LA Canfora: Here's why Elway is right not to panic over QB situation

Here’s why John Elway is right not to panic over Broncos’ QB situation

JASON LA CANFORA

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/writer/jason-la-canfora/25536095/heres-why-john-elway-is-right-not-to-panic-over-broncos-qb-situation

John Elway has options. Plenty of them.

You might not think so. Many Broncos fans might be panicking, or totally freaking out, to continue to look at a depth chart with the draft approaching which has Mark Sanchez as the projected starter and not much behind him. And while that is certainly something of a terrifying sight, it’s going to take much more than that to rattle the Broncos’ football boss. Sure, the draft may be creeping up on us all, but the reality is, when viewed through the lens of Denver’s 2015 quarterbacking standards, time remains on Elway’s side and relative options abound.

Keep in mind, Elway just hoisted a Lombardi Trophy. He did so largely in spite of the quarterback play on his team, and he has a unique standing as a bona fide Rocky Mountain legend based on his superb playing career and his rapid progression as a personnel man. He has the kind of job security few in the NFL get to experience, he is dealing from a position of strength and he just disproved the theory that you need a quality quarterback to win a Super Bowl. So he isn’t going to bid against himself or alter the way he values the various trade and free agent options just so that he doesn’t have to look at Sanchez atop his March depth chart.

Where others might tremble, this guy chuckles. So he isn’t going to lose a staring contest with the 49ers for Colin Kaepernick, and he will most definitely call their repeated bluffs about trying to convince their starting quarterback to report for offseason work. He isn’t going to buckle and throw a bunch more money at Ryan Fitzpatrick than what the Jets have on the table for him already. He wasn’t interested in RG3 and I doubt he comes close to the kind of return the Bucs want for Mike Glennon (and in this quarterback market Tampa is smart to ask for a ransom), and while Josh McCown and Brian Hoyer might not see like attractive trade options to you, both could actually be upgrades over what Denver received from the quarterback position a year ago. There is literally no place to go but up.

And while you could make the case that Denver’s defense will slip some, with guys like Malik Jackson and Danny Trevathan gone, I would assert that more importantly, they still have three top corners under viable contracts (two of them are total bargains). Elway also retained Derek Wolfe at a fraction of what the market would have born and franchised Von Miller and got DeMarcus Ware to lower his contract to stay as the other pass-rushing bookend. So that defense remained much more intact than it may have. And while, yes, maybe that unit will slip some, it also stands to reason that almost any combination of vagabond quarterbacks could manage to out-produce what Peyton Manning and Brock Osweiler (yes, that $37-million man) conspired to put on paper (and video) in 2015.

Perhaps this is the perfect time to actually detail precisely where the Broncos stood against the rest of the league in quarterback output last season:

30th in quarterback rating (76.3), well below the league average (90.2). Keep in mind, the Cowboys, with their revolving door of back ups trying to replace Tony Romo actually ranked higher, and only the Rams were worse.
29th in completions of 20 yards or more (41), again, way below the league average (53)
28th in touchdown passes (19), again well off the average pace (26)
25th in completion percentage (60.7)
23rd in yards per attempt (6.96, tied with the Cowboys)
26th in quarterback rating on attempts that traveled at least 21 yards in the air (57.7), far below the league average (91.7)

Of course, the duo of Manning/Osweiler did manage to finish in the upper tier of all quarterbacks in one important category — leading the NFL in interceptions. Those two combined to toss 23 picks, more than any other team, and seven more than the league average. So, yeah, the truth of the matter was Denver didn’t receive anything close to average quarterbacking. The situation was so dire that heading into Week 17 coach Gary Kubiak didn’t love either option and essentially concedes he let Manning talk his way back into the job (with some help from a middle finger) and the Broncos basically just had Manning squat on the ball after the opening drive of each playoff game and just hoped and prayed he wouldn’t completely squander their defensive masterpieces.

Oh yeah, and Denver paid over $20M for the privilege of having those two under center. So excuse Elway for not going to the absurd lengths that say the Eagles went for Sam Bradford or the Texans stretched for Osweiler. When the combination of quarterbacks the Cowboys resorted to (Tony Romo appeared in just four games and completed just 83 passes all season, forcing them to turn to Brandon Weeden, then Matt Cassel, then Kellen Moore) manages to better Denver’s quarterback production in pretty much every key metric, well, you might now better understand why Elway is so stuck in on his position.

He can find a dude to give him what he got out of his quarterbacks last season. It was about as dire as any situation in the league, St. Louis aside, and he still won the entire damn thing. Couple that with the fact that most normal market forces on general manager-types don’t apply here (no fears for job security, no air of desperation, no unhappy owner to try to placate) and the fact that the other teams in the market for quarterbacks basically embody all of that fear and desperation. That’s why I like his chances of coming away from the poker table with some quarterback who can improve on Denver’s modest 2015 standards, and will do so at Elway’s price.

John Elway knows he just won a title with lousy QB play, so he won’t overpay. (USATSI)
The 49ers can try to set any false deadline they want, but Kaepernick doesn’t have to be dealt before his guarantees kick in, he isn’t going to all of sudden fall back in love with that owner and given his modest contract (it’s essentially a one-year $12M deal — in the bottom half of 2016 quarterback compensation — with a series of one-year team options after that) and injury situation, the 49ers were always sort of stuck with him until April. That contract could be dealt in April, or even after the draft, and the real deadline in this case isn’t the start of 49ers offseason work April 4 (Kaepernick isn’t close to being able to get on the field yet, anyway), as they’d have you believe. He could be dealt at the draft without any complications, for instance.

Elway of course knows all this and he knows that Josh McCown is now a spare part in Cleveland and that Hoyer could be had as well, and both journeymen will come at a fraction of what he paid his quarterbacks a year ago and it’s not going to take much from this assortment of arms to better what Denver’s quarterbacks did a year ago. And in the meantime, he’s funneling those saved funds into trying to secure a long-term deal with the new face of the franchise, Miller.

Makes sense to me.

I don’t blame him for not locking into Osweiler at $18M a year. I don’t blame him for taking a hard line with the quarterback position at a time when so many others are falling all over themselves to throw crazy money around. He isn’t the normal executive and he isn’t hamstrung by some of the outside forces GMs have to deal with, and there is probably another Osweiler type out there in this draft even if he doesn’t acquire another veteran before then. He has the luxury of playing it out this way, I applaud him for not mortgaging multiple years of his team’s window on the types of quarterbacks who received big bucks lately, and I remain intrigued to see what his quarterback depth chart looks like come May.