Without Ownership Clarity, Broncos' Future Direction Will Continue to be Clouded
With the 2020 Denver Broncos season nearing its end, fans are talking about what awaits in the offseason. Much of that conversation focuses on general manager John Elway, who has presided over four straight losing seasons, and head coach Vic Fangio, who has presided over the last two.
Some of the discussion I've observed concerns the Broncos' ownership situation, with a few fans questioning why it's important to have an owner.
To answer that query, you first need to solve this one: If or when Elway is no longer GM, who is going to be the one responsible for deciding who replaces him?
The owner, of course, is tasked with that responsibility. And the owner factors in by shaping the big picture.
A good owner will have a vision for the team and hire people who are tasked with carrying out that vision. That owner will evaluate those he or she hires and hold those people accountable.
One point that's constantly tossed around in Broncos Country is that Pat Bowlen wouldn't be happy with multiple losing seasons. That is no doubt true, but that makes him no different from any other owner.
No NFL owner wants to see his team losing all the time. As great of an owner as Bowlen was, claiming that he wouldn't like multiple losing seasons is pointing out the obvious.
The less obvious point about Bowlen is that he would evaluate not just what fans see happening in front of their eyes, but the behind-the-scenes elements that fans don't see. The fans may hear things from the outside, but it rarely represents the full story.
But a team owner who does his or her job well will address matters that happen behind the scenes and, if they become a problem, the owner is likely going to make a change.
I won't pretend to have known the inner thoughts of the late Bowlen, but how he may have viewed some of the decisions that Elway has made in recent years wouldn't take a crystal ball to deduce. However, Bowlen didn't micromanage his team. He trusted the people he hired to do their jobs and, if he believed change was needed because that person wasn't competently netting the requisite results, he made it.
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On one hand, Bowlen wasn't going to tell Elway which players to draft or sign, because he would allow Elway to make those decisions. On the other, there was a point when Elway was micromanaging the Broncos, such as when he dictated certain coaching hires when Vance Joseph was brought on board in 2017.
Granted, Joseph didn't pan out, but having coaching hires dictated to him in his first year with the team was the wrong way to go about business. Elway needed to let Joseph determine the coaches he wanted on board from the start, then allow Joseph to rise or fall on the merits of his decisions.
It's possible Bowlen would have pulled Elway aside, reminded him he was letting Elway do his job, so he should let the coach he hires do his job. Or perhaps Bowlen would have had conversations with Elway after he does coaching interviews in 2017, and convinces him that, say, allowing somebody like Kyle Shanahan more input into personnel decisions may be worth it, if Elway believed Shanahan was the right person for the job.
Regardless, Bowlen wasn't going to dictate every decision to Elway. That wasn't his ownership style and I'm sure Broncos fans would agree that it's the best way to do business in the NFL, especially when compared to other owners around the league who have micromanaged their teams into the ground.
Let's get back to Elway and Vic Fangio. Suppose the Broncos make a head-coaching change after this season. Who is going to be tasked with finding a replacement, and more importantly, is there any guarantee a coach would want to come here if he doesn't know who the owner will be?
Keep in mind, if the Broncos do move on from Elway after 2020, there's a very real chance that Fangio is gone, too, unless the team were to allow Fangio input into the GM search. After all, it's not good to bring in a GM who didn't hire the coach and risk the two not working well together.
If Fangio is also removed, that likely means OC Pat Shurmur and DC Ed Donatell are both gone — and when all the dominoes fall, Drew Lock is probably gone, too.
Why would a new regime want to keep Lock when he hasn't proven he can be the guy? If you are preaching patience with Lock, you won't get it if a new regime takes over.
But let's say Elway is removed and Fangio gets input into the GM hiring process. How can you be sure that the Broncos find the right GM if top candidates have questions about the ownership situation?
Let's look at it another way: If Elway is retained for 2021, he will enter the final year of his current contract. At the end of that season, the possible scenarios are that the Broncos let him go, they extend him, or he voluntarily steps aside.
If the Broncos extend him, Elway is likely to want a long-term commitment. I don't see him taking the GM job on a year-to-year basis until the ownership situation is settled. He would have no idea about his future with the team and that could influence his decision making, to the point that he's thinking year-to-year there rather than long term.
Furthermore, keeping a GM on a year-to-year basis isn't a good look for an organization. You either need to show commitment to a person you already have or hire somebody else.
If Elway is gone after 2021, and the ownership situation remains up in the air, you're faced with the same situation currently with the prospect of moving on from Elway after 2020: Who is making the decision about who will run team operations and how can any potential hire trust that he will still get a chance when the ownership situation is settled?
Personally, I wouldn't take the Broncos GM job without knowing who the owner will be. I have no idea whether Brittany Bowlen or Beth Bowlen Wallace can be a good team owner, or if another person who wants to buy the team would be.
But unless I know who is going to be the owner, I'm not interested in the Broncos job because I don't know what that potential owner wants beyond winning games.
And that's why, regardless of your opinion about the front office, the coaching staff, the quarterback or anybody else, you need to expose who is truly the top person in the organization — the team owner — so you have somebody who can hold the rest of the organization accountable.
Until that is finalized, there will continue to be more questions than answers about the Broncos' future.
Follow Bob on Twitter @BobMorrisSports and @MileHighHuddle.
