The Broncos’ head coaching search is underway and about to speed up, but I maintain that no matter who comes in to coach, he needs a good quarterback more than anything to turn around this team.

Good morning (for a few more hours), Broncos Country!

With the Broncos’ head coaching search ready to move into high gear now that the teams of Dan Quinn, Kellen Moore and Jonathan Gannon are out of the playoffs and those candidates can be brought in for interviews.

And as important as the next “leader of men” (don’t get me started on my thoughts of that cliché characteristic) for the Broncos may be, I’m in agreement with Andrew Mason on this point:

There’s no denying that Vance Joseph and Vic Fangio - even Gary Kubiak - probably were not going to turn out to be a Bill Belichick or Mike Shanahan or Bill Parcels or Bill Walsh or any of the “great coaching minds” of the NFL given the quarterbacks they had to work with every season.

How many times this year did we watch that #$*#$@! graphic on TV about the number of starting quarterbacks in Denver since Peyton Manning and Super Bowl 50? Too many times. And too many quarterbacks.

I’m not going to get into the debate about who John Elway should have chosen in the draft (Josh Allen) or who he should not have taken in free agency (Case Keenum, Joe Flacco) or any of the hindsight 20/20 stuff that gets us nowhere and doesn’t account for the fact that you never know what might have happened here with any other QB.

But I am here to say I think it is vitally important that George Paton and his new coach figure out the quarterback piece asap, or Paton and that new coach will be parting ways sooner rather than later. And a new owner will likely have a very short leash on Paton.

The quandary the new coach will find himself in, unfortunately, will likely be the same one Fangio and Joseph were in - a very good defense, strong players on offense but not a lot of great Draft options at No. 9 and no good guarantees that an elite vet like Russell Wilson or Aaron Rodgers is seriously going to consider Denver.

So then the question for Paton may be...which new head coach attracts the best potential quarterback?

It’s going to be an interesting few months...

But until then, here’s a cool stat about Jan. 17 in Broncos history:

Broncos/NFL News

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