John Elway's Last Draft as GM Has Helped Torpedo 2022 Broncos
Each week, the Denver Broncos spiral deeper into the abyss that has become the losing culture in the Mile High City for over a half-decade. This Sunday, the 3-8 Broncos travel for a matchup against the 7-4 Baltimore Ravens, who are eight-point favorites in Week 13.
While the Broncos limp through the hardest part of their schedule over the next six games, the Ravens have a divisional title they’re playing for in a competitive AFC North.
As this season has unraveled in spectacular fashion, Broncos Country has taken aim at GM George Paton, head coach Nathaniel Hackett, and Russell Wilson for another miserable campaign that wasn’t supposed to happen. This past offseason, the buzz was about how the Broncos would contend in the AFC West and make a playoff run.
Yet, here the Broncos are in familiar territory, having not won a football game in the United States since Week 4's one-point victory over the San Francisco 49ers, which was over two months ago.
Hackett is a nice guy with a good heart, but he’s not a head coach. Paton needs to give Hackett his walking papers, and he’ll have to answer to ownership for that failure and attempt to right that wrong.
It’s all about fit in the NFL, and without a head that can lead Wilson and utilize his strengths, the Broncos will suffer disastrous results.
But to what degree does former general manager John Elway deserve some blame for this season's trainwreck? The same man responsible for leading the Broncos franchise to back-to-back championships in 1997 and 1998 outdid himself as an NFL executive, leading Denver to a third Lombardi Trophy with Hall-of-Famer Peyton Manning and the famed Super Bowl 50 defense in 2015.
Elway is nicknamed the 'Duke of Denver’ for a reason.
Almost two years ago, Elway hired Paton as GM of the team, and old No. 7 currently serves as an outside consultant to the Broncos and directly advises his successor. But it’s Paton who’s still feeling the sting of Elway’s curtain-call draft class of 2020.
I’m not making excuses for the 2022 Broncos, who are an embarrassment to professional football. Instead, I’m examining the cold, hard facts of the players that Paton inherited from Elway's last draft class as GM. Let's examine.
The Best That Never Was
Defenders Failing to Launch
A Swing and a Miss on the O-Line
Albert O' is M.I.A.
The One That Got Away
On the same draft trip where I scouted Agim, I witnessed a hardworking, solid football player in rush linebacker Derrek Tuszka, who was drafted by the Broncos in the seventh round (No. 254) out of North Dakota State. The slender 6-foot-4, 246-pounder showed immediate promise in camp as a rookie, earning him playing time that didn’t amount to much.
Tuszka logged six tackles, with one for a loss, in nine games before flaming out in Denver. He’s currently with the Los Angeles Chargers after he was claimed off waivers last September. He’s made sporadic appearances for the Bolts in eight games, having logged 10 tackles (six solo).
Tuszka proved not to be the second coming of Von Miller or the next T.J. Watt. But the Broncos could sure use some pass rushing, and Tuszka is now a veteran player who will play for a long time in this league.
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