When VJ gets fired

[champ11]

Elway trying to make a hire based off personal relationships without input from others within the organization?? You don't say!!

What a joke. Definitely makes me much less optimistic about Elway's next hire. 

[jsthomp2007]

1 hour ago, champ11 said:

Elway trying to make a hire based off personal relationships without input from others within the organization?? You don't say!!

What a joke. Definitely makes me much less optimistic about Elway's next hire. 

Next coach - Bubby!!

[BaldyBronco]

On 12/3/2018 at 11:06 PM, AnAngryAmerican said:

Unfortunately I think this mid-to-late season rally has actually saved Vance's job, barring a total collapse in the final quarter of the season. I think not just the wins but the fact that we played the Texans, Rams and Chiefs (twice) very close also works in his favor. I don't think it's going to come down to whether we post a 9-7 or 10-6 or even 8-8 record or if we make the playoffs or not, I think the powers that believe the trend lines are pointing in the right direction and they'll bring Vance back for a third year. 

Two other things working in Vance's favor, and we shouldn't discount either of these as they do factor into the decision, Elway would prefer to have a measure of continuity and Ellis has run the team into a financial pickle since he's been unable to find a naming rights partner and he's not going to want to pay out the rest of Vance's contract (and his staff's) and pay a new coach (and his staff's). 

This, thankfully, did not age well!! 

 

[champ11]

5 minutes ago, jsthomp2007 said:

Next coach - Bubby!!

lmao. Seriously though. 

I was one of the few people that was fairly anti-Kyle Shanahan because I resent the nepotism and old boys club that the NFL is on all levels. Vance is going to lose his job and still going to be employed for 2 decades since he is in the fraternity. I felt like our process for hiring Kubiak was not extensive and it felt like that was going to repeat itself with Shanahan. It just felt like a lazy hire to me based on relationships and the past. The funny thing is I thought Elway having a rocky relationship with Mike led to Kyle not really getting a fair shot at the job....I guess I was wrong about that too lol.

But....I was definitely wrong. I wish Kyle Shanahan was our coach. Elway hiring Vance Joseph was an epic failure and him bringing VJ and Paxton Lynch in as the two most important pieces in leading the organization after the Manning era gets extremely close to him losing all credibility as a decision maker.

This meeting with Mike is pretty bad news IMO because it shows Elway isn't really learning from his mistakes and is not open to the progressive NFL. 

[thebestever6]

I actually wouldn't of minded Shanahan after Vances first year. At worst I think he'd have a john fox type make a team good and respectable but not championship caliber. 

He might of been good with the players as well because we have no one from that era. Elway knows what type of coach he is. The known is sometimes better than the unknown. 

[Broncofan]

4 hours ago, champ11 said:

This meeting with Mike is pretty bad news IMO because it shows Elway isn't really learning from his mistakes and is not open to the progressive NFL. 

 I agree 100 percent with the take that if that's his current mode of thinking, we're in huge trouble.   To be fair, though, that meeting would have happened right after the season ended and ppl were looking for HC.   And it was specifically done to try and entice Cousins to DEN since both Shannys and Cousins have a personal relationship (but didn’t meet to discuss as originally reported).

Elway then went and overhauled his entire draft strategy - because of how much he's struggled in the past in Day 1-2.   And following the draft, Elway outright said he was open to including more metrics and outside analysis into future drafts.

One would hope if Elway was willing to change his draft style that much when faced with abysmal results, that he might look at QB evaluation and coaching hires in the same light.  Elway was smart enough to see he needed to change from O-first to D-first after 2013, and now he's changed his draft mode.   Is he willing to do the same for how he evaluates QB & coaches?  It's scary if Shananan Sr. is still the thought process for sure - but the Q is given how much recent change we've seen, if it still holds.  One would hope not lol.

I guess a look at our short list of HC candidates and also who we target in draft evaluation / interviews for QB will answer both questions.   It's certainly going to decide how much longer Elway will be our GM - he's got 1-2 more years of leash given his extended run of success, but this QB/HC coach he makes next, whether it's now or 2020 (for QBOTF), it's going to be his last chance before the heat starts to fall first on him rather than on other ppl.
 

[BroncoBruin]

Seems to be an Elway vs. Ellis public battle brewing. As critical as I've been of Elway's decision making since the Super Bowl win, Ellis has been a toxic presence for years. The fixation on McDaniels, the struggle to find sponsors, the nature of this looming ownership problem...it makes me sick that this guy is running the show basically unchecked. The more we hear about the trust and the Bowler family dynamics, the worse Ellis looks. Ellis can stay in power as long as he wants until he arbitrarily decides Brittany is ready to take over. 

[jsthomp2007]

To be honest though...finding the right coach and the right QB is kind of a crap shoot...even Andy Reid going to KC, I thought Reid's model ran its course, but was clearly wrong and kind proves that the QB props up the coach in my mind, I mean what would Reid be if Alex Smith was still the QB?  He'd be 10-6 at best...prolly more like 9-7...now he has stud QB and Reid looks like a genius.  The Bellichic / Brady, Montana / Walsh combos are far and few between.  I mean, give a Tier 2 coach an all-pro QB and they all look good.  However, VJ isn't a Tier 2 coach...he is like a Tier 10 coach.  If the Broncos were to some how get a top quality QB and were to bring Shanahan back, I'd be all for it...look what he did when he had Steve Young and Elway and a running game...then he looks like the mastermind.  The Broncos HAVE to put their focus towards getting a franchise QB...then their coaching search becomes so much easier. 

[thebestever6]

2 hours ago, jsthomp2007 said:

To be honest though...finding the right coach and the right QB is kind of a crap shoot...even Andy Reid going to KC, I thought Reid's model ran its course, but was clearly wrong and kind proves that the QB props up the coach in my mind, I mean what would Reid be if Alex Smith was still the QB?  He'd be 10-6 at best...prolly more like 9-7...now he has stud QB and Reid looks like a genius.  The Bellichic / Brady, Montana / Walsh combos are far and few between.  I mean, give a Tier 2 coach an all-pro QB and they all look good.  However, VJ isn't a Tier 2 coach...he is like a Tier 10 coach.  If the Broncos were to some how get a top quality QB and were to bring Shanahan back, I'd be all for it...look what he did when he had Steve Young and Elway and a running game...then he looks like the mastermind.  The Broncos HAVE to put their focus towards getting a franchise QB...then their coaching search becomes so much easier. 

I think the idea of Cousins as our franchise qb was less appealing than actually bringing in Shanahan for me. But he played his best football under Shanahan so you never know how it would of played out.

[Broncofan]

8 minutes ago, thebestever6 said:

I think the idea of Cousins as our franchise qb was less appealing than actually bringing in Shanahan for me. But he played his best football under Shanahan so you never know how it would of played out.

No matter how you feel about Cousins though at least it explains why Elway wanted Shanny Sr.   To want him on his own merits after deciding to pass on Kyle the year before would have baffling to say the least.   This at least makes more sense in terms of having a clear plan of attack.  

When I first read the story before it came with the Cousins discount angle and their personal relationship I reacted the same way as @champ11 lol. 

[thebestever6]

1 minute ago, Broncofan said:

No matter how you feel about Cousins though at least it explains why Elway wanted Shanny Sr.   To want him on his own merits after deciding to pass on Kyle the year before would have baffling to say the least.   This at least makes more sense in terms of having a clear plan of attack.  

I think Elway knows he made a mistake not bringing in Kyle. But no need to compound that mistake by losing out on the other Shanahan who could of brought a qb with him that's way better than Case.Ah well we will see what happens this year.

[Broncofan]

3 minutes ago, thebestever6 said:

I think Elway knows he made a mistake not bringing in Kyle. But no need to compound that mistake by losing out on the other Shanahan who could of brought a qb with him that's way better than Case.Ah well we will see what happens this year.

Yeah no matter how out of touch Shanny Sr. could be it’s hard to imagine he and Cousins (remember the idea was at a discount so likely even less than the 25M AAV we apparently offered without Shanny) wouldn’t have done better than the VJ / Keenum 36M/2 horror show.   But that doesn’t mean Shanny Sr. is a good idea in a vacuum.   Pretty telling Klis already ruling him out in any future HC searches. 

[BroncoBruin]

The bigger story here is the Elway/Ellis dynamic. 

[AnAngryAmerican]

4 hours ago, BroncoBruin said:

Seems to be an Elway vs. Ellis public battle brewing. As critical as I've been of Elway's decision making since the Super Bowl win, Ellis has been a toxic presence for years. The fixation on McDaniels, the struggle to find sponsors, the nature of this looming ownership problem...it makes me sick that this guy is running the show basically unchecked. The more we hear about the trust and the Bowler family dynamics, the worse Ellis looks. Ellis can stay in power as long as he wants until he arbitrarily decides Brittany is ready to take over. 

Exceptionally well-said. 

I said it the other day and have been saying it for years, Ellis is the No. 1 problem with this organization. That is becoming more and more clear every day as more news comes to light.

Once Mr. B started to slowly lose his faculties Ellis pulled the strings on the franchise marionette that set in motion the change of events that led to Mike getting fired and the hiring of McDaniels. After that brilliant decision, Ellis told us Mac and Xanders were co-decision makers. Then, when after Mac was fired and became a convenient pinata for the franchise, the party line became that it was Mac making all the decisions and Xanders had no real power whatsoever (this was likely because Ellis didn't want to pay out the rest of Xanders contract, same goes for the other yes-man Mac brought with him from New England ... cough ... Matt Russell ... cough ..., who is still, for some reason unbeknownst to thinking human beings, is still employed with the organization. Interestingly, it's Russell who most believe - and I heard this from my media source who is as well-connected at Dove Valley as anyone - that was the driving force behind the decision to interview Vance, first for DC and then for HC and was and has been his biggest champion. 

After Ellis realized that he shouldn't be making football decisions he turned, at least ostensibly, football power over to Elway. This was a coup from a PR perspective and, at least early on, Elway did a fine job. He made a good hire with his first HC, had some solid, if not spectacular drafts and did phenomenally in free agency with the likes of Peyton, Ware, Talib, Ward, Sanders, etc.,. But then once the going got tough and Elway fell, I believe at least, into being too comfortable, things started to go downhill. We lost Brock who we thought was the future, swung and missed on Lynch and saw the normal departures of free agents after a Super Bowl win. If you look closely, what has happened to Seattle since their hey-day is not totally dissimilar from what happened here, the difference being they have a franchise QB and a very good HC, two areas where we've missed badly.

Now, if you read Woody Paige's report (which unfortunately requires a subscription, luckily as a credentialed member of the media I have one) we learn a lot. As a sidebar I want to quickly say how phenomenally Woody did there, old-fashioned journalism at it's finest. There is also, given Woody's standing in the Colorado sports journalist community, at least one of his sources is Elway himself, but Woody did a terific job talking to others to get all sides before going to print. Anyway, we learned that, one) Ellis is still the power-hungry, control-freak he has been since Mr. B fell ill. Two, he is still making football decisions. Three, he holds grudges. Four, he was likely at the very least partially behind the decision to pass on Kyle. Four, the relationship between Elway and the Shanahans is not frosty as previously thought if Elway was willing to reach out to Mike to be a HC (which, FWIW, I do not think was a good decision). Five, we did not retain Vance because of money (I was wrong on that point). Six, Ellis is and remains the biggest problem in this organization. 

Don't believe me? Did anyone read the piece from Tim Lynch at MHR about this situation? He probably just lost his credential but also wisely positioned himself for a nice welcome back when Ellis is removed from control of the organization. For the record, I don't point out the Lynch piece at MHR because it's a good source of unbiased information about the team but if that writer at that blog is willing to say that stuff, things are pretty bad at Dove Valley. 

 

[AnAngryAmerican]

1 hour ago, BroncoBruin said:

The bigger story here is the Elway/Ellis dynamic. 

I wonder why Elway went so public with his support of Ellis a few months ago when Beth Bowlen Wallace stated she wanted to take control of the team? Circle the wagons I guess.

Truth be told, if it ends up an Ellis-Elway battle, I think Elway wins as he is far more likely to get the backing of both factions of the Bowlen family than is Ellis. Especially coupled with today's news, the stories from the WSJ and NYT from last week, it really appears that Joe Ellis is a piece of crap of human being. Knowing that, and not just that he's incompetent, makes the decisions to hire Mac and retain Matt Russell make all the more sense.