What is the ceiling for Surtain?
Q>> What do you think is the ceiling for Pat Surtain II? He looks like he’s destined to be a perennial All-pro and a fixture on the Pro Bowl teams for years to come. Do you think the Broncos will try and lock him down with a long-term deal before his rookie contract ends?
— Mark, Arvada
PARKER>> Hard to put a ceiling on what Surtain can accomplish given the start he’s off to. Consensus first-team All-pro and a Pro Bowl starter at 22 is remarkable. The thing that always strikes me is the way opposing players and coaches — and the set of former defensive backs that are now analysts — talk about Surtain. He’s obviously a special player. If he stays mostly healthy and continues to build on his game, you’re eventually talking about the rare kind of player who can end up in Canton. But let’s give him more than two seasons to work before we start worrying about that kind of stuff. Just enjoy watching him take away big swaths of the field.
As for the extension, yeah, Surtain likely will get paid top dollar before the end of his deal. With a fifth-year option as a first-round pick, Surtain is under the Broncos’ control through 2025. His draft class is first eligible for extensions a year from now. So, it’s one to keep in mind as a major cash/cap outlay that is in the not-so-distant future.
Q>> It looked like Nathaniel Hackett’s scheme was holding Russell Wilson back. So why not interview Jerry Rosburg as he had them playing at a great level, had the offense clicking, and the defense did what they had to do?
— Del, Lamar
PARKER>> We haven’t received any indication that the Broncos interviewed Rosburg about the full-time job. Chalk it up,
I’d say, to getting exactly what they wanted out of Rosburg for the time period that they desired. He helped steady the ship in a short amount of time. I’d be curious to know whether his work in those 13 days made any coaching candidates think any differently about the job.
That Rosburg can coach wasn’t ever in doubt, even if he’s not exactly a big name. You don’t make it 20 years in the NFL as a special teams coordinator — or coaching more than a decade for one of the best in Baltimore’s John Harbaugh — without being really good at what you do.
Q>> It seems like most of the country forgot that Sean Payton was found guilty of trying to cover up “Bountygate,” the rewards system where Saints players were paid bonuses for knocking players from other teams out of games. I for one think that Sean Payton should have been banned from coaching for life as a result of allowing and trying to cover up that program. What do you think?
— Randy Crumbaugh, Bayfield
PARKER>> Yeah, Randy, fair point. Bountygate has not been much of a topic of conversation as it pertains to Payton considering getting back into coaching for 2023. The suspension was unprecedented punishment when it came down on Payton and it also wasn’t the only issue they had in his time there. It’ll be interesting to see how the next couple of weeks play out, but that suspension from a decade ago certainly doesn’t seem to have cooled Payton’s market value much, if at all.
I don’t have a vote, but until Monday when Jim Harbaugh bowed out, nothing in the past couple of weeks had suggested much different than the Payton/harbaugh/quinn starting point that most figured when Nathaniel Hackett was fired on Dec. 26. Now, what happens if the cost gets too steep on Payton (or he decides he’d prefer either waiting a year for one of the other openings)? Is it as simple as Quinn? Or at that point do others like Ejiro Evero, Raheem Morris and Jim Caldwell make it a wide open race?
Q>> Demarcus Ware, is he a Hall of Famer this year? Thanks.
— Mike Runnels, Denver
PARKER>> Handicapping HOF classes is not exactly my area of expertise. A finalist needs 80% of the vote in order to be enshrined. This is Ware’s second straight year as a finalist, so he’s obviously a guy the panelists are familiar with at this point. As you’d expect, there’s no shortage of quality candidates, including a trio that’s eligible for the first time in Dwight Freeney, Joe Thomas and Darrelle Revis.