It's hard to envision a GM having a worse year than Elway did in 2017.
First, he runs off Kubiak at the end of the 2016 season (a respected and serviceable NFL coach)... The company line is that he had medical issues, but we know from reading between the lines that it was medical issues + a demanding boss who wanted him to change his ways and get rid of longtime assistant coaches. And granted, Kubiak's offense looked vanilla and dated, but we couldn't have known what a downgrade was in store.
Then he hires VJ in January 2017, whose defense ranked towards the bottom of the league. Elway goes on to compile one of the worst draft classes of all time... And because of how awful his personnel moves were, Joe Ellis wouldn't let him fire the coach who is obviously incompetent.
Then the top free agent QB doesn't have us on his short list because of the obvious uncertainty at the top.
I'm happy that amidst all this Elway & Co. seemed to salvage a pretty good 2018 draft class (albeit with no QB of the future and Rosen looking pretty good down in AZ) - but it shouldn't be all that surprising that the team is in the state that it's in.
I think it is a bad idea to get too high or too low on any rookie. After three years we should know if these guys will pan out or not. Some of them might even get hurt and fade away. In the last 30 years, only 50% of the top 10 picks (that were QB's) actually turned into franchise quality QB's for various reasons.
Somehow I knew that'd be controversial, even though it shouldn't be... They came to a professional impasse - Kubiak didn't want to reinvent himself at that stage in his career, with medical issues, and go find new assistants - Elway didn't think the status quo was working. In theory, it wasn't a terrible decision by either of them - it's just that Elway botched the replacement.
We’re not beating the Rams with any coach, so that part doesn’t matter. If we lose to an anemic Cardinals team on that Thursday though, that’s five in a row. That’s the next likely time to get rid of this guy if it’s happening at all in season
The worst part for me is this creeping apathy. Knowing full well that we will be out-coached every week is disheartening.
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