The Broncos are finally rebuilding, and it’s about time

This is what rebuilding means for the Denver Broncos.

It means cutting a beloved player when a trade market fails to materialize because of a glut of safeties hitting the market. The NFL is subject to the whims of supply and demand, and when the Seahawks released Jamal Adams and Quandre Diggs on Tuesday to add further supply to an already flooded market, the die was cast: The Broncos probably weren’t getting much of anything in exchange for Justin Simmons and the last year of his contract.

And thus comes a cut that doesn’t merely slice into the roster, but it knifes into the heart. It won’t be the last move, either; the Broncos aren’t yet in cap compliance. Some further combination of cuts, restructures and possibly trades must happen between now and the start of the new league year on March 13.

Welcome to a Broncos rebuilding operation.

In the moment, it’s going to hurt.

But it is also necessary.

THIS IS A DIRECTION

And that’s a start.

It’s a welcome contrast to John Elway declaring in 2018 that “life’s too short to rebuild in the NFL.” Or Vance Joseph referring to the Broncos’ 2017 process as a “reboot” and not a rebuild.

It is painful to look back on these moments. They reflected an organization circling around a cul-de-sac of denial.

For too many years, the Broncos didn’t accept what needed to be done.

In fact, even their one earnest and potentially-viable plan of the post-Peyton Manning era involved a shortcut. After all, Russell Wilson was a shortcut two years ago.

At the time, it seemed to be a chance worth taking. The same core of the roster started the previous season 7-6 before Teddy Bridgewater — perhaps the sturdiest, best horse on the eight-season quarterback carousel — succumbed to a concussion against Cincinnati in Week 15 of that 2021 campaign. There was reason to believe the team was close.

But the Broncos aligned him with Nathaniel Hackett. Wrong coach, wrong quarterback, and wrong scheme — a Frankenstein’s monster mashup of principles favored by Hackett and the ones Wilson wanted to execute. The result was a turgid offense that struggled at even the basics — like getting the snap off before the play clock expired.

It was one of many misalignments over the last eight years.

The Broncos’ attempts to plant seeds and cultivate a crop resembled Homer Simpson’s turn at farming: toss whatever spare seeds he can find into the soil to see if they would grow. When nothing happened, Homer coated the dirt with plutonium to take a shortcut to success.

Homer ended up with a tomato-shaped fruit that tasted like cigarettes that he dubbed “tomacco,” and chaos ensued. The Broncos ended up with eight mostly slipshod seasons of dead ends, faded hopes and what became an annual tradition of selling star players at midseason for draft capital.

Indeed the last seven years have been a circus of misalignment. Of doing enough to not be lousy … but lacking the game-changer at the most important position to truly change the outcome beyond the outlier upset over a playoff-bound team.

That changed this week. The Broncos have alignment on a rebuilding project.

Jettisoning Wilson and his contract came with moving on from Simmons. While talented and still contributing at a high level, Simmons appears unlikely to be a part of the Broncos’ picture when they can finally return to contention.

And that is going to be a consideration with every move they make: Is this player going to be a part of the team when the rebuilding is complete and the team is relevant again?

The answer for Simmons — a player heading into his ninth NFL season in the final year of his contract and on the high side of 30 years of age — was “No.” Other similar choices are likely imminent.

Judgment cometh, and that right soon.

And like Sutton, notable names such as Courtland Sutton, Jerry Jeudy, and D.J. Jones could find themselves next on the business side of Sean Payton’s attempt to bring alignment of purpose and timeline to an organization that has lacked it for most of the post-Super Bowl 50 era.

A BRONCOS REBUILDING PROGRAM SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED YEARS AGO

There were plenty of windows for this to happen before.

You can pick your year from 2017 through 2020, for example. In 2017, accepting a “rebuild” rather than a “reboot” would have reset the deck on expectations — and would have likely given a longer chance that season for a final referendum on Paxton Lynch.

Instead, Trevor Siemian opened the season as the starting quarterback. A 3-1 start yielded false hope; it collapsed rapidly as Siemian’s limitations became apparent. And the Broncos didn’t finally turn to Lynch until Thanksgiving weekend, at which point he failed to last a game, awash in tears and rain on a damp Oakland sideline.

Lynch ended up playing just two games that year — and with him still on the roster, the Broncos elected to give him one final shot to develop, signing Case Keenum in March 2018 and then passing on Josh Allen. But that what-if has been belabored.

Still, it represented yet another misalignment. In the year to select a quarterback — with three of five first-round passers having multiple playoff appearances and wins to their name after six seasons — the Broncos passed.

The 2019 process offers a more illustrative example. With a new head coach in Vic Fangio, the Broncos decided to go for the spackle-and-patch route again. They traded for Joe Flacco, withElway declaring that the 12-year veteran was just entering his prime. They signed a 10-year veteran safety in Kareem Jackson and a right tackle in Ja’Wuan James who possessed an injury history as long as the Broncos’ list of post-Peyton quarterbacks.

The Broncos could have started that season 2-6 with a warm body at quarterback. Instead they opted for Flacco, who never seemed happy about his role, chafed at the notion of being a mentor to second-round pick Drew Lock. Flacco was the wrong guy for the role. Yet another misalignment.

And then, in Fangio’s second year — when the Broncos were poised to ride a young quarterback in Lock and see where he could go — they spent $8 million per year on running back Melvin Gordon. Before fumbles overtook Gordon, he was productive … but what was the potential outcome of signing a veteran running back to such a contract for a team in transition?

Grab whatever seeds you can find, throw them into the ground and hope they grow.

That has been the Broncos’ way of trying to fix what ails them.

Now, they have a sensible plan.

It’s painful today. But it’s necessary.

The Denver Broncos are rebuilding. And it’s about time. After eight years of fumbling for a path, they finally have alignment of purpose.