Broncos Insider: GM Candidates Had Three Separate Takes on Drew Lock During Interviews
The Denver Broncos are yet to make a decision on who the next general manager will be to lead this team into the next era. One week removed from John Elway relinquishing GM duties to take an 'elevated' role in the front office, the Broncos have held five interviews for the job opportunity.
One candidate has already withdrawn after having interviewed — New England's Dave Ziegler — which leaves the internal option of Brian Stark and the three outside contenders vying for the job — starting with Minnesota's George Paton, New Orleans' Terry Fontenot, and Chicago's Champ Kelly. None of the candidates interviewed have GM experience, though Paton has sat the closest to the "big chair" to quote to 9NEWS' insider Mike Klis.
Klis joined The Drive on 104.3 The FAN on Monday evening to provide an update on where things stand in the Broncos' pursuit of Elway's successor. Among the choice topics discussed in Klis' conversation with hosts Darren McKee and Tyler Polumbus was the respective view each GM candidate had on Drew Lock during the interview process with Elway, CEO Joe Ellis, head coach Vic Fangio, and chief communications officer Patrick Smyth.
Turns out, each candidate had a different take on the direction the Broncos would take at quarterback in the event of landing the job. Klis indemnified himself by saying he wasn't "privy to all that" while in the next beat, dropping this nugget.
“I’m not really privy to all that," Klis told McKee and Polumbus. "I do know that it was discussed. There were opinions across the board from, ‘If you’ve got a chance to go get a top-tier quarterback, you’ve got to try’, to ‘There’s no one out there in free agency or [via] trade that’s going to be better than Drew Lock, [so] you’ve got to get him from the draft’, to ‘Give him more time, you’ve invested this much time. You’re better off with him and let’s get a quality veteran backup in case he slips.’ And I’m not sure who was with who on those opinions.”
(Listen to the clip at 35:00)
In summary, there were three views but two of them would keep Lock as the starter, just under different conditions. One candidate would go all-out to land a "top-tier" QB in the NFL draft. Another candidate would stick with Lock as The Guy in 2021, mostly due the investment the team has already made in him and to a lack of viable options on the free-agent and trade market, while the last guy would stick with Lock but hedge against him regressing by signing a competent veteran backup.
We have no way of knowing which candidate professed which outlook but the takeaway is that of the three options, only one would look to the draft for an immediate upgrade/replacement to Lock. Fans will no doubt try to theorize and speculate on which candidate said what but for now, only a handful of people know the answers — the candidates themselves and the Broncos' hiring committee. There's a chance Klis knows which candidate said what but he's not about to spill those beans on the airwaves.
Elway, as president of football operations, will want to be "consulted" on all the "big" decisions the next GM will make. What qualifies as "big"? Klis offered up additional insight in his illuminating conversation with The Drive.
"A quarterback decision would be 'big' if you're giving up on Drew Lock and bringing in Matthew Stafford," Klis told McKee and Polumbus. "And John won't make the final decision on that. He'll just say, 'Look, I understand you want Stafford. I personally think Drew Lock, if you give him a little bit more time, it might benefit the Broncos. This is why I like Drew Lock. He's two years [in] but he really only had one year of development with the time he missed as a rookie from injury and the time he missed in the sophomore year because of no OTAs and preseason.' So he might make that argument. Otherwise, he steps aside. I do not think he'll be involved in Justin Simmons. I do not think he'll be involved in Von Miller."
Another common theme among these GM candidates, according to Klis, was the priority to get Pro Bowl safety Justin Simmons re-signed. And although Broncos Country might not want to hear it, none of the candidates seemed amenable to bringing Von Miller back for the final year of his contract at the current $17.5 million cost, although, the first push would be to try to negotiate a restructure — however that might look.
“All these GMs, when they were interviewing, almost all of them tried to say, ‘Try to get Justin Simmons—Justin Simmons has got to be a priority of getting him back.’ Figuring out how to get Justin Simmons back," Klis said on The Drive. "And Von, the sentiment was, ‘Try to bring him back at a—see if we can work out a new contract’ type of deal. You can’t bring him back at $18 (million). But I think that was pretty much how all the GMs thought about those two players.”
These are the momentous decisions the Broncos' new GM will be staring down the barrel on when hired; Lock, Simmons, and Miller. For now, Paton seems to be the favorite to land the job but as Klis stated on Monday, he's very "picky" when it comes to finding the right fit for his first opportunity to be a GM.
Paton and Kelly could start immediately, if an agreement was reached, while the Broncos would have to wait on Fontenot until the Saints were either bounced from the playoffs or until after the Super Bowl, depending on which came first. Klis floated the possibility of the Broncos viewing Kelly as the "second in command" ideally, not as the actual GM hire, which opens up a whole new can of worms.
But, remember, the Broncos aren't just filling Elway's former job as GM — they're also looking to replace Matt Russell and hire a new director of player personnel. That would call for two new hires in the front office. If Paton proves to be too costly or picky, and the Saints continue to succeed in the playoffs, Klis could foresee a "second wave" of GM interviews at Dove Valley.
“If they don’t get Paton and Fontenot is in the playoffs and they can’t get him for a while, and they want Champ maybe as the second in command but maybe not the first guy, that’s where I think they might open it back up,” Klis told McKee and Polumbus.
If a second wave unfolds, keep an eye on ex-Houston Texans GM Rick Smith and ex-Falcons GM Thomas Dimitroff. Both have GM experience and Smith has a working relationship with the Broncos on his NFL resume.
Follow Chad on Twitter @ChadNJensen and @MileHighHuddle.
