ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Peyton Freaking Manning.
For four years, the Denver Broncos had one of the best to ever play the game’s most important position leading them in his prime—not too bad of a deal.
The record-setting 55 passing touchdowns and 5,477 passing yards were undeniably impressive, to say the least, but what he brought off the field as a leader was equally as, if not more, valuable than the MVP-caliber play on it.
To further this, the future first-ballot Hall of Famer’s impact as a leader is still being talked about inside the Broncos headquarters. Unprompted.
“Any time you come off a championship run like we made—we had four great years with Peyton Manning. When Peyton’s around, he’s the leader. He runs the show in the entire building it seems like,” Derek Wolfe said on Tuesday, as the team began their second week of the offseason training program.
“Once you lose a guy like that, there’s a space that needs to be filled. A head coach usually fills that job. That’s not an easy thing to ask of anybody.”
That’s certainly proven to be the case.
In the three years since Manning hung em’ up after Super Bowl 50, Denver’s blown through quarterbacks—Mark Sanchez, Paxton Lynch, Trevor Siemian, Brock Osweiler and Case Keenum, to name a few—and shuffled through two head coaches in Gary Kubiak and Vance Joseph who have all tried to fill the leadership void left by No. 18.
After the back-to-back 5-11 and 6-10 seasons, the void remained. That was until Vic Fangio entered the building in January.
“I think Vic’s the perfect—I’ve said this before, that’s the kind of guy this team needs,” Wolfe said passionately, the only way he knows how to communicate.
“A guy like Vic, he comes in, he’s a no-nonsense, old school type of guy that still likes to have fun. He’s a kind of guy—you just respect him. He’s got the resume to respect. He just demands that respect right away when he walks in the room.”
One of the aspects that makes Wolfe a leader himself, on the defensive side of the ball, is his brutal honesty. The 6-foot-5, 285-pound man resembling more bear than wolf, doesn’t mind who or what he rubs the wrong way, as long as it’s the truth.
After 11 combined wins the past two seasons, there wasn’t much to be positive about regarding the most recent years. Wolfe admitted Fangio’s “no-nonsense, old school” mentality was what the team needed because the accountability had slipped, even among the veterans of the team.
“A 16 week season is not just 16 weeks, it starts in April. It becomes a grind. A lot of people have been talking about how everyone is five minutes early to meetings,” Wolfe said, pointing to the culture change his fellow teammates have pumped up recently. “That happens every year whenever you show up. Everybody shows up five minutes early the first couple of weeks. What happens in Week 16 when everybody is beat to hell, and nobody feels like being around this building, and we’re all sick and tired of each other? Are you still showing up five minutes early? That’s when it counts.”
There’s been a tremendous amount of hoopla, excitement, and positivity surrounding Fangio’s hire and yet his ability to constantly make defenses elite has taken a significant backseat to all of this optimism. That shows just how massive Manning’s leadership void has been over the last three years.
And, according to Wolfe, it hasn’t been close to being replaced. Additionally, according to Wolfe, he’s the man to end the drought.
“As long as [Joe Flacco] can control his side of the ball, we can handle the defensive side, and then you have a coach like Vic who just brings it all together, that’s what you need.”
Entering the final year of his four-year, $36.7 million contract, Wolfe wants to be around to see Vic’s tenure play out, too.
“I want to be a Bronco for life,” Wolfe emphasized multiple times on Tuesday. “That’s why I signed the deal I did last time. The Broncos have been good to me. If I play good, then they’ll be good to me again, and I can finish my career here.”
