Does John Elway have a power move up his sleeve?

Say what you want about John Elway, but he gets what he wants.

Elway got Peyton Manning. He got DeMarcus Ware, T.J. Ward and Aqib Talib, too. And when Gary Kubiak said he wasn’t looking to be a head coach, well, you know what happened …

Now, there’s two ways to take this: (1) Elway only got those big-name free agents because he already had No. 18 in town or (2) Elway’s a football genius who’s playing chess while the rest of the league’s GMs are playing checkers.

While the real answer is in the giant gray area between the two, there’s a big portion of Broncos Country who would argue for the latter, and with a Lombardi Trophy in hand, it’s kind of hard to put up much of an argument against it. So, for now, let’s just work under the assumption that Elway is a genius who’s five steps ahead of the competition.

What’s he up to?

Well, Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report essentially asked that question on Wednesday, and he says that many around the league believe Elway has a power move in store:

Several front-office executives told me they don’t believe Elway is really putting his football eggs in the Sanchez basket.

They think he has something planned.

He’s Jedi-mind-tricking the NFL. These aren’t the personnel moves you’re looking for.

He’s waiting in the weeds, ready to pounce with some sort of spectacular move.

And he’s right. If Elway is the GM we believe him to be, there’s no way he’s legitimately planning on entering the 2016 season with Mark Sanchez or Brian Hoyer as his starting quarterback. That’s the type of thing the Browns would do, and the Denver Broncos are not the Cleveland Browns.

So what’s the power move? It’s not a super trade to move up and grab Jared Goff or Carson Wentz, I can tell you that. So is it moving up to select Paxton Lynch? Maybe, but nearly everyone who has scouted the kid says he needs to sit for a year, at least, before he’s ready to start in the NFL.

Is it trading for Colin Kaepernick? We probably would have said yes a few weeks ago, but those talks have quieted down significantly. And are we even sure Kaepernick is worth all the hubbub? Yeah, he started in a Super Bowl, but he’s also coming off two miserable seasons — seasons worse than what we’ve seen from guys like Mark Sanchez and Brian Hoyer.

If there’s a power move out there, it’s going to come out of left field. It’s going to be a name we haven’t heard of or didn’t expect.

For instance, Tyrod Taylor. While there has been mild speculation of the Broncos’ interest in the Bills quarterback, that’s been about it. But we already know Elway and Kubiak are fans of Taylor — they tried to sign him last offseason — and Buffalo doesn’t exactly seem all that gung-ho to lock him up long term. Does Elway have the power to break through and snatch him from Rex Ryan’s grasp? Who knows …

Or maybe the power move is for an even bigger name … a guy like Philip Rivers, Drew Brees or Matt Stafford? Maybe Elway is so good that he hypnotizes Bill Belichick into sending Tom Brady to Denver?

I mean, if Elway has a “spectacular move” up his sleeve, as Freeman put it, then he better be getting a spectacular player, right?

Well, that’s the thought, but for however good Elway may be, there’s still one fact the Broncos can’t escape: It takes two sides to make a deal. And that’s the Trump-sized wall Denver is currently facing.

There is no Peyton Manning on the free agent market. The Broncos won’t have an opportunity to draft an elite quarterback prospect. Teams don’t just decide to trade starting-caliber signal callers.

Elway may have the ability to lure the game’s best to Denver, but when the best available players are guys like Mark Sanchez, Josh McCown, Case Keenum and Sam Bradford, what good is that ability?

So, to answer the original question, does John Elway have a power move up his sleeve? No, of course not, because there’s no power move to be made. The most Broncos Country can even dream for is a guy like Kaepernick or Taylor, but even then, what are we really getting? A couple guys who’ve flashed talent but have more question marks than career wins.

In all likelihood, the Broncos will enter the 2016 season with Sanchez, Hoyer or someone of their ilk behind center, and it won’t be because Elway didn’t do his job; it’ll be because the Broncos were dealt a bad hand when Peyton Manning and Brock Osweiler left town, and there simply wasn’t a trump card to be found in the deck.