Thread by @TedBartlett905

Some #Broncos thoughts on a Sunday after they played the day before - there's been a lot of hot takery lately about Lock, Fangio, Elway, Shurmur, everybody needing to go. You probably won't be surprised to learn that I think this is highly misguided. 1/44

When you clean house every 2-3 years, like the #Broncos have been doing, over the course of 20 years, you become the #Browns. You have to have patience, and let things develop, because nothing is fast. 2/44

In most cases, you shouldn't consider firing a coach until s/he's had 3 years to establish a program. The only exception is when it's just clear that the person isn't up to the job. That determination can't be made from outside the building, especially by a fan. 3/44

I know that it's easy to get mad at a coach about a play-call, or a 4th down decision, or wins and losses. Part of the fun of being a fan is spouting off about things that you're not particularly qualified to judge. 4/44

That includes me, frankly, and I know more football than most fans. I have opinions, but I've never wanted to present myself as KNOWING the right answer, because all I have to judge is results. You shouldn't judge results because of hindsight bias. 5/44

When Melvin Gordon ran for the TD on 3rd and 8 yesterday, @MikeKlis praised the play call. At that moment, I thought to myself that he'd be the first one to critcize it if it went for 2 yards. A play call isn't good or bad based on whether it worked. 6/44

If you want to judge the performance of a decision-maker, you need to focus on the process, and not the results. It's kind of like when you lose playing poker, but when you went all-in, you had the best hand. Did you screw up? 7/44

I am not in the #Broncos building, but judging from what Fangio has said and done over the last 2 seasons, I think he's probably on the right track. I have vastly more confidence in him than I did in Vance Joseph. I have as much confidence as I did in Gary Kubiak. 8/44

I think, as I said, that teams should have a bias toward staying the course for at least 3 season, and I've seen nothing that makes me want to fire Vic. He's done a good job setting up his program, despite the franchise clearly revolving around Elway. 9/44

As far as Pat Shurmur goes, I think he's been a mixed bag this year, but has trended up lately. I also think that he had a hard challenge as a new coordinator, with no offseason program, and the youngest group of players in the NFL. 10/44

If you keep changing coordinators every year, you're going to handicap the offense every year. You don't make changes like that lightly. I wasn't thrilled about firing Rich S last year for this reason, but I appreciated Fangio's doing what he thought was the right thing. 11/44

The #Broncos lost on Saturday because they were playing a top 5 team in the NFL, and they didn't have enough quality players on defense to compete. (They also didn't have a real place-kicker, and the offense played badly in the second half.) 12/44

They also had a situation, as has been the case most of the year, where rookies played like rookies. Their development continues to happen in a bumpy fashion. This is normal. 13/44

Jeudy, Hamler, Cushenberry, and Ojemudia have all been quite good at times for the #Broncos this year, but they've all been inconsistent. They are gaining from the experience, though. None had a particularly good day Saturday. 14/44

We should talk about Drew Lock. Drew was an "eye-of-the-beholder" type coming out of college last year, a clear Maybe. There were 3 clear Maybes in the class - Daniel Jones, Dwayne Haskins, and Lock. I would have called Kyler Murray a Probably, like I called Mayfield. 15/44

There was no consensus about the order of the QBs after Murray. The Giants had conviction on Jones, and the WFT owner loved Haskins for reasons, but if Lock had gone 6th or 10th or 15th, nobody would have called it absurd. He was seen as on the same level as the other 2. 16/44

When the #Broncos got Lock at 42, it was a good value pick, and it was a function of a lot of Maybes coming into the NFL in the previous few years. A lot of teams were in the process of checking on Maybes, so Supply of Maybe QBs was higher than Demand. 17/44

2015 Maybe QBs - Jameis Winston, Marcus Mariota. 2016 - Jared Goff, Carson Wentz, Paxton Lynch (LOL), Dak Prescott. 2017 - Mitch Trubisky, Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson 2018 - Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, Lamar Jackson 18/44

That's 12 guys in 4 years (removing Paxton and Rosen, who flamed out quickly), and when you add the top 4 guys in 2019, and also Gardner Minshew, more than half the NFL was signing up to be playing Maybe QBs on their rookie deals. 19/44

Obviously a few (Mahomes, Prescott, Watson, Jackson) established themselves as Definitely guys, and a few more are almost that (Goff, Mayfield, Allen). Burrow and Herbert this year are on that track. (I would be a little surprised if Tua is). 20/44

But teams decided Nope on Winston and Mariota, after 5 years of mixed results, and Wentz and Darnold, and Minshew are on their way to moving on too. Jimmy Garoppolo might be too. 21/44

This year, Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, and Justin Herbert came in as Maybes. Burrow and Herbert have played really well, and Tua has done OK, but I would call them all still Maybes. 22/44

In 2021, Trevor Lawrence looks like a Definitely from the start, but the next 3 guys (Justin Fields, Trey Lance, and Zach Wilson, in whatever order) are clear Maybes. Mac Jones and Kyle Trask are a level below that, probable backups in the NFL. 23/44

There's nothing about any of them that would make you think they'll definitely be better than Drew Lock or Daniel Jones or Tua Tagovailoa. Like those three, and Darnold, and Haskins, and Wentz, they're guys who have enough talent, but could go either way. 24/44

Ryan Tannehill was one of those Maybe guys his whole career in Miami. He got into a more favorable situation on his second team, and look what it’s done for his career. I wouldn't be surprised if Jameis Winston found some success given a sustained chance to play again. 25/44

Ever since the CBA radically changed in 2010, where you didn't have to pay high picks huge money, I've been saying that the optimal team-building strategy is to keep trying to find a franchise QB until you get one. The whole NFL story hinges on having that guy or not. 26/44

I'd have liked to see Drew Lock play better and more consistently early in his career than he has, but he was not set up for success. We have to understand that he's playing w/ a youth movement, injuries, and coaching change. And he's doing it during a disruptive pandemic. 27/44

Herbert has looked really good in LA as a rookie, but remember, he's playing with Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, and Hunter Henry. If you want to set up a young QB for success, it helps to give him receivers like that. 28/44

Lock has Courtland Sutton, who has missed the season, and Noah Fant, who has improved in his second season, but missed time. He has Jeudy and Hamler, who have struggled, and Tim Patrick, who is solid but no Keenan Allen. 29/44

Lock is still a Maybe. It's not time to decide that he's a Nope yet. The best thing the #Broncos can do is find their own Tannehill. One or two of these recent Maybes is going to be available. It's likely that Darnold will be one of them, and Winston will be another. 30/44

Wentz could be another one, although his contract situation is difficult for the Eagles. I'm not convinced that any of these guys will be Definitely Better than Lock, but it would be good to have an alternative, like Tennessee had for Mariota. 31/44

Look at what's happening with the Eagles. I guarantee you that Wentz wasn't happy when they drafted Jalen Hurts, but they did a smart thing for their program, because they knew there was a nonzero chance that Wentz wasn't the guy for them. 32/44

Now, I don't know that Hurts is the guy either, but he's done well so far, and he's more likely to be than Brett Rypien or Jeff Driskel is. That's the same way I felt about Lock the last 5 games of last year, and compared to Joe Flacco & Brandon Allen. 33/44

I'm not a huge believer that we need to be worried about the fragile psyche of a QB, and not bring in competition for that reason. If a guy isn't mentally tough enough to deal with competition, he's not the guy. 34/44

I tell Lock that I have seen some good things, and some less good things, and we need him to focus on improvement like never before. He will have starting-caliber competition for the job, and I hope he plays well enough to win the job and lock it down for the next decade. 35/44

Maybe he succeeds, and maybe he's ultimately not good enough. Maybe it doesn't work out in Denver, and he goes on to success somewhere else, like Tannehill. Time will tell. 36/44

As @AllbrightNFL said yesterday, if the #Broncos looked across the field at the Bills yesterday, thew saw what it looks like when you are patient and build a team with a consistent talent acquisition and development approach. 37/44

The ownership situation for the #Broncos is clearly suboptimal. The "owner" responsibility has fallen to Joe Ellis, who I have never found impressive. A real key to sports franchise succcess is good ownership. We had it with Pat Bowlen, and we've basically lost it. 38/44

Anybody who has ever worked in a family business before knows that skills don't always get passed down across generations, and I think there's close to zero reason to think that any of Pat's kids portend to be an owner the quality of their father. 39/44

I'm a Mets fan, and our fan base is super-excited about ditching the terrible Wilpons for Steve Cohen, and I hope the #Broncos fan base will get to experience the same thing in the next year or two. 40/44

To boil down a long thread to a clear takeaway, the narrative of the hot takers that we learned something new yesterday is crap. We learned exactly nothing new. #Broncos have a decimated roster that couldn't compete against the other team on that day. 41/44

They have chances to grow and improve against the Chargers and Raiders to end the season, and then hopefully, a fairly normal offseason program. I don't expect the #Broncos to win either game, given the CB limitations, but maybe they'll surprise me. 42/44

Winning is really kind of self-defeating. In the offseason, they lose almost nobody to free agency, unless they choose to. I would keep Von Miller, Jurrell Casey, and AJ Bouye around, and see what they have when the whole defense is available to play. 43/44

Trust me, the #Broncos aren't that far off from where they're trying to get to. They share a division with the Chiefs, and that's tough, but they're building the right way to give them as much trouble in the future as any team can give the team with the best QB in the NFL. 44/44