Denver Native (Carol)
02-14-2009, 10:12 AM
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/feb/13/bowlen-takes-back-broncos/
Pat Bowlen may not be the best messenger for his own message. In fact, he’s clearly not. Somehow, a man astute enough to chair the NFL’s labor committee with a potential labor war looming comes off as your confused uncle when he tries to explain what he’s doing with his own team.
But Bowlen’s moves to recast the Broncos organization over the past six weeks have not been as confused as they look.
The bottom line is he has reacquired his own franchise. It is as if he went out on the market and bought it all over again. That is the extent of the change he has wrought since firing Mike Shanahan on Dec. 30.
The Broncos owner, who turns 65 on Wednesday, woke up one morning and found himself on the outside looking in at his own business. It’s not clear exactly what morning that was, but it was probably a little more than a year ago, just before he made Joe Ellis the Broncos’ chief operating officer.
Until then, Ellis had been executive vice president of business operations in an organization divided along classic lines. The firewall between football decisions and business decisions might as well have been the constitutional separation of church and state.
As executive vice president of football operations, Shanahan had total control over the football side, which meant he could expand his coaching staff, as he did, expand his personnel department, as he did, make expensive personnel mistakes, as he did, and account to no one for any of it.
This was Bowlen’s own fault. He gave Shanahan all that power. He promised he could keep it as long as he liked. He fell in love with a coach, just as Shanahan often fell in love with players. As it often turns out, personal affection and business are not necessarily a great mix.
As time went on, Bowlen came to see he had little or no control over the business he owned. Despite the fact that he went to his office in Dove Valley every day, one of the NFL’s few full-time owners, success and failure, on both the field and the balance sheet, were out of his day-to-day control.
Had Shanahan succeeded on the field in recent years, Bowlen probably would have continued to live with being largely a spectator of his own franchise. But the combination of disappointment on the field and disappointment on the balance sheet wore him down.
“Nobody in pro sports can afford to operate in a vacuum with a division between football and business operations anymore,” Ellis said Friday.
“Whether we were or were not in the past is not the issue. The issue is moving forward we need to be synched up and work together as best we can. So that’s what we’re doing.”
It is in this context that the promotion of Brian Xanders to general manager this week and the firing of Jim Goodman and his son Jeff come into focus. The elder Goodman was an old-school Shanahan lieutenant — a football guy.
Xanders, with his background not only in personnel evaluation but player contracts and the nuances of the salary cap, is in a better position to provide the organizational accountability Bowlen is now determined to demand.
“I will tell you that when Pat Bowlen looked at Brian’s credentials, he saw a wide span of responsibility that he’s had in the 14 years that he was with the Atlanta Falcons and the nine months that he was here,” Ellis said.
The perception that the elder Goodman might follow Shanahan to his next destination and the easy chemistry Xanders and new head coach Josh McDaniels developed over the past month also helped Bowlen make his decision.
That Bowlen would suggest five weeks ago, upon hiring McDaniels, that Goodman would remain in place, and later claim that was only a public perception, is mainly a measure of his difficulty dealing with the spotlight.
Privately, he comes off as much more decisive, knowledgeable, opinionated and even profane. For some reason, speaking for public consumption turns him squirrelly. It has made much of what he’s said and done over the past two months appear contradictory.
On the other hand, give him credit for stepping up to the microphone, even if he hates it and isn’t very good at it. He shows much more respect for his fan base than the owner who refuses to be publicly accountable, insisting he runs a private business rather than a quasi-public trust.
In the current economic environment, the Broncos, like a lot of sports teams, intend to hold the line on ticket prices in 2009. In that context, they cannot be making financial decisions, even on the football side, without accountability.
“Pat has made it clear to everybody here that we are all accountable to him,” Ellis said. “There is full accountability in this building, with respect to business and football.”
So it is not that Bowlen wants to be Jerry Jones. Saying that Xanders and McDaniels will report to him does not mean he will be deciding whom to draft. That’s why a good working relationship between the GM and head coach is important. They must be able to reach a consensus between them.
A year ago, as the undefeated Patriots, with McDaniels as offensive coordinator, prepared to play the Giants in the Super Bowl, I asked Scott Pioli, then the Patriots’ vice president for player personnel, how he and head coach Bill Belichick worked together choosing players.
“I don’t know how to describe exactly what it is, but here’s what I know: There hasn’t been a player that we’ve brought here that Bill and I haven’t agreed on,” Pioli said.
“If there’s a player that Bill doesn’t like that I like, it’s kind of a feel thing. We get to a certain point and whoever believes in the player kind of stops pushing because Bill and I, we’ve been fortunate enough, I think, where if we agree on a player, we think we know that we have a pretty good chance. If we disagree, we trust the other person enough that they know something or they feel something that it’s not going to work. And we’ve never really pushed it (past) that point.”
This is the model Bowlen hopes to cultivate with Xanders and McDaniels. They are both rookies at their new jobs, so we’ll see.
But this much Bowlen has accomplished in the past two months: He now sits atop a streamlined, traditional organizational chart. There are no personal fiefdoms, no separate empires.
He has taken back his franchise. Now we’ll see if he can make it win.
Pat Bowlen may not be the best messenger for his own message. In fact, he’s clearly not. Somehow, a man astute enough to chair the NFL’s labor committee with a potential labor war looming comes off as your confused uncle when he tries to explain what he’s doing with his own team.
But Bowlen’s moves to recast the Broncos organization over the past six weeks have not been as confused as they look.
The bottom line is he has reacquired his own franchise. It is as if he went out on the market and bought it all over again. That is the extent of the change he has wrought since firing Mike Shanahan on Dec. 30.
The Broncos owner, who turns 65 on Wednesday, woke up one morning and found himself on the outside looking in at his own business. It’s not clear exactly what morning that was, but it was probably a little more than a year ago, just before he made Joe Ellis the Broncos’ chief operating officer.
Until then, Ellis had been executive vice president of business operations in an organization divided along classic lines. The firewall between football decisions and business decisions might as well have been the constitutional separation of church and state.
As executive vice president of football operations, Shanahan had total control over the football side, which meant he could expand his coaching staff, as he did, expand his personnel department, as he did, make expensive personnel mistakes, as he did, and account to no one for any of it.
This was Bowlen’s own fault. He gave Shanahan all that power. He promised he could keep it as long as he liked. He fell in love with a coach, just as Shanahan often fell in love with players. As it often turns out, personal affection and business are not necessarily a great mix.
As time went on, Bowlen came to see he had little or no control over the business he owned. Despite the fact that he went to his office in Dove Valley every day, one of the NFL’s few full-time owners, success and failure, on both the field and the balance sheet, were out of his day-to-day control.
Had Shanahan succeeded on the field in recent years, Bowlen probably would have continued to live with being largely a spectator of his own franchise. But the combination of disappointment on the field and disappointment on the balance sheet wore him down.
“Nobody in pro sports can afford to operate in a vacuum with a division between football and business operations anymore,” Ellis said Friday.
“Whether we were or were not in the past is not the issue. The issue is moving forward we need to be synched up and work together as best we can. So that’s what we’re doing.”
It is in this context that the promotion of Brian Xanders to general manager this week and the firing of Jim Goodman and his son Jeff come into focus. The elder Goodman was an old-school Shanahan lieutenant — a football guy.
Xanders, with his background not only in personnel evaluation but player contracts and the nuances of the salary cap, is in a better position to provide the organizational accountability Bowlen is now determined to demand.
“I will tell you that when Pat Bowlen looked at Brian’s credentials, he saw a wide span of responsibility that he’s had in the 14 years that he was with the Atlanta Falcons and the nine months that he was here,” Ellis said.
The perception that the elder Goodman might follow Shanahan to his next destination and the easy chemistry Xanders and new head coach Josh McDaniels developed over the past month also helped Bowlen make his decision.
That Bowlen would suggest five weeks ago, upon hiring McDaniels, that Goodman would remain in place, and later claim that was only a public perception, is mainly a measure of his difficulty dealing with the spotlight.
Privately, he comes off as much more decisive, knowledgeable, opinionated and even profane. For some reason, speaking for public consumption turns him squirrelly. It has made much of what he’s said and done over the past two months appear contradictory.
On the other hand, give him credit for stepping up to the microphone, even if he hates it and isn’t very good at it. He shows much more respect for his fan base than the owner who refuses to be publicly accountable, insisting he runs a private business rather than a quasi-public trust.
In the current economic environment, the Broncos, like a lot of sports teams, intend to hold the line on ticket prices in 2009. In that context, they cannot be making financial decisions, even on the football side, without accountability.
“Pat has made it clear to everybody here that we are all accountable to him,” Ellis said. “There is full accountability in this building, with respect to business and football.”
So it is not that Bowlen wants to be Jerry Jones. Saying that Xanders and McDaniels will report to him does not mean he will be deciding whom to draft. That’s why a good working relationship between the GM and head coach is important. They must be able to reach a consensus between them.
A year ago, as the undefeated Patriots, with McDaniels as offensive coordinator, prepared to play the Giants in the Super Bowl, I asked Scott Pioli, then the Patriots’ vice president for player personnel, how he and head coach Bill Belichick worked together choosing players.
“I don’t know how to describe exactly what it is, but here’s what I know: There hasn’t been a player that we’ve brought here that Bill and I haven’t agreed on,” Pioli said.
“If there’s a player that Bill doesn’t like that I like, it’s kind of a feel thing. We get to a certain point and whoever believes in the player kind of stops pushing because Bill and I, we’ve been fortunate enough, I think, where if we agree on a player, we think we know that we have a pretty good chance. If we disagree, we trust the other person enough that they know something or they feel something that it’s not going to work. And we’ve never really pushed it (past) that point.”
This is the model Bowlen hopes to cultivate with Xanders and McDaniels. They are both rookies at their new jobs, so we’ll see.
But this much Bowlen has accomplished in the past two months: He now sits atop a streamlined, traditional organizational chart. There are no personal fiefdoms, no separate empires.
He has taken back his franchise. Now we’ll see if he can make it win.