When Broncos V.P. of football operations John Elway recently gushed about some of the quarterbacks available in the 2011 draft, many viewed Elway’s comments as a smokescreen aimed at concealing their true interest.
Elway appeared Thursday on 104.3 the Fan in Denver (via SportsRadioInterviews.com), and he was asked whether he’s indeed blowing smoke. (As if Elway would admit it if he were.)
“Well the bottom line is at that position, everybody realizes how important that position is,” Elway said. “And anytime you have the draft position we have -- second in the draft -- you have to look at everybody. And we’re looking at every position, not only the quarterback position, but that seems to get the most attention because of what we have here. But obviously if there’s a guy there that’s a franchise guy there, we definitely have to look at it because we’re not sure we have a franchise guy on our team right now. So obviously we’ve got to visit that, look at it, and do our due diligence on it and then we’ll make our decision from there. But no, it’s not a smokescreen. We realize -- and I realize -- how important that position is, and if there’s a franchise guy there that we know is a franchise guy, we’d have to look at it.”
If it truly is a smokescreen, Elway is willing to undermine the team’s relationships with its current quarterbacks (Kyle Orton and 2010 first-round pick Tim Tebow) in order to sell it. Then again, maybe it’s just a way to further motivate Tim Tebow to get the most out of his abilities and more, especially when, given the lockout, any short-term development as a quarterback will happen on his own time and dime.