Demolishing the Denver Broncos and reconstructing it might be the perfect remedy.
Within the Denver Broncos power structure, the crows are returning to their feathered nest. There was always going to be risky grenade directed at the Broncos shot callers when the quarterback Russell Wilson was acquired in what may have been the worst transaction in NFL history.
Veteran safety Justin Simmons is leaving the team shortly after Wilson, and it’s no secret that more seasoned players will go in the next few days. If head coach Sean Payton was initially hired by the Broncos’ new ownership to patch things up, we’re now witnessing a stunning swing towards a difficult long-term rebuild.
Mark Schlereth, a Broncos Super Bowl legend, is well known for speaking his mind about his old team. Schlereth joined the Pat McAfee Show and delivered a passionate and painful critique of the Broncos for their ongoing struggles.
“For eight years, this place has been garbage,” Schlereth told Pat McAfee. “The Denver Broncos were a crown jewel in the National Football League. And they’re not, they’re irrelevant. And we keep putting Band-Aids on things and think that that’s going to fix it. And I for one am sitting here and saying, ‘Thank you, Sean Payton, for recognizing this team is not very good.’
This team does not have one guy that’s homegrown on this football team that’s ever come close to sniffing the playoffs. Ever. So ultimately it is time to quit putting Band-Aids on gaping wounds and it’s time to perform some surgery. And I think that’s exactly what Sean Payton is doing… I, for one, am glad that they’re actually moving on and saying, ‘Hey, we’re gonna fix this thing. And we’re gonna tear it down. And we’re gonna rebuild it.”
John Elway, a former general manager, is renowned for having fiercely opposed the idea of rebuilding. Schlereth is brutally correct: the Broncos organization has unquestionably reached a crisis point, eight years after winning Super Bowl 50.
This is how far the Broncos front office has dug itself into a hole. The Broncos wouldn’t even have a noticeable advantage over the next two seasons if they started again with a rookie quarterback.
The Broncos’ self-inflicted wounds are a fact that cannot be ignored, especially when it comes to the balance sheet and under center. Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated pointed out that even starting a rookie quarterback doesn’t provide you a competitive advantage when it comes to the salary cap, it was clear how dire things were becoming.
“Real damage of the Russell Wilson contract is if they draft a QB in the 1st round, his $85 million in dead money will effectively srtip Denver of the rookie-contract advantage for the first 2 years of the new QB’s career,” Breer pointed out via X. “They’re navigating that now,” Breer wrote on X.
Clearly, hunting season has begun, and the Broncos, along with their troubled general manager George Paton, are beginning to look very much like sitting ducks.