Thread: At What Point Is This Elway's Fault?

I honestly don't know where I come down on the whole "this is all Elway's fault" discussion. At some point in repeated failure, there has to come a time of accountability for the GM. I don't know that I would support firing Elway after this season, but I would say that this season's disappointment has led me to question whether the time is fast approaching when Joe Ellis needs to seriously consider whether they keep John Elway as President of Football Operations and acting GM. At least a discussion has to take place at some point about Elway surrendering some of his GM powers.

I don't know how the rest of the fans feel about this.

I hate having to admit this because I was as ecstatic as any Broncos fan when Elway came here and we went to 2 SBs under Manning.

But, it's time. The last three years have been brutal and it's not even the records that are the most damning indictment of Elway's leadership.

Reporters asked him "why didn't you draft a QB in the 2018 draft?" at his post draft presser. His answer "We're not kicking Paxton to the curb."

So: The reason they didn't draft a QB in 2018 was NOT because Elway believed that Case Keenum could be the long term answer at QB! I admit I was wrong to think that he might be capable of being the long term answer. He quickly proved me wrong. BTW: Keenum's performance this year is statistically almost exactly what it was in MN. Only the Broncos don't have guys like Kyle Rudolph, Stephon Diggs or Adam Thielen so instead of 13-3, they are 6-7 going on 8-8 or 7-9.

Lots of other fans were guilty of drinking the Keenum cool-aid too. But, Elway NEVER was. When he signed Keenum called him "a bridge QB." But, a bridge to what?

As it turned out, Elway's plan was "a bridge to Paxton Lynch" whom he idiotically refused to admit was trash Every single fan, sportswriter, NFL GM, casual observer could see in April 2018 that Paxton was trash, and would always be trash. There was no point in planning around him.

After Paxton inevitably flamed out, they just went to Chad Kelly. Who also dropped out of the league like a stone due to congenital stupidity leaving them with "a bridge to nowhere."

See, if they drafted a developmental QB, then that guy would compete with Paxton, and they'd have to "kick Paxton to the curb." Obviously so, since Paxton could never out-compete anybody, not even Trevor Siemian.

So, because of Elway's stupidity, they were stuck without a long term plan at QB. They just wasted another year of Von Miller and Chris Harris and Derek Wolfe's careers.

Chad Kelly might have been the fan favorite until his bout of congenital idiocy, but Elway never believed in him as the long term answer. That was always Paxton right up till the moment when Paxton finally crashed out of the league.

That's just point #1 of the "It's really all Elway's fault!"

Point #2 is the horrible draft classes of 2015-2017. You all know that sad story filled with idiotic busts like wasting a 2nd round pick on Carlos Henderson. "He's athletic!" or Brenden Langley who they finally got on the field last game. You saw the result and it wasn't pretty.

Point #3 was hiring Vance Joseph instead of Kyle Shanahan.

Point #4 was refusing to fire Vance Joseph at the end of last season.

Point #5 was refusing to keep Wade Phillips as defensive coordinator and insisting on promoting Joe Woods instead. That wasn't VJ's choice. Elway was promoting Joe Woods before they even hired VJ. Joseph was basically stuck with Elway's choices for assistant coaches last year. After the 5-11 disaster VJ got the chance to get rid of a bunch of them starting with OC Mike McCoy. (Vance's choice Bill Musgrave was not any better of course).

Point #6 was getting rid of Aqib Talib for a pack of chewed Slim-Jims. How much could they have used Talib now that Chris Harris is out for the season, and Roby has been repeatedly browned to a nice crispy crust on both sides and you've got Yiadom as the #2 CB?

I suppose that one could argue that letting Trevor Siemian become your starter was point #7, but that could be blamed also on Vance Joseph. Reportedly Vance wanted no part of naming Paxton as starter so he was stuck with Siemian. Elway would not have permitted Vance to draft another QB and just "kick Paxton to the curb" at any point before August 2018. It sure as Hell wasn't VJ who was insisting on "not kicking Paxton to the curb."

There are other points, but I'll stop now.

I'm not calling for Elway to be fired at the end of the season, but I do think he has to be on the hot-seat after the last 3 miserable seasons of repeated failure and failure to find a franchise QB after repeated attempts.

What do you guys think?

He brought a championship to Denver so for me personally he has at least 3 more years to right the ship long term. If we are still failing to win and get back to the playoffs then it will be time to probably move on.

tl;dr

Plus, it's Cugel.

how dare you.

I always thought Elway didn't like how much credit Wade got for SB50, and that led to his departure. Elway is a big time egomaniac. Which is why we have VaJ as coach instead of someone with some actual say.

His drafts, on a whole, have sucked. This year was a different approach and finally paying some dividends. Still loves him some broken TE's though.

Hands were tied at QB. They wanted Baker. Baker went #1. I think he liked Allen, but not with Chubb on the board. Paxton was a 1st round investment. I can see giving him one more TC to move up to backup. Couldn't hold it against Chad I just ate what was in the fridge and took a nap on your couch Kelly. The fact that Paxton sucks soooooo bad, he hasn't been signed ANYWHERE, but Mark Sanchez has, is pretty telling.

I am not saying fire Elway, but he needs to bring in a top flight coach and back the hell off.

Ultimately, everything is his responsibility so he shares in the fault. Elway has fallen prey to some good old nepotism/good old boy favoritism and it has cost him and this team. There are 2 people directly responsible and have the biggest impact for the product on the field each week and they have failed him. VJ and Keenum are those people. Why, you ask, are VJ and Keenum even here? Because of nepotism.

Elway feels he owes a lot of his success to Kubiak (both as a player and GM) so when Kubiak stepped down as HC for health reasons, Elway gave him a FO job. Kubiak used that opportunity to replace himself and his wash out 7th round pick QB with two previous “Kubiak guys” in VJ and then Keenum and because he trusted Kubiak’s judgement Elway went along. Obviously Elway was so excited about the Keenum signing, he didn’t even know his name at the intro presser and referred to him as a “bridge” before he’d even played a snap for us. He seemed ready to shitcan VJ after last season but it is rumored he was told to retain him by Ellis.

The sad part is, this is a much more talented team than the one he inherited after the McDaniels era when he hired Fox and Co. The problem is, the football side has been mismanaged from the get go by VJ and his staff. They have some talent, they just suck at coaching to that talent’s strengths.

Elway is to blame here, but trusting in Kubiak is the reason we are in the current situation. I’m willing to give John the benefit of the doubt for a couple more years (this franchise has never won anything without his involvement), but he must do what is necessary. That starts with firing VJ, signing or drafting a Keenum replacement, and either firing Kubiak or just taking his choices in personnel with a grain of salt.

It made me very excited to hear that Kubes may go back to coaching (OC) next year. As long as it’s not the Broncos.

Originally Posted by BroncoNut

how dare you.

Brazen effrontery!

Who is going to fire John Elway? Joe Ellis? Until the team's ownership situation gets resolved, I think it's kind of a moot point - the job is probably his for as long as he wants it.

At the end of the day a GM's success is most directly tied to the head coach and QB. We are in pretty bad spots on both, so how he handles the next reboot is going to be critical to #7's legacy as GM.

I still have a man-crush on the guy. He's responsible for some of the happiest moments of my life. He took a floundering franchise and quickly built it into a club that reached two Super Bowls and won one. OK, now he has to do it again without the best QB in NFL history falling into his lap. That's a lot tougher challenge. I've been disappointed with many of his drafts, even while Manning was still here but I was sold on Paxton Lynch too coming out of Memphis. He somehow devolved right before our eyes. The Joseph hire was mystifying. No idea why he thought Joseph was ready to be a head coach.

But Elway gets a long long leash from me. He still is "the franchise" to anyone who remembers back to the 80s and 90s. Perhaps he needs to get some better people around him - those with enough cache to talk him out of some of the bad personnel decisions.

All teams suck without a qb. Few teams find a good qb....elway gets no flack from me.


See the: browns, raiders, chiefs, rams, dolphins, bears, chiefs, Bengals, bucs, jets, Bill's as examples. (Years of sucktitude until they got or still are looking for, a qb. YEARS! we've gone 3.

Not many teams, if any ever, find themselves going from franchise qb to franchise qb. Colts are the ONLY example I can think of.

He will have to do something egregious to get fired, but 2 years after this year is his window until I seriously question his abilities to do his job.

Originally Posted by BroncoJoe

tl;dr

Plus, it's Cugel.

CuJoel

Paxton Lynch should still be here and should be starting this entire season, I’ve seen Lynch play ... he can start the game off with six straight punts too. 3-and-outs? Ditto. Lead the league in Int’s? I believe in PL. Take a sack on 3rd down? Easy peezy.

As Paul Klee said, this organization is arrogant.

You spent months telling us that Elway wasn’t going to tie up 30 million in CBs and several of us told you we should still keep Talib.

Originally Posted by Slick

You spent months telling us that Elway wasn’t going to tie up 30 million in CBs and several of us told you we should still keep Talib.

"He get hurt!"

Yeah, so did the guy who we used that cap space on, Veldheer. Veldheer with a more intensive injury history than Talib. And I know people will say that you subtract from a position of strength to address a position of weakness, but we're thin at CB, Veldheer didn't solidify anything, either. We substracted from a position of strength, evaporated more leadership, and we did it for a bum RT.