The Denver Broncos ended a dream season with a nightmarish free agency period.
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After rotating quarterbacks during the season, Peyton Manning (excuse me, the defense) led the Broncos to a Super Bowl victory. Manning proceeded to retire, the quarterback in waiting, Brock Osweiler bounced to the Houston Texans and now Denver is left to choose between Mark Sanchez (yuck) and Paxton Lynch (vomits into paper bag).
Somehow, team exec John Elway apparently didn't see either move coming, as he labeled them as "a big surprise" in a sit-down with Bleacher Report:
John Elway: It was a "big surprise” when Peyton retired and then we lost Brock https://t.co/I95ZF6uG7G pic.twitter.com/vL2PGxy4hJ
— B/R Gridiron (@brgridiron) May 25, 2016
Here's the full question and quote for context, via B/R:
"Bleacher Report: So coming off one of the great highs of your career in winning a Super Bowl as an executive, you get the challenge of finding a new quarterback.
John Elway: There are challenges every year. That's why this year in free agency and all that, there are challenges every year trying to keep things together. So that's always a challenge. Was it a big surprise that we were in that situation? Yeah, because I thought...we drafted Brock [Osweiler] when we got Peyton [Manning] because we didn't know exactly what Peyton was going to be. But also, if [Manning] wasn't in good shape, we were going to a guy who was going to be here for a long, long time. Now, that didn't work out, so it was a matter of, you have to fix the issue. There are going to be issues every year."
How you could not expect Osweiler, an unrestricted free agent who was handed the job then had it taken away, to at least test free agency is beyond us. How you could not anticipate Manning, who played through injury after injury and had nerve damage in his throwing arm to not walk away after winning a title is astonishing.
At least Elway admitted what most already knew — he didn't plan for the future and it's come back to bite him.
