Is John Elway still an elite GM?

[Soko]

12 hours ago, Yin-Yang said:

fallout post-2015 was expected given how many of those players were more great FA finds than homegrown talent guys.

Should probably revise this, I forget how many of those players were actually drafted by Denver - basically the whole front 7 sans Ware and Harris/Roby. I do think they miss Trevathan and Jackson, though.

[Broncofan]

14 minutes ago, Yin-Yang said:

Should probably revise this, I forget how many of those players were actually drafted by Denver - basically the whole front 7 sans Ware and Harris/Roby. I do think they miss Trevathan and Jackson, though.

 

Not Jackson at his salary...but yeah, Trevathan would have been better to retain, but he was also 8M per year vs. 5M from Marshall...who was just as good, pre-injury.  Since injuries have robbed him of his agility, he's a shell of his 2015 self.   We just couldn't afford to keep them all.  If $ was no object, we certainly would have.  BTW, Roby & Harris were brought in by Elway by the draft (Harris a UDFA, technically not draft, but literally signed post-draft, so yeah). 

The bigger problem has been everyone from the 2011-12 draft / UDFA guys and 2014-15 bargain FA's were no longer cheap.  That's why you need to actually to keep drafting well, the cap era you keep whiffing on Day 1-2, it catches up.  That's what we're dealing with.  It's also why having an impact 2018 draft where 3-4 guys are already impact players, and 1-2 more look like they will be soon, is so encouraging.  Elway changing his draft MO for 2018 shows that adaptability, the same as his 2013 change to D (and his going full rebuild mode in 2011-12).    It's just unfortunate it took 3-4 disaster drafts for Elway to adjust back in this regard. part of what happens when you think you're the smartest guy in the room.  You might be for a while...but times change.

[Broncofan]

28 minutes ago, FourThreeMafia said:

tl;dr...but you deserve a rep point for typing that much.

LOL no prob.  It's been my pet peeve about Elway back when ppl thought he was teflon in 2016, ppl were like "dude how can you criticize Elway, he's a SB winning GM" (and I actually agreed, just always saw the draft weaknesses were going to be a problem if they didn't get fixed..and they didn't, hopefully they are now).  The perception finally started changing in 2017 on DEN's FF forum, and obviously it's a hot-topic Q for everyone, given our struggles and our complete inability to figure out QB.

[Soko]

11 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

 

Not Jackson at his salary...but yeah, Trevathan would have been better to retain, but he was also 8M per year vs. 5M from Marshall...who was just as good, pre-injury.  Since injuries have robbed him of his agility, he's a shell of his 2015 self.   We just couldn't afford to keep them all.  If $ was no object, we certainly would have.  BTW, Roby & Harris were brought in by Elway by the draft (Harris a UDFA, technically not draft, but literally signed post-draft, so yeah). 

Doh. I meant Talib/Ward/Stewart, Harris and Roby being the two that he actually brought in as rookies. My bad.

11 minutes ago, Broncofan said:

The bigger problem has been everyone from the 2011-12 draft / UDFA guys and 2014-15 bargain FA's were no longer cheap.  That's why you need to actually to keep drafting well, the cap era you keep whiffing on Day 1-2, it catches up.  That's what we're dealing with.  It's also why having an impact 2018 draft where 3-4 guys are already impact players, and 1-2 more look like they will be soon, is so encouraging.  Elway changing his draft MO for 2018 shows that adaptability, the same as his 2013 change to D (and his going full rebuild mode in 2011-12).    It's just unfortunate it took 3-4 disaster drafts for Elway to adjust back in this regard. part of what happens when you think you're the smartest guy in the room.  You might be for a while...but times change.

I see. I think most GMs have patches like that. Thompson was thought of as a great roster guy (and exceptional scout), but he had his fair share of bad drafts. Same with Schneider in Seattle and Ozzie in Baltimore. It’s the nature of it, especially when certain gems of the draft were a bit lucky for those GMs (Harris for Elway, Sherman/Kam for Schneider, etc.) 

I actually really like the Broncos’ 2018 draft class, even though I would’ve picked Rosen over Chubb. So I think Elway’s on the up for now, if he can keep this up. We’ll see how he goes into FA with a little more cap space, with room for more.

Trade us Sanders/DT for a late rounder!

[Broncofan]

7 minutes ago, Yin-Yang said:

Doh. I meant Talib/Ward/Stewart, Harris and Roby being the two that he actually brought in as rookies. My bad.

I see. I think most GMs have patches like that. Thompson was thought of as a great roster guy (and exceptional scout), but he had his fair share of bad drafts. Same with Schneider in Seattle and Ozzie in Baltimore. It’s the nature of it, especially when certain gems of the draft were a bit lucky for those GMs (Harris for Elway, Sherman/Kam for Schneider, etc.) 

I actually really like the Broncos’ 2018 draft class, even though I would’ve picked Rosen over Chubb. So I think Elway’s on the up for now, if he can keep this up. We’ll see how he goes into FA with a little more cap space, with room for more.

Trade us Sanders/DT for a late rounder!

We would absolutely trade DT for a late rounder.   Well, I would lol.  Elway's been shopping him.  We'll see.  

And yes, the 2018 draft was a breath of fresh air.  Elway actually acknowledged his approach needed change - why he brought Kubiak back in, and also brought in metrics analysis, and a focus on skills, not tools.  And he said there's more metrics usage on the way for future drafts.   So that's all good.  What he needs to do is stop going "win-now" - that panic is why they didn't draft QB, and went Keenum 36M/2.  Because he thought there was 1 more run left in this group.   And a rookie QB was going to make that impossible. 

It's unfortunate, because we're still in need of a QB..and don't have a contending team.  As good as Chubb's been early (and make no mistake, a lot of that is having Von take the main focus away), we'd be so much better off with Rosen at QB.   Put another way - if Elway called Keim and offered Chubb for Rosen straight up, Keim would just hang up (and yes, I say that after the TNF debacle - rookie struggles like that are the norm on bad teams).   Franchise level QB's matter that much, esp. cheap.   We always can quibble about a different choice on Day 2-3, but the one big one that got away was passing on franchise QB 1.5...and likely going franchise QB with a MUCH worse QB class this year, with no future options on our roster (and then sadly, meaning we pass on a REALLY deep top-end QB class in 2020...ugh, horrific combo timing).  It's too bad, because for the rest of Day 2, and early Day 3, he just hit it out of the park.  Oh well.

[DontTazeMeBro]

I don’t even believe he was the real brains behind the championship. I believe John Fox probably was the talent evaluator because WTF does John Elway know about building a defense. Elway hired his buddy who hired Wade Phillips and Phillips  who may be the best defensive mind in the game took all that talent and made an all time great D. 

I think Elway just throws money around like a drunk on payday and takes credit for other people’s work 

[footbull3196]

I think Elway deserves more credit than people are willing to give him at this point.  Let's not forget, after the 2013 season he rebuilt that suspect Denver D into one of the best units in the league and eventually into a unit that carried them to a championship.  People ripped him for "overpaying" Aqib Talib but that turned out to be one of the best free agent signings in NFL history.  You can't look past bringing in DeMarcus Ware and TJ Ward either

Still, hard to put him in the group of elite GMs after what happened following the Super Bowl win.  It's understandable why he didn't resign Brock Osweiler in hindsight, but Paxton Lynch was a total miss and so was Case Keenum.  At least he's willing to acknowledge there's a problem, he just hasn't been able to fix it yet

[broncofan48]

I think Elway is decent at the Free Agency game, whether it be identifying talent to structuring contracts to prevent cap hell.  It's his drafting that up until the 2018 one has been poor.  I don't know if its the scouting or if he has to have his guys or what but the dearth of talent is directly related to bad drafts.  Cap space is tighter due to paying guys what they're due but you can't tell me Von wasn't deserving of his deal after the 2015 postseason.  Elway is an average GM, who is hopefully coming out of a rut in the draft and is on his way to restocking the talent base of the team.

He can't pick QBs to save his life though so it all might be for naught.

[Jakuvious]

2 hours ago, CP3MVP said:

Also who were the great defensive free agents that came to Indy to play with Peyton during his prime?

They tried once or twice. Booger McFarland and Corey Simon were supposed to be a big deal as a FA DT duo for Indy, they just didn't pan out. But really, that was just Polian's style. He was a pure draft guy. Had very little interest in diving into free agency for anything. But that's more of a criticism of Polian than a praise of Elway, that the Colts never signed free agents.

[VigilantZombie]

An Elite GM? He isn't even a good one. This "elite" defense he supposedly built has 2-3 names worth mentioning and the offense is terrible.  Outside of Peyton Manning who had 1 1/2 good seasons there and leaned on the defense to win a SB, this team has never been very good and he hasn't gotten a single QB pick right yet.   If it weren't for that SB victory he would've been fired already.

[Broncofan]

1 hour ago, DontTazeMeBro said:

I don’t even believe he was the real brains behind the championship. I believe John Fox probably was the talent evaluator because WTF does John Elway know about building a defense. Elway hired his buddy who hired Wade Phillips and Phillips  who may be the best defensive mind in the game took all that talent and made an all time great D. 

I think Elway just throws money around like a drunk on payday and takes credit for other people’s work 

You just put forth a theory that John Fox was the brains behind a successful team.   His firing was one of the key steps to get us to the big stage.  Step away from the keyboard, man.

[Bolts223]

He was never an elite GM.

Early in his tenure he lucked into an all-time great QB being available on the FA market. He did do a good job of making Denver being a place for star FA's to want to come after signing Peyton.

Elway is not on my top list of guys to rebuild my team from nothing assuming that there won't be a Peyton Manning level of QB on the FA market.

[DontTazeMeBro]

4 hours ago, Broncofan said:

You just put forth a theory that John Fox was the brains behind a successful team.   His firing was one of the key steps to get us to the big stage.  Step away from the keyboard, man.

Just because he doesn’t know what to do with talent doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to identify it. I have a low opinion of Fox and could absolutely be wrong. But it’s easier for me to believe than a QB with no personnel experience was the mastermind behind building one of the best defenses in my life 

[AkronsWitness]

12 hours ago, SBLIII said:

Ironically they won the SB not because of Peyton but because of the talent he drafted and acquired on defense. He deserves much recognition for that achievement. 

Right...in the last 6 years Elway has assembled a top 3 offense in NFL history and a top 3 defense in NFL history----in a 2 year stretch. While also building 2 Super Bowl teams and winning a Super Bowl.

He has also recruited: Peyton Manning, Demarcus Ware, Aqib Talib, Emmanuel Sanders and TJ Ward. He drafted-- Von Miller, Chris Harris Jr., Julius Thomas, Derek Wolfe, Malik Jackson, Bradley Roby, Danny Trevathan, CJ Anderson, ect, ect.

He has had issues with drafting a real franchise QB in the past few years since Peyton, sure. But to say he is a bad GM after what he has done since Tebowmania is just wrong.

[brownie man]

great recruiter 

average to below average evaluator of college talent 

just needs to get his QB