With the season done, now the Broncos' most important year in decades begins

As time passes, only the hardest of die-hards will recall much about the Broncos’ 32-31 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders.

In a near-perfect reversal of the circumstances defining the previous season’s finale, the Raiders drove to a touchdown in the game’s final moments, then won it where they lost it the previous year: on a two-point conversion. Last season, Shelby Harris was on the field to deflect Derek Carr’s attempt. This year, Harris was on injured reserve, and Carr coolly hit tight end Darren Waller for the decisive points.

Twenty-four seconds and a blocked 63-yard Brandon McManus field-goal attempt later, the Broncos’ fourth consecutive losing season concluded.

The defeat wrapped up the Broncos’ fourth consecutive losing season. It gave them 41 losses in the last four seasons, the most in any four-year span in their history as an NFL club.

You have to go back to 1964-67 to find a four-year stretch with more defeats than the Broncos endured from 2017 through now.

Aside from a few glimpses — Drew Lock’s 92-yard touchdown pass to Jerry Jeudy, Justin Simmons becoming the first Bronco in 11 years with five interceptions in a season, Vic Fangio’s use of a timeout when the Raiders appeared disorganized prior to their two-point conversion — what transpired Sunday in an empty Empower Field at Mile High will soon be forgotten.

What comes to pass over the next 362 days will not.

The most important year in decades is about to begin.

It starts at the top.

At the moment, the Pat Bowlen Trust continues to oversee the team, as it has since July 2014, when Bowlen ceded the day-to-day reins of the organization due to his battle with Alzheimer’s disease. This season, Bowlen’s daughter Brittany concluded her first full campaign as a team vice president.

But this year, the trust faces a legal challenge to its validity — a lawsuit led by Bowlen’s two oldest children, Beth Bowlen Wallace and Amie Klemmer. That suit is scheduled to be heard in Arapahoe County District Court on July 12. If it is resolved in favor of the trust, the Broncos’ current stewardship could continue indefinitely until Brittany Bowlen is elevated to the role of managing partner.

As Broncos president/CEO Joe Ellis noted after the 2019 season, Bowlen’s children will need to support Brittany Bowlen being the heir designated to manage the club. Otherwise, a sale of the team could happen.

“Everybody else is going to have to sign off on that, most likely,” Ellis said a year ago. “That may not be a requirement, but it’s going to be necessary, I think, moving forward from a trustee viewpoint. That’s why a sale remains a possibility, I think, given the circumstances we’re in.”

The lawsuit should be resolved this year — and when it is, it could bring the ownership future closer to a resolution, too.

Then comes the status of John Elway, the team’s president of football operations. He heads into his 11th season as the football executive with final-say power.

Elway’s first six seasons saw five playoff appearances, two conference titles, a Super Bowl 50 win, no losing seasons and a sterling regular-season record of 67-29 that was the NFL’s second-best in that span.

The four seasons since then have seen four losing seasons and a 23-41 record that is the league’s sixth-worst. His contract ends between the 2021 and 2022 seasons. Recent drafts have raised the team’s overall talent level compared to where it was in 2017, and the Broncos can now boast a solid core of young talent.

But to this point, it has not blossomed into another winning team. With injuries wrecking the roster this season, the Broncos finished with their second-worst point differential for a non-strike season — minus-123 points, an average deficit of 7.7 points per game — since the team joined the NFL in 1970.

The futures of Elway and Fangio are likely joined. He is expected to get the 2021 season to turn around the Broncos’ fortunes. That, in itself, is more than the other Broncos coaches who didn’t have a winning season in their first two years on the job. He’s the first Broncos coach since Lou Saban with a sub-.500 record and no winning seasons in his first two years to keep his job for a third.

The 2020 season certainly had extenuating circumstances. Those start with the tsunami of injuries that washed over the team. The late-season suspension of cornerback A.J. Bouye and the COVID-19 opt-out of right tackle Ja’Wuan James added to the woes.

By Week 17, the Broncos defense was without six of its intended 11 base-package starters, a key slot cornerback (Essang Bassey) and multiple reserve cornerbacks. Its offense played without Lock for three games and most of a fourth, saw Pro Bowl wide receiver Courtland Sutton succumb in Week 2, endured a season-ending torn ACL to rookie tight end Albert Okwuegbunam and played without Phillip Lindsay for 5 games. Center Lloyd Cushenberry and left guard Dalton Risner were the only Broncos offensive players to start every game.

“I think moving forward, the biggest thing that will help is getting guys back that have missed a lot of time this year,” Fangio said. “To get those guys back will be a big jolt for us and then for these young guys to improve, we played a lot on both sides of the ball and another year of maturation.”

Fangio’s future could depend on a return to good health for the team. Most coaches who don’t make the playoffs in their first three seasons on the job aren’t invited back for a fourth — unless your name is Jon Gruden and your contract is worth $100 million.

And then there’s the future of the quarterback position.

Drew Lock played his most efficient series of games after the four-interception disaster in Week 10 at Las Vegas. Offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur opted for more controlled game plans with judicious deep shots, and while Lock wasn’t perfect, he did find a consistency that he had lacked. His completion percentage, touchdown-to-interception ratio and passer rating rose, but he still finished the season with the worst completion percentage among eligible quarterbacks (57.3 percent), the fourth-lowest passer rating (75.4) and a plus-1 TD-to-INT margin that was better than only four eligible quarterbacks.

Lock’s improvement gives hope for the future. But if his play stalls, the Broncos could look to add a backup who can step in to try and maximize 2021 — and the going rate for such a quarterback, e.g. Andy Dalton, Tyrod Taylor, Ryan Fitzpatrick or Jameis Winston, among potential free agents — is likely in the $4-to-$6 million range.

And that leads to all of the contract decisions — all of which will be made in the shadow of a potential salary-cap crunch. Due to in-stadium revenues lost as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the cap could be as low as $175 million — $23 million below its 2020 figure.

• Do the Broncos bring back Von Miller on his current deal after he missed the entire season? Or do they try to restructure his $22.125 million cap hit for the final year of his deal into something more reasonable?
• Can the Broncos sign Justin Simmons to a long-term deal? If not, will they slap a second consecutive franchise tag on him, or will they let him hit free agency?
• Which of the Broncos’ potential restricted free agents will be tendered, and at what level? Tendering Lindsay, wide receiver Tim Patrick and linebacker Alexander Johnson at second-round levels will cost $3.422 million apiece.
• Can the Broncos restructure the contracts for cornerback A.J. Bouye and defensive end Jurrell Casey, two of their prized 2020 acquisitions? Or will they take advantage of the fact that cutting them would save $25.25 million of cap space with no dead money?
• Will other players be asked to restructure? Safety Kareem Jackson could be a candidate. His cap figure is $12.822 million, but the Broncos can save $10 million by cutting him. This could be a conundrum if the Broncos pour their resources into a deal that would make Simmons one of the highest-paid safeties in the sport, perhaps pushing the Pro Bowler into the $15-million-per-year range.

These would be major concerns in a normal year.

In 2021, these could be secondary concerns compared to the situations atop the organizational tree and at quarterback.

This is the year that will set the Broncos on a path to brighter days or could continue their descent into national irrelevance.

This is the year that could define the entire decade and beyond.

This is the most important year for the Broncos since 1984 — the year Pat Bowlen purchased the team from Edgar Kaiser. The purchased capped a 12-month period that saw the Broncos acquire Elway and install Bowlen as owner. It was the year that changed everything.

This could be the 12 months that change everything, too.

Never has it been more important for the Broncos to nail a year than it will be in 2021.