“Oh, no!” every person in Denver apparently said Monday. “Free agency started and every team is now awesome and the Broncos didn’t sign anybody, so they’ve surely fallen behind and now it’s not Super Bowl or bust — it’s just AFC West or bust!”
Let’s take a few seconds off the play clock to take a deep breath.
The Broncos, right now, are a playoff team. This offseason isn’t about reloading. It’s about refinishing.
They’ll sign a guy or two, sure, and we’ll all make a fuss about it, but really, the key to this offseason isn’t free agency; it’s making sure the best player the team acquires is from the 2015 draft.
Yes, yes, I know, John Elway probably only orders bottled beer to avoid reminders of the draft.
But they must nab a nasty man with the 28th overall pick.
This is Elway’s most important draft, not just because, to use coachspeak, it’s the next draft. And it’s not Elway’s most important draft because he has botched many picks in the previous few. It’s Elway’s most important draft because it’s about squeezing everything the Broncos can out of Peyton Manning and his supporting cast in this lone season. The Broncos say they’re building to win now and from now on, but I think everyone knows that if they don’t win now, they surely aren’t winning from now on.
The biggest test at Dove Valley, unequivocally in my mind, is how Manning will adapt to coach Gary Kubiak’s system, and vice versa. Everyone will say all the right things in the early months of a year — surely, these smart men will figure it out to be successful! — but let’s not forget some of the offensive strategies Denver used early in the 2012 season, when Manning struggled and they tried a fullback and tactics like that.
We won’t know how all this plays out until August, but right now we can at least figure out who will be playing for this offense. Denver has too many holes on the offensive line not to draft at least a part-time player. They’ll probably sign a center. But it’s a talented tackle draft. Michael Schofield, last year’s third-round pick, who played as much as Troy E. Renck, will be in the mix at right tackle (with Louis Vasquez returning “home” to right guard, and Ben Garland, a favorite of this Ben, playing left guard). But I’ll tell you, I enjoy reading about T.J. Clemmings, the 6-foot-5, 309-pound tackle out of Pittsburgh. The former basketball player has agility, but unlike another ex-basketball player we know, he yearns to block. And he appears to be stellar in space, a fit for a zone-blocking scheme. But will he be there at No. 28? If so, it will be hard to pass him up.
There has been some scuttlebutt about drafting a nose tackle, who will inevitably get the shoddy nickname “Roast Beef” around town. Oklahoma’s Jordan Phillips surely makes his namesake Wade Phillips excited — this dude looks like he ate Tulsa. He’s 6-5, 329, with the ravenous ability to gobble up linemen and plug up space in a 3-4 defense. And this guy could very well be there at No. 28.
Look, the Broncos will make the postseason tournament. They’re too talented not to. So the questions are: Will this new coach have a system in place that best utilizes whatever 39-year-old Peyton turns out to be? And will Kubiak the chemist have the team prepared to peak in the playoffs? As we saw with the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots last season, and, really, with the aforementioned 2012 Broncos (until the Rahim Moore play), September and October aren’t indisputable definitions of what your team is.
Because Denver won free agency last season, it doesn’t have the money or necessity to win free agency this season. But Denver needs to get production out of its 2015 draft in 2015 — not to mention its 2014 draft in 2015 (and, really, the 2013 draft, while we’re at it).
Benjamin Hochman: bhochman@denverpost.com or
