Should the Denver Broncos go the Oakland Raiders route and tank?
Nov 12, 2018, 9:31 AM
By many accounts, the Oakland Raiders — soon-to-be of Las Vegas — have gone the route of tanking for brighter days to come. But should the Denver Broncos follow suit?
On Monday, “Schlereth and Evans” co-host Mike Evans posed the question, to which his partner Mark Schlereth said he doesn’t “buy-in” to the idea.
“I don’t buy-in to the Broncos stripping it down to the studs and starting over,” Schlereth said. “They’ve got too many good players. They’ve got too much of a good situation.”
The difference, Schlereth said, is organization between the Raiders and Broncos. The Raiders will soon have an influx of money by its move to Las Vegas to rebuild its organization from the bottom up. But Denver, Schlereth said, doesn’t need a full rebuild.
“The Raiders are waiting to get to this brand new paradise facility so that they can generate revenue so that they can fix the issues they have. And they’ve got a boatload of draft capital to get that done,” Schlereth said. “It doesn’t mean they’re going to pick the right guys, but I just don’t believe that you could ever go down that road because you don’t have the same constrictions.”
Evans, however, said he doesn’t want to see the Broncos organization get stuck in the “purgatory” of middling season.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in just simply being a contender. Either I want to be really bad or I want to be in a position where I can be really, really good,” Evans said. “I’m not interested in the in-between.
“So, if I can’t be really, really good, I want to be really, really bad because being really, really bad is the quickest way to getting to be really good again.”
Schlereth said that philosophy only works in sports like the NBA, where a player or two can make the difference in become a championship contender.
“I think that has worked in the NBA, where you’re going to get really good players but you only need two dominant players to dominate, to be a championship contender,” Schlereth said. “In the NFL, there’s a lot more that goes into it than that.”
Follow digital content producer Johnny Hart on Twitter: @JohnnyHart7.