For 16 seasons, John Elway stood under center for the Broncos, play calls and defensive formations racing through his mind as he watched the play clock tick down before calling for “Hut!”
Now the Broncos top football executive, Elway got the same juice in the draft room this weekend as he got on the field.
“I did. I was excited,” Elway said at the conclusion of the draft Saturday night. “I felt like I was playing a football game. I think that’s why I was exhausted every night when I left.”
Elway came back to the Broncos in an official role in January because he missed the juice of professional football. He wanted the challenge of running a team, the type of camaraderie you only find in a locker room, and after picking nine players — along with his new teammates John Fox and Brian Xanders — Elway on Saturday had that same post-win glow he often got as a player.
Elway said he often found himself behaving like he did during his playing days, pacing around the room, just as he did in the locker room before games or on the sidelines while the defense was on the field. The most excitement came, he said, when the “phones got hot” in the second round as the Broncos were fielding multiple trade offers. (The Broncos ended up swapping picks with San Francisco, who moved up to take a quarterback. Denver picked up two extra selections in the deal).
“You look at your board and it gets close to your pick who you want, and you’re hoping they fall to where you want, it’s a little bit – I mean, I was up pacing, walking around, hoping the guy we want would fall to where we wanted it too,” Elway said.