Does Beating The Patriots Justify That Superbowl Window Or Is John Elway Just Making Us Sick?

I might be tired of caring about the good fortunes of my own team. No, I am not like those who wrote off the Broncos for firing Art Shell and currently rep the Raiders, but potentially like that, because Elway seems to hate Colin Kaepernick and Kaep's cause more than he likes winning. Soon, John will be forced to quick-chop another black head off just to avoid the loss of his own.

I would like to make this article about some concern for the impending premature scapegoat removal of a first-year black coach because I am truly concerned that Vance Joseph never had a chance in hell to pull off the El-way that sucks, versus the Kubiak way that won a crown. But, to be honest, actually giving a damn about Vance would require knowing for certain that he can actually coach.

I do not.

Besides, I am a Broncos fan first and foremost. I understand how touchy criticism of my Orange and Blue can get. This is not my Donna Brazile denunciation of the Democrats, however, my malaise with my own ballclub made me unconcerned with uncovering a reason why the Denver Broncos could beat the Philadelphia Eagles a week ago, even if I was hoping like hell desperation would be that reason.

Now, the Broncos are truly desperate enough to beat every team except that Philly club, which includes the New England Patriots on Sunday,  although they must overcome the best quarterback to ever lace them up if they are to get it done.

Yes, I said it. I don't care who your favorite quarterback of all-time is. I don't really care that Brady's not my favorite or that he's a long time nemesis of my beloved Broncos.


He's the best to do it, and he's still doing it the best.

This week, however, Brady's resume is beside the point. Denver fans may find comfort that Brady hasn't won much in Denver, but that too should be of little consolation to a struggling team that shouldn't be counting on history to fix their problems. The hope to win is quickly clouding the view of who we really are and where we are heading if we don't look introspectively.

As we fans force feed this team down our own throats simply because we love them too much to leave them when times get tough, the truth is simply the truth. To viewing eyes and opposing defenses, these Broncos taste like a recognizably predictable flavor. You can't quite say what it is, but it is super sour and kind of bitter, and several coaching changes has yet to sweeten the flavor of this offense, even the year when they won it all.

If we are honest and don't just assume Donna and I are doing this for the money, we'd admit that more than half of Broncos nation exited a Superbowl 50 victory with a happy smirk because they were upset with the decision to return to a putridly playing Peyton Manning over bumbling Brock Osweiler.  When a Brock loving John Elway lost his last coach, and when Denver lost Brock, I believe it was seeded in that moment of decision.

While most of that remains a rumor, it was proven the moment Elway brought in Vance Joseph and the new coach's first declaration to the world was that he could put some more JUICE into this offense- a code word for Kubiak's juice wasn't either plentiful or sweet enough even if it proved to be the right flavor for success.

Other than the Offensive coordinator, Mike McCoy and former Offensive coordinator turned QB coach, Bill Musgrave, most of the coaches beneath Joseph are carry-overs that were already in the fold. How a former defensive coordinator could be expected to sweeten the juice on offense as a first-year coach seemed odd until you realized the plethora of offensive coaches that Elway would provide- or force-feed- to compensate for the inexperience of his head guy.

As I look at my own beloved team, I can't help but wonder does Joseph really have control of the offense with McCoy, Musgrave, and Elway in the building? Does Elway ever call McCoy to share his own view of things or is Joseph always the go-between as he deserves to be? Most importantly, who makes the final call on plays now with so many offensive minds and a head coach who questions his own team's identity?

Half the season is over, and it appears that not allowing the new head coach to put his fingerprint on the offense has him describing his own team as identity-free as if we are a juice without sugar.  It also seems that Elway's hand-picking of Joseph was a weird move intended to fulfill Elway's own  Superbowl windowed view of things instead of hiring a coach he trusted enough to bring an outsiders view of things and chart a way forward on his own merit and ability.

Elway wears his own championship rings thanks to the "do whatever it takes" mantra of Pat Bowlen. But he is not Pat Bowlen even if he wants to buy our team one day and pretend to be Pat while interfering like Jerry. I am not saying that Elway can never become another Pat Bowlen, but even Bowlen came to be through the trials and errors of trying and failing to get it done amidst the constant internal tug-o-war of when to be hands-on or hands-off. In essence, Bowlen needed the exact same thing that Elway and our young'ish quarterbacks require. Time to develop.

Nothing.  I repeat. NOTHING is more unhealthy to the development of a young quarterback, a young coach or a rebuilding organization than the draft of an open Superbowl Window.

It should go without saying that every team is fighting to be the best they can be every year. Undoubtedly, each team hopes their best equals Superbowl championships when the season is done, whether they say it through unspoken drive or display it through Superbowl window mistakes.

As a folk hero among Broncos nation, we might have taken more comfort in the presence of Elway than we had any right to do. Afterall, he is nearly as unproven as an executive himself, evidenced by these mediocre quarterbacks he hired to help push the Broncos through that Superbowl window of his. At the risk of sounding like a revisionist, I am more and more inclined to agree with those who consider our Superbowl 50 success somewhat lucky, including Elway himself who encouraged Kubiak to do it in a juicier way. Whether that Superbowl victory meant Elway deserved a new contract and a bigger role within the organization is a subject under official review right now. In hindsight, Elway might have only had a toe on the line while Kubiak had his entire foot in that game and gameplan.

Now, the Broncos appear to be stuck with a former legendary quarterback GM who displays a ravenous view of the future and a short view of the past, a past that included Elway himself being doubted by the Broncos faithful as a young player, and ridiculed as a seasoned veteran who never won the big one by himself. To this day, some believe John's HOF friend and former teammate, Terrell Davis, deserves more credit for the rings on John's fingers than John does.

The hiring of a first-year coach to juice an offense beyond that of a Superbowl winning, well-tenured coach and friend in Gary Kubiak, was the first sign I needed that Vance Joseph was merely a hole-filler with the specific assignment of making Elway look right instead of looking interested in saving his own job or building on the salvage worthy parts and pieces of this team to create a new and improved Superbowl winning model. I doubt that Joseph felt as confident as he sounded about the idea of picking a quarterback mid-way through the preseason instead of appointing the previous starter and making the other quarterbacks beat him out like you do at every other position on the football field.

Is Osweiler just another sign that Elway thinks his team can still
win it all? Is John missing on a chance to play Pax?

If I was Elway, I would have made the mediocre first-round draft pick, Paxton Lynch play so that we know by now instead of forcing last year's mediocre starter and team captain, Trevor Siemian to publicly prove himself better than Lynch. To put either of these mediocre quarterbacks through a process that questions your trust of them leaves you, in the end, with a couple of mediocre quarterbacks absent the trust of the coach and GM to help their confidence a bit. John was clearly forcing his new coach to not act in his own best interest, all the while making savvy Broncos fans question the intelligence and integrity of the new head coach.


This article is not about beating a dead bronco or kicking the horse when it's down because my Broncos are not deceased yet, just on life support, and nobody kicks hospitalized animals. But I will remind everyone that the GM and VP of Operations- who I called a Bitch in a preseason article- has chosen to pretend himself Bowlen and verbally commit to chasing after the crown each and every year instead of closing that Superbowl window and his mouth and Just Win Baby before we lose another wave of fans to the Raiders, rebuilding or his politics which we shouldn't even know about since we never knew Pat's.

What we do need to know is how Elway intends to make this team better. Spending millions on diva receivers and then trying to justify those millions- as if the opposing defense can't diagnose your plan based on payroll alone- is a formula for success that doesn't comport with the reality of the NFL in which teams rarely win the crown with so much money dedicated to wide-outs.

Check the history books. If a big name receiver does have a ring, it is almost never when they also had the high-end paycheck too. The truth is, receivers take pay cuts to play for champions or they get cut from champions for the sake of more depth on the roster. Soon enough- which I hope soon means now- the Broncos will not be able to justify the money they are spending on Demarius Thomas,
Emmanual Sanders or maybe even Von Miller if they are being realistic about what it will take to win again. Soon enough, they too will admit that just one of these valued players could be the additional draft pick- or 10- that fixes this problem.

I said all of that to say this.

I'm concerned that beating the Patriots will only make Broncos nation think we are actually still in the hunt. I get it. Making the playoffs and exiting early could still be a dream for a season that started great but looks to be headed towards something much worse than even last year's near miss of the playoffs. In the wildest dreams of  John Elway, these players and many fans, this season remains wide open, just like our Superbowl window. 

Sure, dreams do come true. But so do nightmares if you stay asleep too long. Wake up Elway and Broncos fans. It's time to shut that damn window.

It's Time We Admit It Broncos Fans. Elway's A Bitch!

Word on the street is Osweiler might be available soon. Might
Elway be getting a chance to prove he can actually pick QB's? 

Before I act like high draft picks aren't bestowed certain amounts of space to develop, or that Denver isn't in a unique predicament with a once-in-a-lifetime defense that is ready to win now, I have dwelled on those excuses for long enough, and they are NOT taking away the visual evidence that continues to say- PAXTON LYNCH WAS A MISTAKE.

In the effort to remain fair, I've even conceded to those who've insisted that it is just too soon to really tell if Lynch can play. What I can not concede to is this farce of a quarterback battle in Denver that was designed for, and by, the General Manager and Executive VP of operations, John Elway. Despite the reality that every preseason is a preamble to the regular season- complete with many dozens of new prospects at every position- the Broncos felt they needed to formally announce that the quarterback position was uniquely up for grabs, unlike the rest.

Entering the new year with a repetitious chant of this being a 50-50 battle for the quarterback job was a message to the guy who finished as last years starter. That message was unnecessary because it was inherent to the fact that any 2nd year 1st round selection would probably be pushed to justify the selection. Seeing what we have in Lynch had to be part of the expectations of hiring when Elway selected Vance Joseph to lead this team, but Elway should have also realized that Joseph was beloved by his previous players for an obvious inability to bullshit very well.

While Joseph stammered through multiple press conferences over the course of this competition trying to convince Broncos fans that he was the only reason why things were being done this way, Joseph fell off script in the final announcement of the team's starter by accidentally saying; "he (Paxton Lynch) is just not ready yet".

No one really took that statement for much of anything when it was stated- except Trevor Siemian. To the ears of this team's current starting quarterback, those words mean you are simply here to keep the seat warm until Paxton Lynch can finally satisfy the emotion that must have led to Elway taking the leap of faith on him last year during the draft. In hindsight, his name is way cooler than his game.

In hindsight, Elway was likely lured into reaching because word had it that Dallas was also interested in Lynch. As a highly rated arm-chair quarterback, I personally think Jerry Jones would have easily given a 2nd and 3rd round versus the 2nd and 4th round pick that he reportedly offer to get at Lynch, if he was truly interested in getting Lynch as his quarterback of the future.

Whether Jones realized Dak Prescott was that quarterback is pure speculation at this point....kinda like the notion that Lynch can actually play quarterback in the NFL.

Coach Joseph can try to convince Broncos Nation that he is thrilled to have two quarterbacks out of this battle, but he can't erase the fact that he actually said that one of them is not ready yet. That may not seem like much of a statement, but it doesn't acknowledge the reality that anything- including sickness, accidents or on-field injuries- would force this team to insert a player that is admittedly, not ready yet.

Would a week or two, or three, be enough to get him ready, or was the suggestion by Joseph that "who knows what he will look like in week 6 or 7" a hidden statement about how far away from ready Lynch really is? Does practicing with the 2's offer enough motivation for Lynch to actually get the work in and get better, or will he stagnate from depression as he appeared to do last year when he got beat out for the job as well?

I'm hopeful that Lynch is not a waste of a pick, but not more than I'm hopeful for Siemian, who has already justified his draft slot and then some. Siemian has performed and improved at the rate that we are hoping and praying for Lynch to perform and improve at, yet we keep looking for a quarterback.

I am not at all convinced that our brand new coach is fully bought into the process of diminishing the confidence of the offensive player who needs it the most while continually posturing as a team waiting on somebody else. Nobody needs to be told about the hopes that teams place in their 1st round draft picks. GM's keep or lose jobs all of the time from making or missing on 1st round draft selections. The smartest ones move on sooner than later.

Justified or not, Elway has way more job security than he deserves and ten times that of Coach Joseph. For Elway to toss this spineless decision-making process into the lap of his new coach without standing beside him to help fans understand WHY is frankly a bitch move.

Joseph would not have slipped up and gone off-script by saying Siemian is not ready YET if he were not so damn honest, and if the front office wasn't still pushing to prove they can really pick 'em.

If we hadn't been forced to listen to a world leader tell us things we obviously shouldn't believe, I might be less inclined to hold the Broncos to task for all of this. But Siemian had to do a press conference and probably listened to the words of his coach's press conference as he prepared to do his own. To hear that he won the job because Lynch isn't ready yet kinda means Siemian himself wasn't quite good enough to be what the team wants right now either, or they would have emphatically called him the winner of the job and not just the quarterback who is- by default- ready. If I was Siemian, I could not easily believe that the Broncos were invested in my future as a starter in this league.

Correction. Siemian should not believe that Elway is invested in his future as a starter in the NFL. As for Joseph? He picked the right player and instantly sounded like a coach ready to back his guy- bitch be damned.