Long, strange trip ends with new QB
Very late in the evening, after expressing his excitement about the Broncos’ No. 1 draft choice to a horde of media hangers-on, John Elway, alone and tired, ascended the stairs toward his office.
An interloper interrupted his flight.
“What was your Plan B?”— a reference to John’s assertion four years earlier, when Peyton Manning agreed to come to town, that “there was no Plan B.”
The Duke of DoveValley flashed that famous smile and said: “It’s been a long two months.”
His plans had been B through Q.
This was the end of April. Five days intoMarch, Manning told Elway he was retiring. On March 10, free agent Brock Osweiler signed with the Houston Texans. That afternoon, Elway began discussions with San Francisco about acquiring Colin Kaepernick.
For 50 consecutive days and nights John, the master of all he surveys with the Broncos, sought to find replacements at the football position he knows best of all and is most important of all— quarterback.
On March 11, Elway traded
with Philadelphia for Mark Sanchez, the former somebody.
Meanwhile, John began to pirouette with the enigmatic Kaepernick for weeks into April.
The Broncos also considered and dismissed the idea of Robert Griffin III. They dipped into discourse about Ryan Fitzpatrick and Tyrod Taylor. John brought in Brian Hoyer and talked about JoshMcCown. There were internal evaluations of T.J. Yates (who played under Broncos coach Gary Kubiak in Texas) and Ryan Lindley. Rumors that the Broncos were plotting for Mike Glennon were concocted.
When Kubiak had a phone conversation with JohnnyManziel, the tweets erupted. Kubiak, as had Johnny Fool-ball, played quarterback at Texas A&M. He was telling the young dunce to clean up his act (somewhere else).
Then, there was the Strange Case of Sam Bradford, who couldn’t play dead in a Western. The Broncos reached out again to the Eagles, from where they pried Sanchez, for dialogue after Philly traded up to No. 2. Within moments, the Broncos said no, thanks, in regard to Bradford, who has won Powerball three times but hasn’t won anything in the NFL.
If all that rigmarole wasn’t sufficient, the Broncos became connected to four college quarterbacks they had scouted, investigated and invited to Denver for tea and talk. One was Jeff Driskel, who had transferred from Florida to Louisiana Tech; the others were Dak Prescott of Mississippi State, “Captain’’ Connor Cook of Michigan State and Paxton Lynch of the University ofMemphis.
Are we leaving out anyone else in America who plays quarterback?
“We are going to draft a quarterback,” Kubiak said.
“We are not through bringing in competition at quarterback,” Elway said.
Lest we forget, Trevor Siemian, picked in the seventh round in 2015, was, for one and brief shining moment, in Camelot as the only quarterback on the roster of the defending world champions. (No previous Super Bowl-winning team had lost its two quarterbacks before the next season.) Siemian became as popular as a dish rag, though.
Oh, and several thousand usually sane citizens of Colorado signed a petition to bring back Tim Tebow.
Tebow, of course, was the Broncos’ most recent quarterback chosen in the first round. Elway hadn’t cared much for any of the three quarterbacks chosen in the first round in franchise history. Jay Cutler was No. 11 overall in 2010, TommyMaddox was No. 25 in 1992, and Tebow was clutched at No. 25 in 2010. Dan Reeves grabbed Maddox to be John’s supposed eventual successor. John wanted a receiver, not a cupholder. Cutler proved he was a dipstick when he claimed he had a stronger arm than Elway and refused an offer from the retired quarterback to mentor him. He soon was exiled. Tebow wasMcKid Hoodie’s chosen one, and Elway never thought Tebow was the solution, and dumped him like a load of coal a day after Manning signed in 2012.
A recent internet story screamed this headline: “Elway’s Hubris May Doom Broncos’ Quarterback Search.” Excessive pride and pomposity? Wrong.
John didn’t panic but, rather, was patient and pragmatic.
“When the Kaepernick thing was done, we concentrated on the quarterback we wanted,” he told me on the staircase Thursday night.
On Thursday the commander and his lieutenants burned the phones for almost eight hours— starting with calls to Atlanta (17) and Indianapolis (18). In midafternoon, I was informed by two sources that the Broncos were offering their No. 1 (31), a third-round pick (94) and a third-rounder next year.
Ultimately, to beat out Kansas City, Arizona and Dallas (desperately trying to move up from the second round), the Broncos made a deal with their Super Bowl XLVIII nemesis— Seattle— for the 26th pick.
Paxton Lynch was the quarterback John wanted— and got. It was worth the wait.
Lynch is the 44th quarterback the Broncos have drafted.
The long two months for Elway are over. May flowers.
Hubris and the Broncos won.