Broncos V.P. of football operations John Elway was a big, mobile, strong-armed quarterback. Naturally, then, he’s drawn to big, mobile, strong-armed quarterbacks.
The fact that the 2011 quarterback class boasts several big, mobile, strong-armed quarterbacks has Elway reportedly intrigued.
“I think sometimes your eyes migrate to the style you played,” Elway said Monday, per Mike Klis of the Denver Post. “You don’t have to be that way. You look at Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, the success they’ve had. But I think it’s getting harder and harder to play that position and not have mobility.”
The big three big quarterbacks in this year’s draft are Blaine Gabbert, Cam Newton, and Colin Kaepernick. If the Broncos want Gabbert or Newton, one of them definitely will be there at No. 2.
“We’re always looking for that guy,” Elway said regarding whether the team hopes to find a “franchise quarterback of the future” in the draft. “We may already have the guy who can pull the trigger and win us a championship someday. We may have him. We don’t know. We believe in Tim [Tebow] but he’s not there.”
Of course, the problem is that, by drafting a potential “franchise quarterback of the future” with the second pick in the draft, the Broncos will essentially be giving up on Tebow long before knowing whether he can be “the guy.” In the end, it could be that the Broncos are sending out smoke signals that they’re thinking quarterback with the second pick in the hopes of ensuring that the top pick is used on one of the two quarterbacks (either by the Panthers or someone who leaps over the Broncos via trade), giving Elway a clear shot at any of the players in the draft who don’t play quarterback. If that’s the strategy, then Elway could be on his way to being as shrewd in the front office as he was effective with less than two minutes on the clock.