Everything you need to know from the Broncos' end-of-season press conferences

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — For the first time since 2016, the Broncos season-ending press conference came the day after a victory.

John Elway, accompanied by Vic Fangio, strutted into the team auditorium late Monday morning to address the media with an unfamiliar trait—an unwavering smile.

Along with the dub and finishing the season 4-1 under Drew Lock, there’s no uncertainty at quarterback, read below, and there’s no head coaching search. Both of those haven’t happened in the same offseason since 2014. 2014.

Stability has returned to the UCHealth Training Center. But there was still plenty of news from the never-dull general manager and head coach on Monday.

Here’s what we learned.

ELWAY HESITANT, BUT DREW’S THE GUY

Up until Monday, neither Elway nor Vic had declared Drew Lock the Broncos’ starting quarterback beyond this season. That changed, albeit lacking a strong endorsement, on Monday.

“We don’t like to show our hand, but I think it’s unrealistic to say we’re going a different direction,” Elway said when asked if Lock is the starting quarterback in 2020. “I don’t see any [other] options right now. Obviously, he finished and did a heckuva job. We won four out of five games and played well. He still has a long way to go. He has a lot of work to do. We’re excited about where Drew is.”

Overall, Fangio and Elway were both complimentary on the rookie quarterback and the strides he took his rookie season.

COORDINATORS COMING BACK

Despite offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello coming under fire during parts of the season, and special teams coordinator Tom McMahon’s unit struggling throughout the entire season, Fangio confirmed he expects all three of his coordinators, including defensive coordinator Ed Donatell, to return next season.

“All thee guys will have a good staff, and I’m sure some opportunities will come up for some of the guys, and we’ll deal with those as they come.”

No coaching changes are expected immediately. Elway and Fangio said on Monday they want to take their time in evaluating the entire team.

VON MILLER NOT GOING ANYWHERE

Denver’s Super Bowl 50 MVP will be back for at least one more season. Elway stated that the team will exercise Von Miller’s 2020 option, keeping him a Bronco for another year.

The team has until Mar. 18 to make it official, but Elway put to rest any speculation that No. 58 won’t be in Orange & Blue next season. The option will guarantee $6 million of Von’s $17.5 million 2020 salary. Von will carry a $25.6 million cap hit.

“Von played very well yesterday. He’s going to continue to get better, and I think that Von still has a lot of football left in him. A lot,” Elway emphasized. “I think he can still play better than he played this year. I would tell that to him in my office this year.”

DOOR LEFT OPEN FOR BOLLES

Elway has many personnel decisions to make in the offseason, and with quarterback now off the list, the biggest one very well could be what to do at left tackle.

On Monday, Elway made it clear his outlook on Garett Bolles’ future is still up in the air.

“Nobody’s in this thing for sure, it’s always an open competition going into training camp, and we’ll evaluate where Garett is and talk to Mike [Munchak] and Chris [Kuper] and see what they think and where we’re going with the offensive line,” Elway said, when asked if he’s comfortable with Bolles as his left tackle. “But Garett continued to get better. He got better, and he was available. And that’s important.”

Elway noted Bolles didn’t miss a single snap during the season and emphasized numerous times that the third-year tackle got “better and better and better” under Munchak. But that didn’t fully get Bolles off the hook after leading the league in holding penalties.

“The hard thing is Garett’s under the microscope. He’s under the microscope, and anytime they say 72, it brings down the whole stadium. That happens,” Elway said, shining light on the harsh reality. “He got himself in that position, so we’ll continue to work at it.”

A major reason Elway didn’t go close to running Bolles out of the plans for 2020 is the team has had a number of injuries at tackle, from Ja’Wuan James missing 14 games to Elijah Wilkinson getting banged up at the end of the season.

POSSIBLE PAYDAY FOR PHIL

Rockin’ a DNVR shirt as he cleaned out his locker room, Phillip Lindsay was his usual peppy self on Monday. An hour later, he received news that could even give him an extra pep to his step as Elway stated the team will consider extending Lindsay this offseason.

“Yeah, we’ll look at that,” Elway stated. “We’ll get back into that when we start planning and budgeting for 2020, where we are money-wise. Obviously Phillip has done a tremendous job. And being the first college free agent to go over 1,000 yards. As Vic said last night, there’s 32 dumb-dumbs that didn’t draft him, and I was one of them. But thank god we got him to come here.”

Since Lindsay went undrafted, he is eligible for a new contract after his second season in the league, which he wrapped up on Sunday.

“He’s been tremendous,” Elway said of the Colorado native. “He’s got a heart the size of his whole body. We’ll look at that and see where we are budget-wise. But yeah, that’ll be something that we look at.”

Lindsay is under contract for one more season before being a restricted free agent in 2021. He has a $660,000 cap hit next year.

SIMMONS STAYING

While there’s uncertainty at some positions and surrounding some player’s futures going into the offseason, there’s no uncertainty surrounding Justin Simmons.

“We want him back,” Elway simply stated. “So, you know the options there. Before we came down, I talked to Justin and said, ‘We want you back.’ He’s a great football player, but he’s a better man too… He’s the type of guy that we want on this football team. Obviously we have the franchise option there, but we like to get something done with Justin for the long term.”

With the fourth-year player on an expiring contract, the Broncos could either sign him to a long-term deal or use the franchise tag on him. Tagging the versatile safety would cost Denver roughly $12 million for 2020.

It’s not uncommon for players to be opposed to the franchise tag, but on Monday, Simmons said, “it would be a blessing” if a long-term deal was reached or the team used the franchise tag on him.

“We’ll he played great for us,” Fangio said of No. 31. “I think he’s still at the stage of his career that he can still improve more, especially in the inner workings of our defense and mastering some of the things we do even better, which can only come through reps or come through meetings. Really a good football player, a really good person, a really good teammate. He’s everything we want in a player.”

It’s still uncertain how it’ll happen, but it’s clear Simmons will be a Bronco next season.

NO QUESTIONS ASKED WITH JAMES

Ja’Wuan James played 63 total snaps for the Broncos in 2019 after signing a lucrative four-year, $51 million deal in the offseason. James stated he partially tore his MCL in Week 1 and re-tore scar tissue and his meniscus in Week 8.

Despite being medically cleared at different points in the season, as Fangio stated on multiple occasions, James held himself out of the lineup stating his knee as buckling and he couldn’t trust it. Elway didn’t want to question anything surrounding James’ injuries.

“Ja’Wuan’s got to feel good with that, right? Ultimately it’s his—he’s got to come back, and hopefully that knee tightens up to where he gets comfortable with it. That’s up to him,” Elway stated. “Having played the game, whoever is in that body, they’re responsible in how they feel, and hopefully he comes back and can be the player that we think he can be because obviously we spent a lot of money on him last year because we think he can be that kind of player. So it would be nice to have him back next year.”

James believes surgery is avoidable, and Elway is going to leave that decision up to him.

“The one thing I don’t want to do is I don’t want to question it, right? I mean, ultimately, it’s up to Ja’Wuan,” Elway said. “I think the trust factors there that for us, we have to trust the player and what the player says he can and can’t do—no matter what the doctor says, it’s still up to the player. Hopefully, that knee tightens up for him when we come back and be what we think he can be.”

BIDDING FOR CHRIS HARRIS JR.

John Elway has thrown a lot of money at Chris Harris Jr in 2019. In the offseason, Elway gave Chris an additional $3 million to simply play the last year of his contract.

On Monday, the Pro Bowl cornerback told reporters the Broncos offered Harris Jr. a three-year, $36 million deal before the trade deadline. Needless to say, Chris turned the offer down. But there’s no doubt Elway wanted No. 25 to be in Denver’s future plans.

Now that Chris is heading toward free agency, Elway was noncommittal on if he would get in a bidding war for Harris Jr.’s services on the open market.

“Well again, we’re going to go back and evaluate it and see what options we have and what’s available,” Elway said. “We got to go back and look at the money that we have available, and we will go through and make a plan before we get to that, and we will budget it out and see what our plan is and put that plan together.”

FLACCO’S FUTURE

Lock will be Denver’s starting quarterback in 2020, but he won’t be the highest-paid quarterback on the roster as Joe Flacco is set to make $20.25 million next season in Denver.

While Flacco’s time in Denver as the starting quarterback is over, the veteran said he would be open to staying with the Broncos in a backup role if that kept him playing football.

Elway didn’t want to make any decisions on Monday.

“We haven’t got into that yet, but we’ll look at that and see what’s best,” Elway said, when asked about Flacco’s future in Denver. “Obviously, we’re going to take some time. This year, a little different than in the past, is we’re going to wait for our own team evaluation for a month. We’re going to get away from it.

“Coaches look at it, personnel side will look at it, get together early February and we’ll get a good objective view of what our team’s going to look like next year and what we need to do, and I think that’s why we’ll take the time and evaluate everything and obviously Joe will be one of those that we’ll look at and see his situation.”

BRITTANY BOWLEN IN DRIVER’S SEAT

President and CEO Joe Ellis also spoke on Monday and made his intentions with the unresolved ownership situation crystal clear.

Ellis said Brittany Bowlen has “distinguished herself as the one child that could possibly take over her father’s role” as the owner of the Broncos.

Brittany re-joined the Broncos on Dec. 2 as the Vic President of Strategic Initiatives. Along with high praise from Ellis on Monday, a source told DNVR Brittany has done an “incredible” job since joining the organization, from the way she treats everyone to the way she handles herself and her work.

However, Ellis also made it very cell that for the team to stay in the family and have Brittany take over as the owner, the family needs to be unified—i.e., put an end to the lawsuits. If the family does not come together, the sale of the team is a very realistic “option,” as Ellis said on Monday.