PHOENIX — Hop a long, John Elway.
The only Hall of Fame Bronco has a new, artificial way of getting around these days. Favoring his new left knee as he moved through the Radio Row here today, Elway was pleased for his enhanced quality of life and disappointed at the evidence of how much time has passed since he led the Broncos to their last Super Bowl event.
“(Matt) Lepsis is retiring who was on the practice squad when you were there,” Elway said here today at the Super Bowl media center. “So there are so many things that unfortunately remind me that it was a long time ago.”
No one has to keep score at home to know it’s been nine years since Elway last took a snap, and nine years since the Broncos last played in the Super Bowl.
What a coincidence.
Elway’s not coming back. He’s long gone to another life where his kids rule. The left knee he received nine weeks ago feels great, he said. He’ll need it to get around the college campus here at Arizona State, where his son Jack will soon enroll and play quarterback for coach Dennis Erickson.
Now that Elway has moved on to the refuge of nervous father and plastic joints, how is the world’s greatest sporting event ever going to include the Broncos again? Not the same way one fixes a damaged knee, apparently.
“They’ve tried the quick fix and it didn’t work,” Elway said of the Broncos. “Obviously, it hasn’t worked in the last couple years. To me, you’ve got to get the core together. There’s been some things that are missing and they’ve missed on a couple free agents. To me, they’ve got to get it through the draft, which is what they’re talking about, but that takes some time.”
Does Broncos coach Mike Shanahan have the patience required to build through the draft?
“I don’t know,” Elway said. “It’s such a fine line. It doesn’t take too much. But there hasn’t been much continuity there, either, which hurts. Hopefully they can slowly start getting better and get some continuity.”
The worst part of the Broncos’ recent past isn’t that the last nine Super Bowls have gone on without them. There are 18 other teams languishing through similar slumps. More disturbing is the Broncos have just one playoff victory in those nine years. Only eight teams have fewer.
Worse, still, is it’s been two consecutive seasons without the Broncos playing in the postseason. Santa Claus delivered future hope in the form of strong-armed quarterback Jay Cutler. But either the Broncos need to hurry up and build a better team around Cutler, or a couple of other AFC quarterbacks, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, need to hurry up and grow old.
“Jay is coming, but he’s still not there,” said former Broncos running back Terrell Davis. “”People want to tout him, but he’s not there yet. You see these flashes of brilliance and then you see this young, inexperienced quarterback.
“The running game is OK, but it’s not like it used to be. It needs to be a dominant rushing attack.”
Spoken like a running back who once rushed for 2,008 yards in a season. As you can read, Radio Row is crowded with former Broncos’ Super Bowl heroes wondering how their old team can hang out in this environment again.
Elway offered a more positive assessment of the current Broncos’ offense.
“I look at them offensively and I think they’re going to be pretty good,” he said. “I think they’re going to be able to score some points and they’ve got the weapons and I think they’ll be able to get it done. It’s just a matter of defensively how quick they can get better.”
Defense, particularly up front, is where Elway and Davis agree is the primary problem. “That defensive line, I don’t know what’s going on with that,” Davis said. “It’s sad. They had, what, 20 different players on the defensive line? It’s a revolving door. There’s too many revolving parts. They’ve got to get back to something more stable.”
It’s far easier, it seems, to stabilize an old quarterback’s new knee.
“It was all worth it,” Elway said.
Mike Klis: 303-954-1055 or mklis@denverpost.com.
