All NFL teams have issues. But good luck finding a team that created more national stories in the past three years than the Broncos. On the flip side, it appears the Broncos are starting to recover from the Josh McDaniels era. NFL reporter Mike Klis offers some of the more bizarre events of the past 38 months (and this list doesn’t even include the Brandon Marshall, Kenny McKinley, Perrish Cox sagas).
January 2009: After the Broncos blew a three-game division lead with three to play in missing the playoffs, Broncos owner Pat Bowlen fired Mike Shanahan, his coach of 14 seasons. A week later, Bowlen made the curious decision to replace Shanahan with inexperienced, 32-year-old Josh McDaniels.
March 2009: McJaygate. Irked by the firing of Shanahan and offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates, quarterback Jay Cutler asked for a trade. All seemed smoothed over until McDaniels was caught trying to acquire his former New England quarterback, Matt Cassel. Cutler was again furious, and this time his trade request was granted. A third-year Pro Bowler for Denver in 2008, Cutler has since played, and played well, for the Chicago Bears.
April 2010: After acquiring Kyle Orton in the Cutler trade, then dealing running back Peyton Hillis for Brady Quinn, McDaniels traded up to select athletically gifted but passing-challenged Tim Tebow with the No. 25 pick in the first round of the draft.
December 2010 to January 2011: McDaniels was fired after losing 18 of of his final 23 games and embarrassing the Broncos for not reporting a serious video- taping infraction. With his franchise at its lowest point since he bought the team in 1984, Bowlen hired his favorite quarterback, John Elway, to take charge of football operations. Elway’s first hire was John Fox, a 55-year-old coach who had just been fired after nine seasons with the Carolina Panthers.
July 2011 to January 2012: Tebowmania. One of the most compelling stories in sports history was Tebow’s 2011 season. He was the starter until a trade that would have sent Orton to Miami fell through. Orton started the season, but with the team 1-4 through five games, it was Tebow time. Tebow led the Broncos to a 7-1 record through his first eight starts with most of those victories coming in dramatic, final-second fashion. A “Tebowing” craze swept the nation. Fox instituted a Tebow-specific, spread-option offense that surprised NFL defenses.
Monday: The Broncos landed one of the all-time best NFL quarterbacks when free-agent prize Peyton Manning informed Elway that he wanted to play for them. Manning received a five-year contract worth $96 million, including $18 million guaranteed. The Broncos presented Manning at a news conference Tuesday.
Wednesday: The Broncos reached a trade agreement with the New York Jets. The trade sent Tebow and a seventh-round draft pick to the Jets for fourth- and sixth-round draft picks. The Jets announced the trade on Twitter. Before the trade was sent to the league offices for approval, though, the Jets discovered they would also have to reimburse $5.06 million to the Broncos in advanced Tebow salaries. The deal was renegotiated, with the Jets picking up half that tab.
Mike Klis, The Denver Post
