After falling to 5-11, Broncos must bridge generation gap
Tight end Virgil Green stood at his locker days after another Broncos loss and leaned his head back with a feeling of “No, please no” as a reporter approached him. Begrudgingly, Green agreed to talk, but he knew what was coming — the “What has gone wrong?” questions, the peppering of inquiries about the offense, the search for answers about the quarterbacks.
Green had been through it time and time again because he had seen what many hadn’t in that locker room as a seven-year veteran. He’s experienced the highs, the bitter lows, the constant turnover and the often callous business off the field.
And so he was asked for honesty about the Broncos’ future.
“I think,” he began before pausing to think carefully about his word choice. “Uh, it’s this generation. I was born in ’88. I’m the last of a dying breed, and I feel the way kids are raised now, it’s a little softer and because of that, things are a lot more jovial in times of seriousness. I just think it’s a product of what we’re going to be dealing with in years to come. Because it’s not going to change. … I’m old school. These new-school cats, they don’t get it. If they want a job, they’ll get it.”
As the Broncos’ 5-11 season disintegrated, the divide between the mind-set of older and younger players seemed to grow. Maybe more than in past years. Maybe not. But everything is magnified in a rough season.
It became evident after a scuffle broke out between veteran cornerback Chris Harris and rookie wide receiver Isaiah McKenzie during a November practice.
Harris, an undrafted player who became an allpro, was terse after the incident, saying only that “I just come to play football, and just respect that. Always respect the vets.”
Weeks later, Harris said he didn’t believe the current crop of younger players feels the same urgency as he does, and did.
“These young guys, they’re not as hungry as I was. I hope to see that,” he said. “I mean, that’s what we need. We need some guys that are hungry like I was. I was just very determined, on a whole other level, just to play in this league.”
It became evident as others tried to be careful with their public comments and opted to speak only on their positional groups.
“Um. Some I feel like are getting better,” veteran safety Darian Stewart said late in the season about the growth of younger players. “I can’t speak for everybody. I know my young group of safeties, they show up to work every day and that’s all I can do, is to make sure I lead those guys because those are the ones behind me, looking at me.”
Added running back C.J. Anderson: “In my room, I’ve got one rookie. … We’re really tight with De’Angelo (Henderson). We try to do things the right way so De’Angelo can see us and follows us. I’m not going to speak to other rookies in other rooms because I’m not around them every day like I am De’Angelo.”
By the time the Broncos reached Week 15, only one drafted rookie, offensive tackle Garett Bolles, was on the field. The other seven were inactive or on injured reserve. McKenzie was demoted twice as the team’s starting punt re- turner. Cornerback Brendan Langley was bumped down in favor of undrafted rookie Marcus Rios. And outside linebacker DeMarcus Walker was inactive for weeks as coaches sought more production from him on special teams.
Tuesday, as the Broncos’ leadership began to flip the page to 2018 and prepare for an influx of new coaches and, eventually, new players, head coach Vance Joseph said he believed the team’s veteran players “did a great job of dragging those guys along” in 2017 and that he will “do a better job of assigning guys to rookies, pushing guys to spend more time with rookies and define those roles for those rookies so they know what we expect.”
Broncos president and CEO Joe Ellis said that perhaps the three Vince Lombardi Trophies sitting in the team’s locker room, the myriad slogans plastered on the walls of the training facility and all those championship banners hanging in the lobby and at the stadium contributed to a notion that “we kind of assume that is the way it’s going to be.”
In a radio interview with 104.3 The Fan on Tuesday, defensive end Derek Wolfe was even more blunt.
“Here’s what I think it is: I think you have these young kids that come in the league and they think that they’re entitled to something,” he said. “There’s like this entitlement problem around the entire league, I think. You could feel it with the rookies. Every year they get more and more entitled. I don’t know how to combat that because it’s like they think they know everything, you can’t tell them anything. They’re like, ‘Oh, I’m going to the Broncos.’ They think automatically them just coming here, we’re going to win a championship. Like they don’t have to contribute.
“It’s not like college. You don’t get your little redshirt year. You need to come in and contribute right away. There’s only 53 guys. It’s not like college where you get 100-something guys. … Take all those accolades out and take all that stuff away be like, ‘You’re not getting this stuff back until you guys get back to a championship-level football team.’ ”
In the coming months, as the Broncos begin to reconstruct their roster and “change the culture,” bridging a gap between the young players and the veterans may be key to seeking cohesion.
“We have some young guys that we feel good about, but players do develop at different times,” Joseph said. “So we’re not down on our class. Some guys need more time and more development.”