On a cold, dreary final day of 2018, when Broncos general manager began the search for his fourth perfect coach in the past five years to lead the Broncos, he declared as much disdain for defeat as when he rode into Denver 35 years ago as a hotshot quarterback.
“I hate to lose. I hate it more now than I ever have,” Elway said Monday, when the players he selected got coach fired for losing 21 of 32 games.
But you know what? I have hung around Elway like a gnat at a picnic since 1983. And this was the first time, through all his tough humiliations and joyous victory parades as a player or executive, when Elway sounded weary and beat up from all those defeats gnawing at his gut.
“The first guy I look at is the guy in the mirror. Thatap me,” said Elway, his voice full of more contrition than swagger. “I’m just as responsible for this, if not more than anybody else, because itap my job to make sure we win more football games.”
During a news conference where Elway confessed a recent failure to be the football hero apountry has come to expect, a team staffer placed a Denver helmet on a table at the front of the room as a prop. On the back of the helmet was affixed the No. 18.
The irony was unintended, but unavoidable: Elway, one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to spin a spiral, has found it as difficult as any executive in the NFL to win a championship without a QB that brings Hall of Fame cred to the huddle.
“I’m going to go and shake some trees out there for the quarterback and see if one falls out,” Elway said.
Well, best of luck with that.
On New Year’s Day, we all want to believe that whatap next will be better, as soon as we take a magic pill to lose 10 pounds. Too bad neither life nor football works that way. No matter how much Elway hates losing, there’s no easy fix for this mess he has made.
Here’s the truth: isn’t walking through the locker room doors to get re-issued his No. 18. Mike Shanahan won’t be making a comeback at age 66 on the Denver sideline, as the team took great pains to make clear, while also shooting down any notion Elway would trade a top draft pick to Baltimore for coach John Harbaugh.
“I see it as a big rebuild coming on,” Broncos cornerback Chris Harris Jr. said. “I see a big tidal wave coming.”
Yes, this is a football franchise that must stop living in the past. But can we put a lid on the melodrama?
How the Broncos climb back to the league’s elite level won’t be glamorous, because the grind never is. Denver isn’t going to hire Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley or some other X’s and O’s wunderkind as coach because, frankly, a franchise with shaky ownership and uncertainty at quarterback isn’t among the best jobs available.
Unless Elway is willing to gamble everything on the slim possibility of landing a Heisman-winning baseball prospect named Kyler Murray, there’s not a college quarterback in the 2019 NFL draft guaranteed to be any better than the mediocrity the Broncos already have seen from .
So I hate to break it to you, but what your favorite team likely will do next in the rebuilding process is about as exciting as pouring concrete. Elway dropped strong hints about what he seeks in a new head coach, and the most probable candidates are about as sexy as dad jeans.
My semi-educated guess is the next coach won’t have a flat belly but will have gray at the temples.
Pittsburgh offensive line coach Mike Munchak had a ho-hum 22-26 record during a three-year stint as the head coach in Tennessee, but was born the same year as Elway, and they both grew up to get enshrined in Canton, Ohio, as players. At age 60, Vic Fangio has never run an NFL team, but with the , he coordinates the closest thing to the dominant defense that won Super Bowl 50 for Denver. And Colorado native Chuck Pagano, who went 53-43 during six seasons at the helm in Indianapolis, has precisely the John Fox personality that can get along with a high-maintenance boss like Elway.
Maybe it was a ploy to throw everyone off the scent, but Elway certainly made it sound as if he would like to become offensive coordinator. That would make sense, because A) Nobody loves Keenum more than Kubiak, and B) He’s a quarterback whisperer that could groom Elway’s next choice to succeed where and failed.
Hire a wise old head as coach, and the Broncos could be competitive next season with a defense built around and Harris, plus more efficiency from Keenum executing plays hand-selected for him by Kubiak. Trade Von Miller? Itap something a rebuilding team must at least consider.
“No one is entitled to success,” said Broncos president , citing everyone who works for a proud organization. “It requires hard work. You can’t go around and look at slogans (on the wall), see trophies in the lobby and expect itap going to happen. You have to work at it, and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
If Elway really hates losing, he must play the long game. Does he have the patience? The QB class of 2020 figures to include Jake Fromm of Georgia, Justin Herbert of Oregon and Tua Tagovailoa of Alabama. After marking time for a year, Elway can push all his chips to the middle of the table, trade up in the draft and hope to finally land a franchise quarterback.
And if that doesn’t work out for Elway? Well, he can go make tee times everywhere from Augusta National to Pebble Beach, and let somebody else worry about the football fortunes in apountry.
