John Elway lays down lofty expectations on the eve of Broncos' training camp

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Last year? Last year?

The Denver Broncos don’t want to think about last year. And they won’t.

“Last year was last year, I’m not going to go back there,” head coach Vance Joseph said, attempting to wipe his rookie season out of his mind.

After an incredibly disappointing 5-11 season in 2017, Joseph, and the entire organization, had a few takeaways from the forgettable year.

“That made our football team very, very humble, but also hungry,” Joseph said, briefly looking back. “We’ve all gotten better from last year.”

Now, seven long months after the conclusion of 2017, the team’s expectations sit in an entirely different world from last season.

“I’m not going to put a number on it. I want to see us take strides from where we were last year,” Elway stated, initially taking a mild approach on his expectations for his team.

After doing his best Bill Belichick impression of avoiding giving an exact answer, Elway strayed, giving clear expectations to his staff, players and Broncos Country.

“Obviously, we want to make the playoffs and compete for world championships,” he said, uttering a phrase he’s said many times throughout his career. “This is the first step back after a tough season. There’s no reason why we can’t come back and compete for that.”

“We want to make the playoffs,” Elway again stated at multiple times throughout his pre-training camp presser.

Unsurprisingly, It didn’t take long for his words and message to trickle down through the organization. Minutes later, Demaryius Thomas, the longest-tenured player on the team, wasted no time echoing the Broncos expectations: “Our main goal is to win a championship, but we got to get back to the playoffs because after the Super Bowl we went down. It’s time to get back into the playoffs.”

The team’s playoff-or-bust mentality is so clear, in fact, Elway said he “hasn’t even thought about” the team not making the AFC playoffs this year.

With expectations mighty high, considering the team is coming off a 5-11 season, Elway did temper expectations for the highly-anticipated rookie class. At least to an extent.

After stating he doesn’t expect any of the rookies to have an All-Pro season in 2018, he said “It’s going to take some time” for them to develop.

Then, he was pressed by a reporter, “You’re a guy who doesn’t want to take time, you want to win now.”

Elway quickly shot back, “Well, we still plan on doing that.”

Some organizations use the high-risk, high-reward method of rebuilding. But that’s not in Elway’s arsenal.

“If you’re planning for down the road, well, then you should probably be in a different profession,” Elway said, making it perfectly clear the Broncos aren’t jeopardizing the present in order to benefit them in the future.

After a “great offseason,” as Elway put it, there certainly is reason to believe the team will have more than five wins next season due to their free agent acquisitions and a promising draft class. But one acquisition raised the bar more than any of the others.

“Case is a big part of that and the veteran leadership that we needed at that position,” Elway said, pointing to his new quarterback, Case Keenum. “Obviously, we now all have to come together, especially on the offensive side. It’s about getting continuity on the offensive line as well as the young wide receivers — getting them up to speed as well as the young running backs.”

Now, with training camp beginning on Saturday, it’s time to “pull it together,” in the words of No. 7.