Although every team enters each NFL season hoping to hoist the Lombardi Trophy, there are usually a handful of teams that are the clear favorites. For the past few seasons, the Denver Broncos have been squarely among those teams, but are those days gone for the near future?
Broncos Planning To Bench Peyton Manning?
The team lost some key players, but they did manage to coax Peyton Manning into returning for another season at a discounted rate. However, the team abandoned its all-in free agency spending ways in favor of a more long-term approach. With Manning turning 39 recently, it is starting to seem like the team is planning for the future already.
According to The Denver Post, the team still has faith in Manning. "There's been a lot of speculation regarding how he's going to perform when he comes back," Ellis said. "I think a lot of that speculation is questioning his ability and doubting his ability. And I can only imagine how hard he is champing at the bit to prove everybody wrong."
Washington GM Has No Problem Moving On From RG3
Although the Broncos maintain their faith publicly, they do not appear to have enough faith to push all of their chips into the middle. The team made cap management moves designed to clean up their future salary caps, and they have also publicly discussed giving backup QB Brock Osweiler ample playing time to keep Manning fresh.
In other words, it sounds like they want to win a Super Bowl with Manning, but they are no longer going to bend over backwards in order to fill out a championship roster around him.
With the organization focusing on the coming years instead of the present, can Denver still compete for a championship? The offense and defense still look great on paper, but the team appears to have taken a step back since the end of last season.
In the deep AFC, where several other teams have worked to improve, do the Broncos have enough left to compete at the highest level? Or are they saying all the right things while secretly trying to see if their post-Manning quarterback is already on the roster?
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