We can all learn something from Brock Osweiler

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Brock Osweiler messed up. He knows.

“I tried to make the best business decision for myself and my family,” he explained media on Monday. “Whether I made the best one or not, that could be argued.”

It sure can. It sure has been.

Financially, of course, Brock’s decision was a no-brainer. He did exactly what anyone advising an NFL player would tell them to do. Like the NFLPA would suggest, he took the largest sum of guaranteed money as well as the largest amount per year.

He followed agent’s protocol by not taking calls from the Broncos while he had a better offer on the table. The agent’s job is to get you as much money as possible, they don’t want your teammates and the front office to get a hold of your heart strings, they want all contact to go through them. After all, their only loyalty is to dollar bills.

As hard as it was, Brock played it the way you’re supposed to. Maybe he let some of his success get to his head. Maybe he thought he deserved a chance to lead a Super Bowl team. Deep down, though, he knew he was leaving something out.

“I didn’t sleep for about a week,” he explained. “I was sick to my stomach every single day. I was a mess.”

Brock Osweiler learned a lesson that we can all take something from. If you aren’t one of the many that have already learned it, that is.

We aren’t money-powered robots; we are humans, we have emotions. We have connections to the places we call home, connections to people. We are far more complicated than a simple math equation of X is greater than Y. We make mistakes.

On Monday, a professional athlete stood in front of a large group of media at Denver Broncos headquarters and looked as human as you’ll ever see. This was not some guy who was faking his way through a press conference, trying to say the right things and be a pro. This was a guy who was grateful, thankful and excited. A guy who even missed the media. A guy who, more than anything else, appeared beyond relieved to be back home.

“My wife and I, we missed Colorado every single day,” he admitted.

Can you blame him?

The man once thought to be the “QB of the future” for the Denver Broncos ended up in Houston with a coach who wasn’t all that thrilled about him. He was benched. Next, he ended up on a team that had so much cap space they were willing to pay his $16 million salary for the second-round pick included in the trade. As expected, he was cut.

In the last 18 months, Brock Osweiler became a very rich man. He also went through some “negative things,” as he called them. But he became a father to a baby girl named Blake. He grew up. He realized that money isn’t everything.

The veteran quarterback had to “touch the hot stove,” as he explained and he really shouldn’t be blamed for that. Many of us humans would have done the same thing. Given a second chance as a free agent, though, Brock took matters into his own burned hands.

“I basically told my agency, ‘Listen, I love and respect you guys, and I love what you guys do, but if there’s an offer from Denver, I don’t care if it’s a dollar, that’s where we’re going.’

There was no posturing this time. In fact, on Monday, he sounded more like a guy who would have begged if he had to. He thanked Vance Joseph five times, thanked John Elway “up and down.”

You can hate him, just know that he loves you.

“I understand the anger, frustration, whatever you want to call it,” he said to Broncos fans. “Like I said earlier, I’ve never had anything but love and appreciation for this city and this organization. I just hope in time those fans who feel that way let me earn back their trust and get a great relationship again.”

Fans, taking Elway’s lead, often talk about only wanting players who want to be Broncos. The very fact that Brock appeared to not fit that mold is the main reason for the overwhelming hate for him in the fan base. But know this, while it may have taken him 18 months of hell to figure it out, just about nobody wanted to be a Denver Bronco more than Brock Osweiler.