“In John we trust.”
That’s the saying that nearly every Broncos fan has lived by since John Elway has been involved with the organization.
Whether he’s orchestrating “The Drive,” risking his body in “The Helicopter” or building a roster to win a championship, Elway always manages to get the job done.
Since 2011, Elway has led the Broncos on the climb to the top of the football world, but has this offseason been the beginning of a plummet back down to earth?
Up until this point, Elway has been outstanding in the front office. After being hired as the general manager and vice president of football operations in 2011, the Broncos have won five straight AFC West titles and appeared in two Super Bowls, winning Super Bowl 50.
Elway turned a 4-12 Broncos team in 2010 into a legitimate Super Bowl contender in just two seasons by helping lure Peyton Manning to Denver.
While many people will link Denver’s success to the arrival of Manning, that still doesn’t change the fact that Elway knows how to build a roster, whether it be through the draft or via free agency. He’s proven that.
Elway and the Broncos have had their way in free agency, dating back to the 2012 offseason that saw them land Manning. They proceeded to land arguably the biggest free agents on the market in the two years that followed by signing wide receiver Wes Welker, outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware, safety T.J. Ward and cornerback Aqib Talib.
Part of signing players means cutting players, though, and Elway has done that well too. There are four remaining starters currently on the team from 2013 team that got blown out in Super Bowl XLVIII. He’s not afraid to blow up a roster and start all over.
2014 was really when the big-time free agent signings stopped and Elway began to fill in the pieces instead. He signed Pro Bowl cornerback Chris Harris Jr. to an extension in 2014, and added free safety Darian Stewart to create one of the best secondaries in the NFL in 2015.
As always, when a team wins a championship, the rest of the league will try to come in and steal a piece of the pie. The Broncos saw free agency take defensive end Malik Jackson, linebacker Danny Trevathan, quarterback Brock Osweiler and a few other integral pieces that helped the Broncos win Super Bowl 50.
While the rumblings were there, it’s safe to say that Osweiler’s signing with the Texans caught everyone off guard. Instead of entering the season following a Super Bowl victory with a quarterback groomed to play in their offense and a team built to win now, the Broncos were stuck with 2015 third-string quarterback Trevor Siemian and Elway was all of a sudden faced with the biggest task as a member of the Broncos’ front office: Finding a quarterback
Part of being a general manager is working out of binds such as the one Elway found himself in back in March. Elway should be considered one of the best general managers in the NFL over the last five years, but whether or not he can do it one more time will be interesting to find out.
Elway did the best he could do with the situation he was given, and that should be worth something. Instead of blowing up the roster and trading for a big-name quarterback, Elway rolled the dice hoping for a bit of luck.
Win or lose, 2016 will be the year that the world sees what kind of general manager John Elway actually is. Hopefully everyone’s trust was given to the right person.
