2. Approaching the kicking situation weirdly
I'm not going to sit here and say that letting go of Brandon McManus was a mistake. The Denver Broncos have a 4-11 over the last two years in one-score games, and McManus did his part in the 11 losses, that's for sure.
Don't get me wrong -- McManus deserves a ton of credit for helping the team win Super Bowl 50. Broncos Country will be eternally grateful for that. But in recent years, he's not been good and in fact, has been one of the more inconsistent kickers in the league. It was time for a change of scenery.
But why did the Broncos wait so long to let him go? Why did it take them so long to make that decision? Again, it made sense to move on from McManus, but not in the middle of the summer when they decided to do it. They didn't set themselves up to sign or draft any incoming kickers. They didn't set themselves up to sign anyone in free agency.
The decision to let go of McManus so late in the offseason caused the Broncos to have to MacGuyver the situation and trade a draft pick for Wil Lutz...
...who then promptly missed a field goal and extra point in his first game with the team.
Not that approaching the position earlier would have eliminated bumps in the road, but it might have given the Broncos a shot at finding long-term stability when the pool of players to pick from was bigger.