Denver Broncos Film Series: Oscars Week Helps Put Team In Focus

The Denver Broncos face an offseason full of questions. How former Best Picture winners can shed some light on the future of the team…

This week’s 89th Academy Awards ceremony have a great many all over the globe in a silver screen state of mind. As it happens, this momentary preoccupation is useful to help characterize and define a litany of issues and storylines facing the Denver Broncos as they continue preparations for the 2017 league year. Let’s take a look at how select titles of past Best Picture winners and nominees can assist our understanding of where things stand.

Coming Home (1978): Sports fans are sentimental fools. Major league general managers and their personnel departments, on the other hand, are not. Impersonal assessments and tough decisions are a way of life when it comes to fielding competitive teams.

It’s been reunions aplenty with the Broncos in recent years–John Elway, Gary Kubiak, Wade Phillips, Rick Dennison–and the results delivered a teeming parade to the streets of Denver. But does one reunion (or several) necessarily deserve another?

While he may never suit up for the Broncos, the father of versatile Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey did (and quite memorably). Ed and his staggeringly sculpted arms were a hit in orange and blue. A generation later, many hope his highly touted son be given the chance to star in those same threads beginning this September. The Denver native and, in frat-speak, “legacy” Bronco powered Valor Christian HIgh School to back-to-back 5A state championships before setting the college ranks ablaze as a Heisman Trophy runner-up in 2015.

As Broncos fans and actual or wannabe-Coloradans, we certainly clamor for Christian McCaffrey in our hearts; and we’d additionally like to interfere with Bill Belichick and the Patriots getting their despicable little paws on him. Couldn’t you just picture McCaffrey thriving as a freakish, mutant hybrid of Danny Woodhead and Wes Welker in the New England system? I dare say that’s motivation enough to keep him far afield of Foxboro, Mass.

Question is: Does the mantra “In Elway We Trust” remain ironclad after the team’s first postseason absence under his direction? Does Broncos Country trust him enough to let McCaffrey play ball elsewhere?

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Slumdog Millionaire (2008): No matter the sport, every draft is essentially a crapshoot. The NFL’s, of course, is no exception. From titanic first-round busts JaMarcus Russell (Oakland) and Tony Mandarich (Green Bay), to Hall of Fame diamonds in the rough like our own Terrell Davis and Shannon Sharpe, the NFL Draft is weird, wild stuff time after time.

The Broncos are slated to have 10 picks in this April’s draft–six natural selections and four compensatory picks for free agents lost last season. Primary emphasis and scrutiny will naturally concern what they’ll do with their first-round selection, 20th overall. But in the spirit of 2009’s Best Picture winner about a rags-to-riches Indian youth, here’s hoping GM John Elway and company have the acuity and foresight to pluck a future star of the late-round rubble.

Unforgiven (1992): No matter which quarterback they started last season, the Broncos were guaranteed to wage their title defense with a wide-eyed sapling under center. Couple that extraordinary plight with rookie fourth-round draft pick Devontae Booker having to fill the shoes of the injured C.J. Anderson at running back, and the pressure on Denver’s revamped offensive line to perform well never abated for a second.

But while the pressure was there, the performance was not.

The offseason free agent acquisitions of tackles Russell Okung and Donald Stephenson were largely ill-fated, and with the exception of center and Pro Bowl alternate Matt Paradis, the Broncos’ offensive line was a stunning disappointment. On the group’s watch, Denver quarterbacks Trevor Siemian and Paxton Lynch were sacked 40 times (9th-most in the NFL) and knocked down 101 times (7th-most). The running game fared even worse: ranking 27th in the league with an average of 92.8 yards per game and netting only six rushing touchdowns for the year.

Okung and Stephenson headlined the team’s free agent haul nearly a year ago, but today the prospects for the bookend tackles to remain in the fold appear dim. As a pair, they accumulated 22 penalties between them (11 apiece), and Okung would stand to become Denver’s fourth-highest paid player in 2017 if the team picks up his $1 million option on or before March 9. Such a hefty price tag for another year of his service indicates the Broncos may attempt to restructure his deal before releasing him outright.

While Okung’s play throughout the season was commonly termed “up-and-down,” Stephenson’s turned out the worse of the two at right tackle. The Broncos are expected to release him but have until March 13 to make their decision. If they do, they’ll save $3 million against their 2017 salary cap as a result.

Our Oscars series continues this Thursday with A Few Good Men, Raging Bull, and No Country For Old Men.

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