Mile High Sports’ James Merilatt on Orton’s return to Denver
Perhaps the finest NFL writer in town, James Merilatt of Mile High Sports Magazine weighs in on the Broncos weekly. This week he makes the case that Kyle Orton keeping the Broncos out of the playoffs would be “poetic justice”. It’s a heck of a read and he gave us permission to run it. Thanks, James.
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With a spot in the playoffs on the line, I wonder if Pat Bowlen would like his team’s chances if Tyler Palko was lining up under center for the opposition. About the only thing better would be if Ricky Stanzi was filling that role.
Either one of those scenarios should have been the situation on Sunday when Kansas City rolls into Denver for a season finale showdown. The Broncos should be playing on their home field, in a win-and-get-in-the-postseason game, against a quarterback who has thrown 140 career passes or a guy who has never attempted an NFL pass.
But that ideal situation isn’t going to unfold for Denver. Instead, a familiar face will be running the show for the Chiefs on New Year’s Day – former Broncos quarterback Kyle Orton.
Granted, those who watched the veteran signal caller during his two-plus seasons in the Mile High City know that No. 8 won’t be heading to Canton five years after his career is over. But they also know that he’s light years ahead of Palko or Stanzi; compared to either of those two, Orton is a combination of Joe Montana, Troy Aikman and Dan Marino.
So how did this happen? Why are the Broncos heading into their biggest game of the season – perhaps, given the team’s recent record of end-of-year collapses, the most-important 60 minutes of football the franchise has played since the AFC Championship Game six years ago – against a quarterback who was on their roster just five weeks ago?
The answer is simple: Because Bowlen wanted to save $2.6 million. The decision to waive Orton and let any team in the league have a chance to pick him up was made solely to keep a few extra bucks in the coffers.
The most common spin at the time of the transaction suggested that it was done as an act of kindness – one former quarterback (executive vice president of football operations John Elway) letting a fellow signal caller have the freedom to find a place where he could play in the final six weeks of the season. In fact, many heralded the Broncos as “classy” for making the move. What a bunch of hooey!
First of all, NFL teams don’t make transactions to be nice. It’s a cutthroat business; there’s no room for feelings and emotions when it comes to personnel decisions. Does Bill Belichick make roster moves based on anything other than what’s in the best interests of his team? Of course not. And he’s no different than any other coach or general manager in the league, including those running the show in Denver.
Secondly, just how magnanimous of a gesture was it to send Orton packing right before Thanksgiving, forcing him to spend a month-and-a-half living out of a suitcase while his wife cared for their newborn daughter? The truly “nice” move would have been to let the veteran stay in Denver, collect his millions and move on during the offseason. Uprooting him and his young family didn’t exactly make for the ideal holiday scenario.
And thirdly, if kindness truly was the motivation behind the move, the Broncos would have cut Orton prior to Nov. 22. It certainly would have been nicer to give him eight or 10 games with a new team, rather than just a half dozen.
The reality is that prior to the week 11 games being played, Denver was pretty convinced that no one would claim Orton off of waivers if they released him. Thus, they would have been stuck paying his entire salary even if he wasn’t on their roster. But after three quarterbacks were lost for the season – Matt Cassel in Kansas City, Jay Cutler in Chicago and Matt Schaub in Houston – things suddenly changed. At that point, the Broncos were fairly confident that one of those three teams would grab Orton, something that would save the Broncos $2.6 million during the last six weeks of the season.
That may sound like a shrewd move; after all, that’s a nice little chunk of change. But in the world of professional football, it’s peanuts. And for a team that was already $25 million under the salary cap and had one of the lowest payrolls in the NFL, it was a savings that wasn’t necessary. It jumped the line from being frugal to cheap.
But what made the move even more appalling was that two of the three teams who appeared to be likely candidates to grab Orton were on the Broncos schedule down the stretch. Both the Bears and Chiefs loomed as teams that Denver would need to beat if they were going to make a playoff push. So to do something that could help them, even in the smallest of ways, was hard to comprehend.
A franchise that is truly about winning would never make such a move. They’d revel in the fact that two of their final six opponents were going to be fighting with one arm tied behind their back. And they’d be right; remember how bad the Bears looked with Caleb Hanie at quarterback? But a franchise that was more about the bottom line wouldn’t care about providing a competitive advantage to an upcoming opponent; they’d simply care about skimming a few bucks off the payroll.
And that’s what provides the delicious irony for Sunday’s game. In order to save $2.6 million, Bowlen made a decision that ultimately could cost him 10 times that amount. After all, a home playoff game – which the Broncos will get next weekend if they win the AFC West – would be worth millions to the franchise.
If Denver loses, it’ll be poetic justice. When they should have been worrying about winning, they were more concerned with saving money. And they’ll have ultimately stepped over a dollar to pick up a dime.
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