFL coach has doubt about his players or questions his own job, every mistake feeds into those existing doubts and questions.
While I realize that an agile quarterback and a slot receiver are just what the doctor ordered for this busted season and team, this conversation is not about needs as much as it is about beliefs. When you believe or are very hopeful in a player, they get the number of tries that McKenzie and Lynch keep getting, which is why it is vital to give Vance a team he believes in versus a roster and a coaching staff of John's preferred people. Kenneth Faried being exiled from playing time with the much improved Denver Nuggets is a great example of what it takes at times to win.
Or just let Vance go.
Instead of finding a coach who you trust to develop your drafted players, John seems hell-bent on chasing the trophy with a couple veteran stop-gaps that can become our next Neil Smith or DeMarcus Ware. Although he passed on making Calais Campbell into that guy when he came free, Domata Peko was a home run hit for John. TJ Ward was too before he got away.
The problem with great stop gaps is that few of them play offensive line, and the wealth of edge rushers is forcing every team to draft and groom their own offensive front while they hope like hell for the right quarterback to make that draft commitment pay off. Meanwhile, GM's are often forced to change coaches when frequent stop-gap measures are employed just to make any failures in the approach point towards coaching and not the approach.
What Does Rebuilding Look Like?
For reasons that I'm not impressed with, this team is trying to save a coach with a five-year contract from getting fired. Maybe playing to win is always a better scenario than playing to gain draft positioning, but I can't help but wonder just how many of these veteran players we are currently committing to chasing wins do we already know are gone at years end?
Including our desperate fight to actually come back and beat the Washington Redskins, I've felt a certain kind of way as I watched teams like the Indianapolis Colts and the New York Jets leave the field as the draft winners while my Broncos walked off celebrating the score. Those teams have bottom-dwelled long enough to understand the impact of one or two wins in actual or potential selections- assuming you decide to trade back for additional picks- while the Broncos are more worried that losing too much could tick off Aqib Talib and have him slapping people upside the head like he did when last season soured.
When Talib himself is on the record saying he doubts he'll be retained, it leads me to feel like Denver might be proving a lot of things by focusing on winning to close out the season, but forward thinking is not one of them. Could winning actually be worse than losing for the Denver Broncos? Winning without finding out what you have for the future is a loss of a different kind if you ask me.
I could create a list of all the young players on the ship has sailed list versus the guys who can't get off the bench to find out, but Kyle Sloter is gone and I've already talked too much about Lynch and McKenzie. The rest of the rookies have been on the bench for so long I would need Google to remind me of their names. But that's the problem with every regime change. The blossoming talents like Jordan Taylor get's lost in the shuffle of a new coach trying to determine his established talent first.
If the same five-year contract coach who decided to make Trevor Siemian fight for a job he had already earned is now fighting for his own job, it's because Elway has made it that way. In doing so, John has also accidentally forced his coaching staff into benefitting from the lack of intrusion that Kubiak demanded and should be inherent to their job description, not just a by-product of a busted year.
Broncos Country is still curious about DeAngelo Henderson, Jake Butt and a few other young players that I'm Googling right now. Simply announcing Lynch as the starter proves to me that John realizes our curiosity too. He might also realize that now is NOT the time to totally step away from desperately needed analysis of future players even if he failed to see that then (upon the hiring of a first-year head coach) was NOT the time to get overly involved. On either note, Elway has played it wrong. The same bad mistakes that started during the Superbowl 50 season linger but are no longer being drowned out by the cheers of a fanbase who used to have a lot to cheer about. Now they are selling off their tickets fast and cheap.
Winning when your season is an utter bust is a feel-good bonus that makes players and fans of bad teams sleep a bit easier at night. Beyond that, several former bottom dwellers have risen to the top of the current NFL mountain by embracing the reality that winning can be initially counter-productive to the rebuilding process, a process that most winning organizations struggle to embrace. I am not saying that our rookies and younger players shouldn't fight like hell to try to win the game if given a chance to show their value. I am saying that at some point amidst a busted season they should be asked to try.
WE DON'T REBUILD, WE RELOAD? BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!!!!
Not every organization seeks when to tank the season and rebuild, however, every organization that needs to do it had better find an opportune moment to capitalize on its arrival as opportunities to tank and rebuild can be fleeting and hard to recognize, especially for teams like the Broncos who appear unaccustomed to the practice and will probably retain the bulk of this team and reload it instead of using key pieces to acquire the pieces they need to rebuild it.
I get it. Winning is almost always better than losing, and no brand new coach wants to learn about their team while losing games. But timing in life is everything, and there really is only one thing to learn from reacting too late. It's called hindsight. Armchair quarterbacks and opinionated pundits like myself rely on hindsight, regularly. NFL coaches and former quarterbacks who become GM/VP's should avoid it like the plague.
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