The Broncos begin their offseason with a lengthy to-do list to try to improve their roster and get back to the playoffs. As the changes continue to unfold, four former Broncos players offered their opinion on the team and their future in a players-only roundtable with The Denver Post.
Q: Do you think the Broncos will try to acquire a veteran quarterback this offseason or turn to the draft for help?
Joel Dreessen, former tight end: I think a veteran is the way to go to win ASAP. The draft will help fit (general manager John) Elway’s motto to win from now on. I am thinking a combination of the two will be the Broncos’ response this offseason.
Ryan Harris, former offensive tackle: The Broncos will certainly add a veteran quarterback to the roster and this could be as simple as re-signing Brock Osweiler. I think the Broncos should take a look at Chase Daniels from the Saints. A quality NFL QB who has experience winning in the NFL. Philadelphia paid him starter money before landing Carson Wentz because of his skill and reputation throughout the league. NFL teams always enter the draft with the players they absolutely need. That way if they do not land a certain position or the player they “wanted” at that position, they still have depth to practice. Every NFL team has three QBs.
Tyler Polumbus, former offensive tackle: I would have to think that Plan A at this point would be to go after the proven product, and Kirk Cousins would be at the top of this list. Given the state of college football and the difficulty in forecasting whether a college QB playing in a spread offense will be able translate his skill set at the NFL level, I am always going to lean on the proven product. On top of that, guys like Kirk Cousins don’t hit free agency very often.
Mark Schlereth, former offensive guard: I think they’ll do both. I think they got to get a veteran quarterback and it’d be nice to get a guy that you feel like has championship pedigree or at least is on the way to championship pedigree. Whether that’s Kirk Cousins or Drew Brees, though I doubt Drew Brees will even be available, or even an Alex Smith in a trade, I think that would be something that would be very intriguing to the Broncos and to John Elway, based on the fact that they’ve had success doing that before. But they still have to draft a guy. They still have to find a guy that they can develop. The issue that you get into is there is so much development that is required with a young quarterback, especially because of the way college systems run. The issue they get into is everybody wants to say, “Well, every team in the NFL runs some spread.” Yeah, they run spread concepts, there’s no question. Every team does. But they don’t major in spread. And you get into these college systems and everything is completely spread systems, with nothing but RPOs (run-pass options) and single-receiver reads and nothing but the zone-read stuff, and so it’s just really hard.
If you get into college and you play at an elite school, if you have 12 games, nine times you can out-athlete your opponent. So when you’re throwing, you’re not throwing into tight windows. You’re throwing into wide-open alleys and wide-open receivers. You’re not throwing guys open. You’re not doing some of the things at the next level when everybody’s talent is pretty equal, for the most part. It’s just a really hard transition. If you think you’re going to draft a young quarterback and that kid is going to come in and do what Dak Prescott did his rookie year, I think you’re in for a rude awakening. I think that’s just a really hard ask. Unless your team is so freaking talented that you can eliminate a lot of the tough decisions, the tough reads that guy has to make.
I think you have to do both. I think you have to get a veteran quarterback and somebody that doesn’t mind mentoring a young student.
Q: If you had to guess now, who will be the Broncos’ starting quarterback in 2018?
Dreessen: I think Kirk Cousins will be too expensive. Not certain the risk will match the reward. I hate guessing specifically here, but if I were a betting man I would say there will be at least two new faces in the QB room along with Chad Kelly.
Harris: Josh Allen or Josh Rosen. I think both of these guys have the skills and measurables to play. Additionally, I think the Broncos will avoid a years-long QB saga by starting that QB Week 1, no matter how prepared they will be.
Polumbus: My crystal ball is little too cloudy to call this one exactly, but Kirk Cousins would be my choice.
Schlereth: I’d like to say Kirk Cousins. I have a tough time seeing that happen. To start the season, maybe it’s Josh McCown and you draft a guy. Maybe it’s Teddy Bridgewater. I have no idea. I think it’ll be a veteran guy, though. I would hope that Washington is stupid enough to let Kirk Cousins go because I think he’s a top-10 quarterback in this league. But I don’t know that they’re that dumb.
Q: After quarterback, what is the Broncos’ second-biggest need in the offseason?
Dreessen: (Garett) Bolles will only improve at left tackle. Right tackle cannot be a revolving door moving forward. They need two legit answers for right tackle, because they will both have to play at some point during the season.
Harris: Sacks win games. Defense wins championships. The Broncos have to find a way to get some pressure on the quarterback. They had 32 sacks last year, whereas in the Super Bowl 50 year they had 52 sacks. Von (Miller) saw an insane amount of double- and triple-teams, and an outside linebacker, defensive end or middle linebacker can really up that sack total and free up Von.
Polumbus: We have a few different positions of need, but high on my list would be running back, pass rusher and a top-tier tackle.
Schlereth: I think they need to continue to fix their offensive line. They need to figure out the right side of their offensive line and I believe you create two problems when you take an all-pro left guard and you make him switch to right guard because a marginal guard isn’t comfortable playing on the right side. I just believe by doing that, instead of solving one problem, you’ve created two problems. You may have created three because you don’t have a veteran next to your rookie left tackle that can help him out, either. That’s my philosophical approach.
If you look at what Philadelphia did this year — now I know they lost their starting quarterback, but when they lost Jason Peters — he’s one of the best players on offensive line in the history of this league — when they lost him to a knee injury this year, they didn’t move Lane Johnson, who is a Pro Bowl right tackle over. Because now all of a sudden you’re creating two problems. They just said, “Hey, the backup is going to have to be good enough and we’re going to have to figure out a way to help him.” … That, to me, is just smart football. Very little the Broncos did was smart, and that’s why there were six coaches that have been fired off the staff and why there’s going to be a boatload of changes.
Q: In his season-ending news conference, Elway said he didn’t feel like he gave coach Vance Joseph the “best opportunity to be successful.” In your opinion, how much of last season was on the coaching staff and how much was on the players?
Dreessen: I still like what Vance said when he was hired: When you don’t make the playoffs, it’s a team thing. Plenty of blame to go around here. Was there a lack of acceptable talent at certain positions? Yes. Were there times of really questionable coaching? Yes. Were there player-performance issues that held this team back? Yes. Management, coaching and players all had a role. Gotta appreciate the accountability Elway took with that statement.
Harris: Equal parts players and coaches. There were inexcusable blunders by the coaching staff (i.e. a delay of game on a kickoff), yet it’s the players’ jobs to run the plays called. With the amount of turnovers, pick-sixes and lack of offensive leadership, the players need to step up and I think they will.
Polumbus: Always the ultimate question and never simple to answer, but I used to have an old coach that would tell me that, ‘he is either coaching me to do what he sees on film, or he is allowing me to do it.’ Either way, coaches are held accountable to the product on the field. That being said, they can’t throw the pass or catch the ball on the field. Everyone is in this one.
Schlereth: I think there’s plenty of blame to go around. When you look at the players, our offensive line, talent-wise, is marginal. But the coaches haven’t really developed anybody. So that’s a little bit of both. You look at our tight ends and there’s not one guy that threatens you, like, ‘How are we going to contend with this guy.’ If you want to play a safety on him, you feel comfortable doing that. If you want to play a linebacker on him, you feel comfortable doing that. You feel comfortable playing zone against him or man against him. There’s not one guy that’s a threat, that’s is a separation, oh-my-god-how-are-we-going-to-cover-this guy. They have not developed a third wide receiver. … That’s a talent thing, on Elway and the scouting department, I believe. But you have to put some blame on the coaching staff because the lack of developing players is real.
And when you sit there and say our formula to have a young quarterback is to run the ball instead of the play-action and then all of a sudden your offensive coordinator goes ballistic and starts throwing 45 times a game and you don’t do anything about it, or your punt returner, you give him multiple opportunities to put up six fumbles — there’s nobody in the league that I know coaches and would let a guy put the ball on the ground six times and still give him opportunities. It’s totally foreign to me. … That, to me, falls on the head coach. You have to be better than that. You have to make better decisions.
There’s plenty of finger-pointing and blame to go around. I think the good news is everyone accepted some responsibility.
Q: There has already been speculation about the future of a number of starting veterans currently on the roster. Is there one you expect to NOT return in 2018.
Dreessen: As a former player, I don’t like going down this rabbit hole. I always root for guys to play well and get paid as much as they can. But money is the language of the NFL and salary-cap decisions are made every single year. Not sure how this one shakes out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they move on from Paxton Lynch after seeing limited improvement through two full seasons.
Harris: This area has affected the team almost more than injuries, coaches and draft picks. The Broncos have to make sure they do not let the wrong veterans go for the wrong reasons. If they are going to push for a championship next year, then money is not an issue and many of the vets will remain. If they are looking to save a couple of dollars, it will cost them in wins as this is a young team that needs consistency that veterans bring every day.
Polumbus: Hard to answer this without knowing if they get Kirk Cousins and the $27 million-$30 million-a-year price tag that comes with him. If they do, I would imagine at least two high-priced players are released or asked to take a pay cut. Aging veterans with high salaries always have a large target on their back, so you can start there.
Schlereth: Aqib (Talib) would make sense to me because you’ve got the opportunity to save a lot of money. And Bradley Roby, when he was given the opportunity to start in Miami, he played an exceptional game. That’s why you draft a guy in the first round. Isn’t it funny that we draft a guy in the first round that plays defense and let him develop, but you draft a quarterback in the first round and you got to play him right now? It’s interesting to me. Here’s Bradley Roby drafted 31st overall and we’re fine with giving him four years and letting him play some nickel and doing those things and nobody is standing on the table pounding their fists, ‘You got to play him! You got to play him! He’s got to start!’ But you got a kid out of Memphis that is not ready — you know is not ready — and people are standing on the table pounding their fists, ‘Gotta play him, gotta play him, gotta play him!’ It’s interesting. Just the way the league operates now, it’s kind of incredible. Back in my day, you drafted a guy in the first round and he sat on the bench for a year or two learning how to play. Obviously, it’s not that way anymore.
Q: How much influence do you think Gary Kubiak will have in shaping and developing the Broncos’ roster for 2018?
Dreessen: I say this tongue-in-cheek: Kubiak kept me around for five years in Houston so he obviously has an incredible eye for good football players with high character who work extremely hard and get it done on game day. On a serious note, I think Kube has a sixth sense for determining how important football is to guys. His opinion will be held in high regard by the final decision-makers.
Harris: A ton. One thing Elway doesn’t get enough credit for is adapting. He even said in his post-season press conference that he doesn’t have all the answers. And playing for Gary Kubiak for three seasons, I can tell you he knows ball players. Kubiak can read effort, ability and unmeasurables better than any coach I’ve been around. Everyone who knows Kubes knows this. Fortunately for Broncos fans, Gary was close to the team this season and he is closely in tune with the ability on the roster and the ability needed to compete for a championship.
Polumbus: I’m sure it will be significant. Kubiak has coached his whole life and could be an offensive coordinator or head coach in a heartbeat if he wanted to. For him to keep his coaching hat off, I would imagine he would have to know that he can have a significant role in shaping the football team.
Schlereth: I think he’s going to have a lot of say. I know through the grapevine that he was a real big Dak Prescott fan. And Dak turned out pretty good. So I think a guy that has that kind of eye and ability to scout quarterbacks, especially, and a guy that’s coached as long as Gary and has developed guys as long as Gary — Case Keenum was one of his guys and obviously at that point they had a veteran quarterback. But I’m sure he was fairly paramount in the development of Case Keenum. We’ve seen what he has become, albeit seven years later and several different offenses later. But I think Gary has a good eye for that kind of stuff. So, hopefully, he gets a lot of input into the direction they go in, especially when it comes to which quarterback they’re going to draft.
The Players
Joel Dreessen was drafted in the sixth round out of Colorado State in 2005 and played eight NFL seasons. After a year with the Jets, he spent five with Gary Kubiak in Houston, then played his final two seasons in Denver, with Peyton Manning as his quarterback.
Ryan Harris played nine seasons in the NFL, including three separate stints with the Broncos after they drafted him in the third round out of Notre Dame in 2007. Harris played for four different teams and won a Super Bowl ring with the Broncos in 2015. He retired last March after a season with the Steelers and is now a radio host with Nate Kreckman on Altitude 950 AM.
Tyler Polumbus played football at every level in Colorado, at Cherry Creek High, the University of Colorado and with the Broncos. He bookended his seven-year NFL career in Denver, signing with the team as an undrafted free agent in 2008 and helping them to a Super Bowl 50 win in 2015. He is a sideline reporter for Broncos games and a radio host on Orange and Blue 760 AM.
Mark Schlereth played 12 seasons in the NFL — six with the Washington Redskins and six with the Denver Broncos. He won three Super Bowl titles, was selected to two Pro Bowls and is a member of the Broncos’ 50th Anniversary Team. Schlereth is a host on 104.3 The Fan and an NFL analyst for Fox Sports.
