Ownership timeline is in flux, but here's why Joe Ellis and the Broncos still had to act now and fire Vic Fangio

DENVER — The Broncos’ ownership transition has not begun — yet. Thus, team president and CEO Joe Ellis declined to share a timeline for a transition on Sunday. The Broncos will still pass to the control of team vice-president Brittany Bowlen or hit the open market for a sale — with the latter outcome appearing to be the more likely of the paths.

But first, the courts will be involved.

This is because a lawsuit filed against the estate of former owner Edgar Kaiser must first be adjudicated. Kaiser, who died in 2012, sold the Broncos to Pat Bowlen in 1984. But Kaiser maintained that one of the sale terms involved a right-of-first-refusal for any future sale after Bowlen’s purchase 38 years ago. Kaiser sued Bowlen twice to enforce the right of first refusal in the decades before his death; both cases ended in Bowlen’s favor.

“I apologize,” Ellis said on a Zoom conference with Denver-area media Sunday afternoon. “A lot of people would like to get the answer, but I’ll do it in due time. We’ve been in consultation with our legal team, and we’re just going to wait and let the court go through its process and issue a ruling at some point here. Then we’ll take that ruling, we’ll digest it, look at it, evaluate it, and then you’ll probably see me up here in front of a screen or maybe live.”

But much could be said about the fact that the outstanding lawsuit and the upcoming transition did not prevent the Broncos from dismissing head coach Vic Fangio on Sunday.

The rest of the coaching staff met with general manager George Paton and remains on the job, but all could be poached by other teams if permission for interviews is granted, with no guarantee that the Broncos’ next head coach will keep them aboard.

None of them are candidates for promotion to the head-coaching job, Paton said.

Ellis confirmed that the ownership situation will have no impact on the terms and length of a contract that Paton will be able to offer a coaching candidate. Further, Ellis said he will be “on the sidelines,” leaving the task to his general manager.

“If George needs me for resource reasons to talk to some of the candidates, I’ll certainly do that for him,” Ellis said. “This is his search, this is his decision, and I have great confidence it will go very well.”

Whoever Paton hires has a stern task looming, because simply coaching ball isn’t enough.

Paton repeatedly pointed to “leadership” being the No. 1 attribute in the hire. He noted how much he loved what Fangio did on defense, but “we’re looking for someone to lead the entire operation.”

What Paton wants is a figure who can point the way for the entire organization. And Ellis knows that the coach must help rebuild an operation that has been left in the backwash by its division rivals.

The Broncos need a leader. An inspirational figure. Someone who can cut through the problems that leave the franchise unable to move past on-field mediocrity.

“It’s sort of become systemic here, what’s been happening here,” Ellis said. “We can’t figure out ways to win games. And that’s gotta change. And I can sit up here and talk about it, but that’s just cheap. It doesn’t get anywhere. It’s just gotta happen.

“And we’re gonna have to come in with a fresh start with a new coach, and George is gonna — in tandem with him — gonna have to raise the expectations and the energy level and the inspiration so that our fans will get inspired by the team again.”

Joe Ellis had a passionate, candid and heartfelt response when I asked him about the state of things with five-straight losing seasons, averaging over 10K no-shows for the last six home games, etc. Disappointed has become “systemic,” he says. pic.twitter.com/UGREk06W6u

— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) January 9, 2022

That absence of inspiration is part of the reason why the Broncos averaged more than 10,000 no-shows per game in their final six home games of the 2021 season. COVID-19 concerns and other factors likely played a role, as well; as Ellis noted, no-shows are a problem around the NFL.

But in Denver, massive no-show counts used to be rare, and typically caused by foul weather. Now they have become as commonplace as the five consecutive losing seasons that helped cause them.

“I’m one of hundreds of thousands or millions of citizens of Broncos Country that is just tired of it,” Ellis said. “ I don’t want to stand up here — well, I won’t stand up here next year — but I’ve been standing up here for three or four or five years, whatever it’s been, and saying the same thing to you guys. It’s gotta stop. S

“Someone else will stand up here next year and it’ll be a positive spin with a positive attitude and really, I just believe that this team is getting closer. We’ve gotta figure out how to win. Not figure out how to lose. Figure out how to win. We can do it. We can put the pieces in place for the organization to do it.”

It takes an organization.

But it starts with individuals. And in 2022, the Broncos will get a new coach … and then they will get a new owner. And possibly a new quarterback.

Change is coming, step by step.