Nearly 22 years ago, when John Elway announced his retirement from a playing career better than any other in Denver Broncos history, he referred to the moment as his graduation.
“I don’t look at it as retirement,” Elway said that day. “I’m just graduating from pro football.”
And yet, as it turned out, he didn’t.
He just graduated to another role within pro football.
He owned an Arena Football team and ran its day-to-day operations, guiding that club, the Colorado Crush, to the league’s championship in 2005. And then, after the Crush folded, he bided his time before graduating on to the Broncos as their vice president of football operations.
Elway isn’t going anywhere, at least not yet. The Broncos’ statement and President/CEO Joe Ellis’ affixed quote made it clear that he will remain as the team’s president of football operations for the 2021 season.
But the seismic announcement that he will step away from the general manager role and cede final-say authority over the Broncos’ roster to a new GM shakes the Broncos to their core and adds another layer of intrigue to an offseason that was already shaping up to be one of the most impactful in franchise history.
In 16 years as a player and 10 with final-say authority over the roster, Elway called the shots. Cameras always found him, whether he was breaking the huddle or sitting in a booth high above the field, his eyes and ears focused on the product below for which he bore ultimate responsibility and accountability.
Now, at age 60, he will hand the reins to someone else.
“While I’ll continue to be President of Football Operations in 2021, the GM will have final say on the draft, free agency and our roster,” Elway said in a statement. “This person will be empowered to make all football decisions, working in partnership with Vic [Fangio].”
If that new executive is to succeed, he or she will have to do so on their own merits. And for that to be done right, it will mean that Elway, while still present, will need to find ways to minimize the shadow his continued presence will cast.
That is why initial speculation will likely turn to candidates who have past connections with Elway and the Broncos. Former Broncos personnel executives Champ Kelly, now of the Chicago Bears, Adam Peters, currently with the San Francisco 49ers, and John Spytek, now the player-personnel director in Tampa Bay, are all names whose candidacies would make sense in this light.
But the future and that job will be handled in due course.
This isn’t a time to bury Elway for the last four years. Yes, they were rough. The Broncos lost more games in the last four seasons than in any four-year stretch since they joined the National Football League in 1970. These Broncos are the first team to miss the playoffs for five consecutive years after winning a Super Bowl, with the 5-11 season of 2020 ensuring that they passed the post-Vince Lombardi Packers of 1968-71 for this dubious distinction.
But with the exception of the Orange Crush years of the late 1970s, almost every significant Broncos accomplishment happened with Elway’s fingerprints imprinted.
Since being acquired via trade in 1983, days after the Baltimore Colts selected him in the NFL Draft, Elway has been the Broncos’ North Star. His presence predated that of Pat Bowlen within the Broncos organization by nearly 11 months.
Elway has been a part of 26 of their 38 seasons. During those 26 seasons, the Broncos went to seven Super Bowls, winning three, and took part in the postseason 15 times, posting 20 playoff wins. Without Elway, they had no Super Bowls, just four playoff appearances and only a single postseason win.
He built arguably the best single-season offense in NFL history, the 2013 unit that ran roughshod over defenses until hitting a wall in Super Bowl XLVIII. His response to that was to pivot and build an iconic defense that allowed the 2015 Broncos to finish the job and win Super Bowl 50, with record-breaking quarterback Peyton Manning hanging on and leading the team through the postseason with his nimble mind as his body, heading warp speed for middle age, finally betrayed him.
Elway became more than just a championship quarterback and a general manager. He became a symbol of Denver and Colorado itself, as recognizable as the jagged peaks of the Rocky Mountains themselves.
Friday, the Broncos lost “The Franchise” with the death of Floyd Little. In many ways, Little handed the baton as the symbol of everything the Broncos wanted to be to Elway.
Elway hasn’t disappointed. Not as a quarterback, and not as the czar of Denver’s football operations. Remember, he inherited that responsibility when the Broncos were at their lowest ebb, coming off of a 4-12 season that remains the worst for a non-strike season since the team joined the NFL.
Within 12 months, he had turned the Broncos 180 degrees.
Just another transformative moment in a football life defined by them.
And with at least one more year on his contract overseeing his successor as general manager, he isn’t completely leaving the stage.
But he is handing off the reins. He’s graduating. He knew when to walk away 21 years ago. And now, after four consecutive losing seasons, he knows when to walk away and give someone else the same opportunity that he maximized.
