ENGLEWOOD, Colo.—John Elway could have spent the rest of his life on the links, basking in the glory of his Hall of Fame career as one of the greatest quarterbacks the NFL has ever known.
Popularity and profits, he had them all.
He’s opening a third upscale steakhouse in Vail and has a handful of new auto dealerships across Colorado’s Front Range to keep him plenty busy.
What he needed once more was football.
“I missed the competition,” Elway said, “the wins and the losses.”
As for the Denver Broncos, they needed their old leader just as much as he needed them.
Hounded by too many losses and the videotape scandal that led to Josh McDaniels’ dismissal, owner Pat Bowlen turned to his old friend, hiring Elway as executive vice president of football operations last winter.
Now, No. 7 is in charge of restoring respectability to the storied but staggered franchise that’s won just one playoff game since he retired shortly after hoisting his second straight Super Bowl trophy in 1999.
“I think we will win some more Super Bowls,” Bowlen said, “and I will not be saying, ‘This one’s for John.’ Maybe he’ll be saying, ‘This one’s for Pat.'”
Elway empowered general manager Brian Xanders and hired coach John Fox, which he announced on his Twitter account, and then helped them prepare for the draft and form a free agency plan while also tending to the financials, fostering a friendlier work environment and restoring the public trust.
Elway has brought the same passion to his new post that he took to the locker room and playing field when he led the Broncos to an NFL-record five Super Bowls.
“He’s brought what I would call calm, constructive order to our football team,” team president Joe Ellis said. “And our organization is more mature with John here overseeing our football operations.”
Once the lockout ended, Elway watched every practice during training camp and even took time to tutor Tim Tebow.
The 51-year-old Elway said he simply got tired of being a celebrity on the sideline of life.
“I was thrilled to be able to play quarterback in this league, win a couple of championships and have the career that I had and I’m very, very proud of that,” Elway said. “But I figured that was half of my life and I’ve got another half to live and I don’t want to live on the first half the rest of my life.”
And so a dozen years after his playing career ended in glory, he’s trying to lead the Broncos back to the Super Bowl with his brain, not his arm.
“People say, ‘Why go risk your legacy?'” Elway mused. “Well, I don’t think my legacy is going to be tarnished because this isn’t going to tarnish me as a football player. Plus, I like the challenge. I never worried about my legacy.”
His brand, now that’s another story, as business partners Mitch Pierce (auto sales) and Tim Schmidt (restaurants) can attest.
“I always said this: the brand will get them to the door, but what they experience and how they’re treated once they’re through the door determines how that brand is going to be looked at,” Elway said. “And so, I’ve never relied on the name, I’ve always relied on the product we’re selling and our people that are doing it, our managers, our operators, and they’re the ones that carry the torches as far as philosophy.
“Same thing here, with each different department. So, the bottom line here is we’ve got to do things the right way, but we’ve got to win, also.”
Friends, co-workers and business partners all agree that Elway’s drive will help him succeed in the front office.
His white Bentley is often the first car in the team parking lot in the morning and the last one out at night. He works hard but says he isn’t hard to work for. He guides his staff with the leadership skills he learned growing up as the son of a football coach, majoring in economics major at Stanford, starring in the NFL and succeeding in business.
Schmidt, his partner in the restaurant business, encouraged Elway to go back to football because he knew he would dive into the job like he did the steakhouses, when he sat in on the design meetings and tasted all the menu items.
“They needed to bring John back to help the team because they didn’t just need X’s and O’s in football, they needed his business expertise and what he would bring to their brand because nobody understands a brand better than John Elway,” Schmidt said. “I think the Broncos’ brand had diminished a little bit and the team was in turmoil on the football side and the drafting side.”
The task is a tall one—the Broncos haven’t reached the playoffs in half a decade.
“This is ultimately how he’s going to be judged,” said former teammate and fellow Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe. “Everybody knows about John Elway the great football player. Now, he gets to be judged as an exec. And that’s what he wants to be judged on, not what he did on the field as a player, but what is he going to do now that he’s in the front office.
“And he believes he can turn it around. I believe he can, too.”
There’s a palpable excitement in the building with Elway around, which many attribute to his dogged determination to win at everything he does.
“Whatever I’ve tackled throughout my life, whether it be baseball or football or even the car business or even the restaurant business, I always wanted to be the best in everything I’ve been involved with,” Elway said. “And that’s no different in the position I’m in now with the Broncos. Obviously, the responsibilities are different. I have control outside the lines rather than inside the lines.”
Elway, who back in college thought he’d become an accountant if he couldn’t make it in the NFL, said he never wanted to follow his father into coaching.
“The coaching aspect never really appealed to me, but the management side, the front office side of it, did because I really kind of compared that a lot to the quarterback in the locker room,” Elway said. “Really in the locker room you’re managing, even though you’re on everyone’s same level.
“And as a quarterback, I’ve always been so reliant on other people doing their jobs. It’s the same way I feel as far as the front office. I’m going to rely and trust on other people to do their job and do it the best that they can, which gives us all an opportunity to compete for world championships.”
Ellis said Elway’s intelligence and business acumen are helping him learn the NFL ropes and his people skills are paving the way.
“I know he’s got this aura about him, but he’s a down-to-earth, genuine, humble person,” Ellis said. “Now, he happened to be one of the best athletes of his time. So, there’s a certain confidence that a person like that carries that others of us may not. And that carries over into the building and that’s a good thing because we need more of that.”
Critics wondered if he wasn’t just a hood ornament when he was hired in January.
“That would have been a waste of everybody’s time, our time, his time, the community’s time,” Ellis said. “We brought him back here to regain the trust of our fans in the community and to help us win games. We’re optimistic that’s what’s going to happen.”
So is Elway.
“My goal in life is to be the best at whatever I do and there’s no fulfillment in being a hood ornament,” Elway said. “I don’t want to be a face with no depth behind it. I have a lot to offer, but then again, I’m not a guy that it’s my way or the highway. I’m still learning in the business, not necessarily at the game of football, but how the NFL works, how organizations work.”
Fox said anyone who thinks Elway’s hiring was a public relations move is missing the point.
“He’s grinding,” Fox said. “His car’s in that lot every day bright and early. As he jokes, he never knew there was two 6 o’clocks. He only knew the 6 p.m., but he’s worked out hard, I’m talking about through the draft, through the free agent process, looking at tape. He’s attacking it just like he has a lot of things that he’s had success at in his life.”
One day in camp Elway spent 30 minutes watching Tebow throw after practice, giving him pointers on his release points and his footwork.
“It’s awesome when you get the extra help from a guy like John Elway,” Tebow said. “He gives you the little tricks of the trade that he learned and the big philosophy things and everything in between. It’s pretty cool to have someone like that with so much knowledge who wants to share it with you.”
Elway has done the same thing inside the building, where he’s a hands-on boss but not a micromanager.
“First of all, he’s extremely smart,” said Xanders, the GM. “He’s got a very strong business background, he’s got a degree from Stanford in economics. He’s a very successful businessman whether it’s the car business, the restaurant business or the AFL team. He’s patient, he’s very observant, he listens to people, he lets people do their jobs. He delegates but he holds you very accountable. And he’s tough when he needs to be.
“But he sets the standards high. He doesn’t want anything less. He said we have to have a championship front office to have a championship football team in the locker room.”
As chief of football operations, Elway has that same competitive fire and cool composure that helped him forge so many fourth-quarter comebacks, Ellis suggested, “and that’s why I think we’re going to end up winning here eventually.”
Whether selling seats, Jeeps or sizzling rib-eyes or playing football, golf or pingpong, Elway has always been driven to win.
“That’s not something that you can turn on and turn off,” Sharpe said. “That’s what you are as a competitor. And whether he’s on the golf course in the celebrity tournament, he wants to win.”
Fox said it’s that drive that will make up for Elway’s lack of NFL executive experience.
“You look at John, he’s a winner,” Fox said. “He’s won at everything he’s done. Starting off in college, in business, in football, even though it was Arena League Football,” where he guided the Colorado Crush to a championship in 2005.
“So, he understands the game. He understands how to succeed.”
Elway only recently took up racquetball but “he kills everybody,” Xanders said. “Absolutely kills us. He doesn’t lose. I mean, I’ve only beaten him once out of 25. But for an athlete, he’s one of the greatest athletes ever, too. For 51 years old and to move around, he’s got a knee replacement? That competitive edge and that fire are always there.”
Elway said he’s often wondered why he can’t do anything halfway.
“There’s no middle of the road for me, it’s either pedal to the metal or I totally get away from it,” Elway said. “It’s not in my makeup. I guess it’s just a personality trait that there is no halfway, it’s either all in or all out.”
The other day on his way home from work, Elway found one more thing to stoke his desire.
It harkened him back to his playing days when he was constantly criticized until finally winning back-to-back Super Bowls to end his playing career.
“I was listening to the radio on the way home on one of the call-in stations and a guy called in and said, ‘Elway shouldn’t be where he is and doesn’t have the experience,'” Elway recounted. “Finally, I turned the radio station off and I was thinking about it and I said, ‘You know what? I think I’m home now, because I’m in a place where if they’re not criticizing me then I don’t feel comfortable.’
“So, I think that adds the fuels to the fire.”
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Connect with AP Pro Football Writer Arnie Stapleton at
