Would you rather....

[broncos SB2010]

Options? Trade for someone? Anyone on the market?

no one will trade away a starting caliber Olineman without paying an excessive amount for them.

[the0rangecrush]

no one will trade away a starting caliber Olineman without paying an excessive amount for them.

This is true, look at what the Seahawks paid for Duane Brown. A 2nd, 5th, and Jeremy Lane for a guy who held out, and called out their owner.

[Kyousukeneko]

When was the last time the Broncos' had an O-line one would call great? It's been a while. Even the O-line of the SB50 team was pretty weak. Bad drafting and free agency has culminated in this. Add awful QB play...

2008 or so. our o-line has been really bad sense JMD try to convert it to a "Power" scheme.
that is why we will probably need to put really draft capital to improve it needs alot of help.

[Humberg]

Absolutely agree it's too early to write a great career for Mahomes, but, as much as anything our defense did you have to realize how many dropped passes and penalties there were and their loss of Watkins. Mahomes trailed by 10 when he went all Mahomes on us he lit us up - even without Watkins. Even struggling he got nearly 50% of third downs.
And, please, don't think we were the first team to try to confuse a young QB - all of them did. We were more successful in the first half, I think, because our line was less tired and KC had yet to figure out that you couldn't run curls and deep in's against our secondary. BTW, our secondary did a really good job. And even though Mahomes threw for more than 300 yards, if we could have scored in the 4th qtr we would have been fine.

Absolutely agree that its way early to say he's "great". However you can look at it like this: would you rather have the combo of Chubb and Bolles or Mahomes right now? And if anyone says the former I call bull on that. We could have traded our first rounders in 2017 and 2018 to move up from 20 to 10 to select Mahomes. Or we could have traded even more to move from 20 to 2 to get Trubisky. Or selected Rosen instead of Chubb. Right now those look like good value trades/selections. It's the value of the quarterback position in today's NFL. This type of thinking should define our approach moving forward.

[Chop_Block]

Defense usually wins championships, and we shredded the KC defense in our run game last night. I still got LA beating these arrogant pricks in the big game.

You do realize they also shredded us with their run game last night... I only mention that to bring clarity to playcalling and, perhaps, to an over-rated defense. I think we have a good, solid, D, but it's not going to be dominating. Keep in mind we've played 3 of our 4 games at home.

[Chop_Block]

It's very convincing to mention our position in the last draft or even jumping in ahead of KC and getting Mahomes last year. A top QB puts your team in contention year after year, whereas, a so-so QB dooms you to a "tough out" status. And you are right about the value of Bolles and Chubb - even if those guys prove to be all-pro (they aren't today) one could argue we'd be better off with Rosen.
The only face-saving move here is to remind ourselves that Rosen may yet prove to be more of a Leinert than a Rodgers.

[Orangecrush21]

Why not throw Kelly in and see what he's got and if he doesn't plan out, call New Orleans and see if er can get our hands on Bridgewatter for a 3rd or so? No need to sell the farm just yet

[Hadez]

I really feel like this is Denvers Achilles’ heel. We can run the football, play defense but our pass blocking reeks. It looks all the more pathetic considering we can run the football. A good running game is usually a pass blocker’s best friend but not on this team. Garrett Bowels has more tackles than Shane Ray.

Our passing blocking (not just OL but TEs and RB play a part too) is just horrible. It was horrible last year and the moves after 2017 season to address the pass blocking were pathetic

As far as blocking as a whole goes, Janovich is the best blocker on the team. That said, Bolles has been a dud in that regard, and his technique is just bad. We should see a lot 2 TE sets, and run the ball down teams throats. I believe this talent is perfect for Kubiak's offense. The ration should be 60/40 run to pass next week IMO.

Actually as bad as our pass blocking is our run blocking is pretty amazing. If someone wants to take the time looking over the run plays I think it becomes clear that as a team we are real good running the ball including the OL blocking. That takes time tho so just take a look at the stats.

3rd in the NFL in rushing yards per game
2nd in the NFL in yards per rush
3rd in rushing TDs
13th in the NFL in rushing attempts per game

If we were top 5 in rushing attempts per game image where we would be

[Humberg]

Why not throw Kelly in and see what he's got and if he doesn't plan out, call New Orleans and see if er can get our hands on Bridgewatter for a 3rd or so? No need to sell the farm just yet

Respectfully, I disagree. This is exactly the kind of thinking that got us into this position. Sure, I don't mind handing the keys for this season to Kelly. Why not? We don't have a starting QB on this roster so might as well let the young guy play (ongoing Keenum is not going to be an 18 million dollar backup). But we should not have any illusions that this is our answer. If he plays lights out and has a stellar 15 year career, then I'll be the first to post on the crow-eating thread and take mine with ketchup. But I think I'm safe and most of the NFL history would back me up on this. Trading any draft pick for Bridgewater is a waste of a draft pick that we could use instead to move up in the draft. Don't do it.

We keep hoping to strike gold with the QB clearance rack and are puzzled when we keep getting subpar QB play. This also tricks us into thinking we should prioritize other positions in the draft which has been our MO. When are we going to learn.

What I don't understand is that this isn't hard and it's not particularly complex for a GM to comprehend. Rarely, stud QBs are found in free agency or trade but usually if a team has a franchise QB, they aren't letting him go. Usually they come to a team with the high picks in the first round of the draft. Go where the probability is highest and stop mucking around.

[mozzerpete]

At least Denver didn't draft Ryan Leaf.
Thoughts and Prayers.

[BroncosDivision]

I don't want to just make it an automatic - do it next draft - because I don't know who is in the draft who would be worthy, but I agree with your point. In this NFL you HAVE to have a QB, even if he's an old Manning - we got to the SB TWICE with him and have looked mediocre without him.
I look at what the Raiders did in trading away Mack. On the surface it looks stupid to let him walk, but it gave them the draft choices that whoever they wanted in the upcoming draft they'd have a decent chance of getting. As it turns out, I don't think they want a QB and I'm not sure we want anyone coming out next year either - BUT, if there was:
Trade Von to the Raiders for their plethora of pics and use them to move up and grab our signal caller for the next decade. Von is a great pass rusher but when he goes against a decent Tackle he disappears. He's still extremely valuable and I want to keep him if we had that QB, but if we have to trade him to get that QB, lets do it.

Not going to happen but lets pretend it does, who do you draft? 2019 is going to be weak, like very weak. 2018 was it and if Kelly doesn't pan out, we blew it.

[JW7]

Just a reality check. Looking at what Mahomes did tonight, what Mayfield has been doing, what Rosen looked like (even in a loss) yesterday, to some extent Allen and Darnold, Trubisky, it seems worth reflecting on our lack of participation in the "draft a young franchise QB game."

So I keep hearing about what a great draft we had (this year of course, we can ignore the previous years drafts that have been horrid and not even worth defending). I'll agree our young draft picks seem promising. Ok, so the question is does good drafting of other positions make up for ignoring the QB position?

For the game tonight would you rather have had a young, gunner franchise QB fresh off your #1 draft choice (Rosen for instance) or was it enough to see Chubb doing nothing, Sutton giving the game away, Freeman doing well but invisible in the second half, Hamilton catching punts reliably (which is not insignificant after the awful experiment last year with our draft pick) and Jewell being good but not impact? I would have traded all of these guys for a good QB.

You know what, lets look at our last years draft - oh wait, its entirely forgettable featuring only one player, Bolles, and him being quite possibly the worst LT we have EVER had. Just where exactly are our draft choices showing up and someone explain to me why we didn't draft a #1 QB when we had the chance this year? And based on how our draft is going, I almost think it would have been worth packaging any combination of draft picks to move up and select the QB that Denver wanted, whomever it was. Because, frankly, it's more likely than not that we will bungle most of our upcoming picks based on past history. Does someone really want to make the argument that we are likely to strike gold with any future draft pick and its so precious that we had to hold onto it instead of using it to get a franchise QB?

Since 2010, we have had roughly 72 draft picks, 16 are playing on the active roster. That's a hit rate of 22%. I wish I were the GM because I know what my pitch would be - "Please, someone take our draft picks and give us a franchise QB. Take whatever you feel its worth and leave the franchise QB at the door." I find myself red with Mahomes envy, Black with Trubisky envy, Green with Darnold envy, orange with Mayfield envy (although the Browns really gotta upgrade that color scheme IMO), and deeper red with Rosen envy. I would even be a little blue with Allen envy I suppose, although I think he's the least promising.

A good QB could even make this ridiculous coaching staff look good.

The high 1st round draft choice comes along so rarely, unless you are perpetually bad (which we might be headed for), you gotta make it count when you have it, especially in a year like last year with a bunch of QBs that have a decent shot of being special. We bungled it. Chubb has 1.5 sacks this year...........and we have no future at QB on this roster. If that hurts a bit, it should.

I understand your sentiment but you completely lost me on the bolded points. Great teams win Super Bowls, not just great Quarterbacks. A great QB will make you consistently competitive but it doesn't guarantee a championship. Looks at last year, the final 4 teams included Keenum, Foles and Bortles. The Broncos won the Super Bowl with the corpse of Manning because they had great pieces all around.

The jury is still out on the 2017 draft class but the 2018 class is looking amazing and will grow into the foundation of this team. To take each players performance through four games and cheapen it is completely disingenuous to me.

Of the QB's you listed the only ones I would trade that all in for is Mahomes and Mayfield. It's still really early in the other QB's careers as well but that's the feeling I get. While Mahomes and Mayfield would be great, how would we have picked them?

1.) Mahomes picked at #10, would have been a head scratching move after taking Lynch in the first the year before.

2.) Mayfield was the #1 pick and what sort of bounty would be required to make that move.

I understand your thought and frustration in not having a great young QB but a lot of the NFL deals with that same issue. Franchise/game changing QB's don't grow on trees. Another draft like this year in 2019 and we have a solid core for the foreseeable future.

[18Broncos]

Respectfully, I disagree. This is exactly the kind of thinking that got us into this position. Sure, I don't mind handing the keys for this season to Kelly. Why not? We don't have a starting QB on this roster so might as well let the young guy play (ongoing Keenum is not going to be an 18 million dollar backup). But we should not have any illusions that this is our answer. If he plays lights out and has a stellar 15 year career, then I'll be the first to post on the crow-eating thread and take mine with ketchup. But I think I'm safe and most of the NFL history would back me up on this. Trading any draft pick for Bridgewater is a waste of a draft pick that we could use instead to move up in the draft. Don't do it.

We keep hoping to strike gold with the QB clearance rack and are puzzled when we keep getting subpar QB play. This also tricks us into thinking we should prioritize other positions in the draft which has been our MO. When are we going to learn.

What I don't understand is that this isn't hard and it's not particularly complex for a GM to comprehend. Rarely, stud QBs are found in free agency or trade but usually if a team has a franchise QB, they aren't letting him go. Usually they come to a team with the high picks in the first round of the draft. Go where the probability is highest and stop mucking around.

It used to be that the QBs drafted high in the first round pan out more often.

But, if you look at the league today; that's not the case.
There are very few of those QBs starting at the moment.

[JBBronco1]

What about N.C. State's Ryan Finley? He doesn't seem all that bad to me.

[18Broncos]

Respectfully, I disagree. This is exactly the kind of thinking that got us into this position. Sure, I don't mind handing the keys for this season to Kelly. Why not? We don't have a starting QB on this roster so might as well let the young guy play (ongoing Keenum is not going to be an 18 million dollar backup). But we should not have any illusions that this is our answer. If he plays lights out and has a stellar 15 year career, then I'll be the first to post on the crow-eating thread and take mine with ketchup. But I think I'm safe and most of the NFL history would back me up on this. Trading any draft pick for Bridgewater is a waste of a draft pick that we could use instead to move up in the draft. Don't do it.

We keep hoping to strike gold with the QB clearance rack and are puzzled when we keep getting subpar QB play. This also tricks us into thinking we should prioritize other positions in the draft which has been our MO. When are we going to learn.

What I don't understand is that this isn't hard and it's not particularly complex for a GM to comprehend. Rarely, stud QBs are found in free agency or trade but usually if a team has a franchise QB, they aren't letting him go. Usually they come to a team with the high picks in the first round of the draft. Go where the probability is highest and stop mucking around.

Also, I went back to the SB between 1966-1982 (so far).
All of them include a QB that was not drafted in the first round.
I need to double check, but I'm sure I'm not far off.
Or at least the QB wasn't drafted anywhere high in the first round.
Then I start seeing a couple of SBs in which neither QB was drafted in the first round.

I haven't looked further, but obviously, there were those Montana and Brady's years.
And then you have those years that QBs like Elway and Manning were no longer at the top of the game.
And then you have Warner.
Kelly was drafted 14th and deemed too short by some.
And so on and so forth.