Joe Ellis made one thing clear Tuesday: Ultimately, John Elway made the call to step away from having final-say authority over the Broncos’ roster and football operations.
But what if Elway had not?
“Well, I don’t get into what-ifs,” said Broncos’ president and CEO as he began a reply during a Zoom teleconference with Denver-area media Tuesday.
So, we may never know the certain answer to that question. Fortunately for Ellis, Elway, the Broncos and their fans, we didn’t have to find out.
Ellis made this clear: He knows that Elway ceding the general manager reins was the right thing for the organization — and he made that clear in the seven words he said after he declined to play the “what-if” game.
“But we arrived at the right conclusion,” Ellis said.
“So, that’s where we’re at, and we talked that through. I didn’t contemplate one way or the other. If that had been the case, then I’m not sure where we would have gone. But I as I said [earlier in the press conference], I think the decision that he reached was the right one and he made it.
“We talked things through. It wasn’t difficult to get to where we got to. As I said, it was very civil and very honest and thorough in terms of our dialogue throughout these last several weeks.”
But as Ellis said, it was the “right conclusion.”
It was necessary, too. The Broncos had made incremental progress in the record from 2017 to 2018 and on to 2019, improving from 5-11 to 6-10 and then to 7-9. That had been a rationale for staying the course.
A 5-11 finish in 2020 changed that.
Yes, there were injuries. But the Los Angeles Chargers saw a comparable portion of their roster lost during the season and finished two games better, closing the year on a four-game winning streak. The San Francisco 49ers still lumbered home with six wins despite also losing a massive chunk of their starting lineup, including quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. Those hobbled 49ers took the NFC West champions, the Seattle Seahawks to the final moments in Week 17. The Broncos, against another elite team in Week 15, got throttled 48-19 by the Buffalo Bills.
Change had to come. It was up to Ellis to ensure that it was smooth and dignified for the sake of the franchise, Broncos Country and Elway himself, the man Ellis called “the most impactful and important person in the history of the organization” — and among the most impactful in the NFL and Denver itself.
“He’s the first to recognize the last four years have been not where we need to be, and he made a decision that he feels will help us get going in a better direction,” Ellis said. “As I’ve said, I commend him for that.”
But now, Ellis’ focus turns to Elway’s successor as general manager, with the collection of candidates beginning to take shape.
WHAT DOES ELLIS WANT IN A GM?
First of all, it’s not enough for the next general manager to be a good evaluator of talent.
“It’s a lot of things. It’s not just evaluating players, it’s managing a staff, it’s setting the structure and a plan in place organizationally that the coach adheres to,” Ellis said.
Cohesion with the coach is crucial with more teams looking toward structures in which the coach and general manager work in tandem. One successful recent example of this is in Buffalo, where coach Sean McDermott arrived a few months before general manager Brandon Beane. Both worked for the Carolina Panthers before joining the Bills and had a shared vision that they have executed into three playoff appearances in four seasons.
“I think one thing that’s very important is player evaluation and doing that in concert with the coach so that the coach and the general manager have an understanding about what kind of players the coach needs [and] the team needs to be successful,” Ellis said. “From the first player on the roster to the 53rd player on the roster, all of those decisions are important, and I know John is looking for that and I will be as well during this process.
“That’s a critical component to be able to work with and understand what Vic needs — the players that Vic needs to be successful is a better way of putting it, I think — and that more than anything is critical.”
An emphasis will be placed on ensuring that minority candidates are part of the process. Tuesday, the Broncos asked for — and received — permission to talk with Chicago Bears executive Anthony “Champ” Kelly, who worked for the Broncos from 2007-14, first as a scout and then as the assistant director of pro personnel.
Ellis said it was “very important” to have minority candidates be a part of the process.
“I think your organization gets better with diversity, and diversity is a lot of things. It’s people of different race, it’s people with different opinions, it’s people that add value in different ways,” Ellis said. “We’re going to interview several Black candidates. The Denver Broncos player roster is 75 percent black. We’re getting better at diversity as an organization, but we’re nowhere near where we need to be.”
THE HOLDING PATTERN ON OWNERSHIP RESOLUTION CONTINUES
The lawsuit by Beth Bowlen Wallace — one of Pat Bowlen’s two daughters from his first marriage to Sally Parker — that challenges the validity of the Pat Bowlen Trust will be heard in Arapahoe County District Court in July.
Until then, the status remains quo. Neither a sale nor a transfer of power to Brittany Bowlen is imminent.
“We haven’t made that decision, but we’re basically just focused on getting through this trial and validating the trust, which validates us three trustees to make a decision whether to keep it in the family and name a child or sell the team,” Ellis said. “We’re not putting the cart before the horse here.
Ellis noted that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the league’s finance committee gave permission for the trust to continue its stewardship of the Broncos through March 2022. The ongoing lawsuit complicates the process of transitioning toward Brittany Bowlen becoming the managing partner or the team being sold.
Bowlen currently serves as the team’s vice president of strategic initiatives. She also supervises the organization’s implementation of COVID-19 protocols.
“I think the other owners that I’ve spoken to — as well as Roger — recognize that that’s slowing things down a little bit in terms of the decision-making process,” Ellis said. “I know the league will want us to reach resolution as soon as we can. But the trial is going to have to happen first and it’s going to have to verify and validate Pat’s trust and our ability to execute it.”
Once the lawsuit is resolved, Ellis wants the family drama to end — whether it means keeping the team in the Bowlen family or moving toward a sale.
“There has to be a conclusion to that and an understanding if Brittany’s going to run the team. There does. There’s just no other way around it,” Ellis said. “Will that happen before March of ‘22 or immediately after the trial? I’d like to think that it will happen in that time, and that’s for selfish reasons and it’s for reasons that are in the best interest of the organization, the team and the fans.
“I think all of those people — and the family — deserve an answer soon after the trial — without putting an end date on it because I can’t predict what will happen.”
Brittany Bowlen will be involved in the general manager search “in a periphery way,” Ellis said. She will handle research and background work into the candidates, but she will not sit in on interviews; that will be limited to Ellis, Elway and coach Vic Fangio, with the team’s chief communications officer, Patrick Smyth, taking notes.
FINANCES: DESPITE ‘SIGNIFICANT DOWNTURN IN REVENUE,’ BRONCOS WITHSTOOD THE COVID-19 STORM
At this time last year, no one could have seen the economic catastrophe that hit professional sports when COVID-19 forced all major professional and college sports to shut down after play on March 11.
The Broncos played half of their regular-season home schedule in an empty Empower Field at Mile High. The remaining games took place in front of a combined 21,122 fans — just 3.48 percent of the paid attendance figure for all eight home games in 2019.
“We had a significant downturn in revenue, but we were prepared for it,” Ellis said. “I commend the work of our Chief Financial Officer Justin Webster, who every month I meet with to go over financials. We actually were in a pretty good position to be able to handle this.”
That said …
“I won’t say the same thing to you if I’m on a screen next year if we go through this the way we went through it this year,” Ellis added. “That will be a big challenge for us. Although, I think we can get through it, I do.”
The nature of a pandemic that spreads as easily as COVID-19 means that mass-attendance events are among the final things that will return to normal as the vaccine is distributed to all segments of the U.S. population.
“I’m optimistic that we’ll be back to maybe a full capacity of fans in August, but for me to tell you that that’s going to happen, I just don’t know that,” Ellis said. “That’s part of the complexity of where we are and the anxiety that’s created because of that.”
And if the unthinkable happens and the 2020 season looks like 2019?
“We are well-positioned, but what’s most important to our organization is that we have all of our resources available to give to the football side of the building so they can be successful,” Ellis said. “That didn’t change this year, and I don’t expect it to change next year.
“I’m a glass-half-full guy. I don’t know what to expect in terms of fan levels in the stadiums. I think we will have some people back. We may not be all the way back from a revenue standpoint, but I believe firmly we can make it through 2021 unless there is just some unforeseen COVID situation that sets us back even further than we were set back last year.”
The Broncos also made it through the year with no layoffs, pay cuts or furloughs of team employees, and that will continue into 2021. Ellis made that announcement to the entire organization in recent weeks.
Given that dozens of other organizations in major professional sports have been dotted with layoffs — including multiple Major League Baseball teams slashing their scouting staffs – the ability of Ellis and the Broncos to ensure that their staff remains at full strength is commendable. It is among their biggest victories of the last year.
