Mile High Monday: Peyton Manning is a Denver Bronco!

Monday mornings usually start out slow and uneventful, but not today!

Monday, March 19th will go down in the history books for the Denver Broncos. It’s the day that Peyton Manning chose to join one of the best organizations in sports and try to lead them to another Super Bowl Championship. It also signals the end of the Tim Tebow era in the Mile High City as it is fully expected that Tebow will be traded very soon.

Peyton Manning is a sure-fire Hall of Famer and one of the best quarterbacks in the game. He is one of the few QB’s in the league whose work ethic exceeds his skills, and his signing puts the Denver Broncos into the group of serious Super Bowl Contenders.

This acquisition is a huge win for John Elway and the entire organization. The fact they could land the biggest free agent in NFL history shows that the Broncos are in a very good place both on and off the field. The prospects for this team are beyond exciting. It is expected that Denver will go after several free agents such as Mike Wallace, Dallas Clark, and Jeff Saturday among others. Not only that, but every other quality free agent available will be calling Denver this week rather than the other way around. Furthermore, they are all available at reasonable prices now that the crazy free agent spending spree is in the past. The Broncos didn’t break the bank early and now they have a ton of resources and leverage. If you aren’t jumping up and down at the possibilities, you should be.

John Elway is doing a great job at the controls of the organization and is a favorite for NFL Executive of the Year regardless of what happens from here on out. He has brought organizational stability and legitimacy back to the Broncos. Think about where Denver was 2 short seasons ago. Those were dark days, but today the Denver Broncos trail only 4 teams as favorites to win the Super Bowl according to the experts in Las Vegas. The teams with better odds to win the NFL championship are the Packers, Saints, 49ers, and Patriots. Do you like the company the Broncos are keeping now? I do too. To put it another way, several teams out there couldn’t even get Peyton Manning in for a visit (including the Kansas City Chiefs), but Denver got him. If you don’t think this puts the league-wide perception of the Broncos on a whole new level you are kidding yourself. Once again, we owe a lot of thanks to John Elway.

Outside of Peyton Manning, the other big story to come out of this is the fate of Tim Tebow. The Tebow situation was a difficult one, and this may have been the only way for the Broncos to move away from the Tebow era without having their fans encircle Dove Valley with pitchforks. It was no secret that John Elway didn’t believe Tebow was the quarterback that could get the organization back to the Super Bowl. Signing Manning not only allowed him to part ways with Tebow, but it pushed Denver back out front in the AFC West at the same time. That kind of outcome is thanks to an extraordinary string of events and the fact that Elway was able take advantage of them.

That being said, I will always be a huge Tim Tebow fan and will always appreciate what he did for the Denver Broncos. I also hope every Broncos fan out there feels the same way. I wish nothing but the best for him and hope he finds a good situation with another NFL team. I have been a Tebow supporter from the beginning and I do think he can be successful; he just needs to find a very particular situation in order to do that. It won’t be happening in Denver, but I hope that both sides will be better off with this change at the end of the day.

There really is never a boring time in Broncos Country, but today is as exciting a time I can remember since Elway was playing. The rest of free agency and the 2012 draft is now must see TV for all Broncos fans. The opportunities are endless for this team in the coming years, and I’m just happy I get to be here to enjoy the ride.

Go Broncos!

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