Broncos' bizarre Joe Flacco bet epitomizes franchise in denial

Just as they did for most of the 13 seasons following John Elway’s retirement, the Broncos have hovered off the national radar in the three years since Peyton Manning’s exit.

The Broncos have delivered three unmemorable seasons, their succession of shaky quarterbacks squandering some talented defenses’ work. Although the franchise lost 10 games in consecutive seasons for the first time in 46 years, it generally resided in that space between relevant and awful during that time.

This stay in anonymous mediocrity may be over.

Wednesday's agreement to acquire Joe Flacco generated mockery on a level the Broncos rarely see. Barring significant strides in the other offseason chapters, the Broncos will head into next season after enduring an avalanche of snark. 

This is the only franchise to see its starting quarterback retire after a Super Bowl victory, and the Broncos have experienced it twice. Some difficulties replacing Elway and then Manning were understandable, but the fallout from Manning’s retirement brought more turbulence than Elway’s 1999 departure. Mike Shanahan’s blueprints for success without star quarterbacks — producing four playoff berths from 2000-05 — have proved better than Elway’s (20-28 post-Peyton).

In the past four years, the Broncos have employed internet punching bags Mark Sanchez, Brock Osweiler and Paxton Lynch before regretting their Case Keenum investment. Internet effigy Flacco being the next man up pushes Elway's strategy at sports' marquee role from futile to laughable. 

A franchise with two quarterbacks in the top-five, all-time conversation suddenly leads the world in mismanaging this position.

Elway, Vic Fangio and Co. are making a wild bet that injecting Flacco into the Kyle Shanahan offense — derived from the Mike Shanahan/Gary Kubiak attack, one that produced the most recent successful Flacco season — that new offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello will install can reinvigorate a 34-year-old quarterback seemingly years into a decline.

Even if this works out perfectly, where does that get the Broncos? 

Flacco rediscovering his 2014 form, or something close to it, would give the Broncos somewhere between the 16th- and 20th-best quarterback in the league. An unlikely Flacco resurgence may not transport this roster — a mashup of Super Bowl 50 holdovers and a strong 2018 draft class with little in between — back to contention.

The Super Bowl XLVII MVP showing his late-20s form might still leave the Broncos fighting uphill. Placing that Flacco edition on the 2016 Broncos, a 9-7 team buoyed by a historically great pass defense, would have made a difference. Instead of adding a legitimate veteran, Elway went with Trevor Siemian, who was not terrible that year but remains the most random signal-caller ever given the keys to a defending champion’s offense. 

This Denver team has the Von Miller-Bradley Chubb tandem, one of this era’s best cornerbacks (Chris Harris) and a decent defensive line. Fangio can surely keep this defense near the top of the league. Offensively, the Broncos carry Phillip Lindsay and Emmanuel Sanders, the latter coming off an Achilles tear, set to turn 32 and not a lock to be back, at a $10.2 million base salary.

Not much else of note is in place. The Broncos are far removed from their 21st-century apex. 

The Flacco from 2015-18 was incapable of lifting up middling personnel. The ’18 Ravens illustrated this. Prime Flacco, his road playoff sorcery and all, was rarely able to.

In addition to Flacco’s 2015 ACL tear, he dealt with back trouble in 2017. His hip injury last season paved the way for Lamar Jackson. Denver gave up an asset to pay more money to a player who is three years older with a recent injury history. (The Keenum deal's offset language notwithstanding, the Broncos will have to eat most of the $10M in dead money.)

Flacco complicates Denver’s draft approach as well. Neither first-round outcome makes this trade look good.

Timeline A: The Broncos take the best player available at No. 10, again eschewing their most pressing long-term need. This would help the 2019 team, but does a Flacco-led squad have a chance of unseating the Chiefs or outperforming the Chargers? It seems far-fetched. Another quality draft may help the Broncos sniff the No. 6 seed, but several AFC teams reside in better positions.

In this reality, the Broncos held a top-10 pick in consecutive years and did not draft a quarterback. Considering their 2016 Lynch pick (at No. 26) is largely responsible for the current state of the union, waiting another year — when Flacco (and Fangio’s defense) could conceivably play just well enough to place the Broncos in a worse 2020 draft slot — is incredibly dicey.

Eyeing a quarterback in the Tua Tagovailoa/Justin Herbert/Jake Fromm draft year sounds enticing, but the Broncos would likely have to pay a steeper price to land one of them while perhaps engaging in asset-acquisition battles to outflank the young-quarterback-seeking Patriots, Saints and Chargers when it comes time to make trade-up calls.

Timeline B: Despite this trade, Elway drafts a quarterback. This option thrusts Flacco back into his 2018 role, mentoring (but not really) a prospect. The Broncos will have then traded a pick and taken on more salary for an abbreviated Flacco season. With Flacco’s 2019 floor possibly just as low as Keenum’s, going in this direction would double as a waste of resources.

This path also weakens Denver’s 2019 playoff chances. At this point, however, short-term contention is not as important as identifying the right passing prospect.

Providing the illusion of giving the Broncos’ aging core another chance at the playoffs, Flacco likely offers more of the same. While Denver’s flagship talents — Miller, Harris, Sanders — own Super Bowl rings, each will be north of 30 by Week 1. A substantial chunk of their primes will have been spent anchoring forgotten teams.

This week's lateral move will almost certainly not be enough to lift the Broncos out of the NFL’s middle class, leaving them trapped, as peers that made better quarterback choices move forward.

The general manager section of Elway’s legacy will always have Manning, Miller, some undrafted free-agent gems and the Broncos’ underrated mid-2010s metamorphosis — booking a Super Bowl berth with a turbocharged offense, then rapidly retooling around an intergalactic defense en route to a title. 

But Elway’s inability to find a worthwhile Manning successor, and the underwhelming efforts to do so, will be a major part of his resume.

The Flacco deal illustrates the late-2010s Broncos’ denial better than anything. They accomplished more than most franchises this decade, but this is a low-ceiling operation until the next legitimate quarterback arrives.