MAQB: NFL Combine Could Be in Flux, Broncos Deliver Black Monday Surprise

With the status of the NFL combine potentially in the air, the draft lead-up could look a lot different this year. Plus, who could take over as GM in Denver, why Sean McDermott should be considered for Coach of the Year and more.

We made it! The playoffs are five days away …

Brian Spurlock/USA TODAY Sports (combine); Mark Konezny/USA TODAY Sports (McDermott); Vincent Carchietta/USA TODAY Sports (Elway)

• April combine, anyone? The NFL recently released at least a chunk of the hotel blocks it had set for Indianapolis in late February, which is setting up as a potential precursor for the event to be pushed back. Further complicating matters is that the NCAA is bubbling its men’s basketball tournament in and around Indianapolis, which takes most of March off the table as an option. If the NFL does move the combine back into April, there’s been some discussion (though the league, I’m told, has been resistant as of now) of moving the draft back to accommodate the pre-draft run-up. Canceling the combine altogether would be the doomsday option, of course, but my sense is the league, NFS (which runs the combine), and the city are going to do everything they can to find a way to stage the event, even if it needs to be stripped down some. Most important to the teams is the medical information they get out of the combine, which would be pretty hard to replicate otherwise.

• We got our Black Monday surprise on Monday afternoon. The Broncos announced that John Elway will move into an over-the-top role, hire someone into the GM/personnel chief role he’s filled for almost a decade, and hand full decision-making power over to that new GM. This is interesting because Elway has a year left on his deal, big money coming next year, and there’d been an expectation that the Broncos were going to wait on changes until after the 2021 season, with many within the organization hoping that Brittany Bowlen would be named controlling owner by then, which would allow for her to reshape the organization how she saw fit. This, in essence, gets ahead of that, but it didn’t come out of nowhere. Elway’s been talking about it with team president Joe Ellis for about a month, with the intention of taking a step back.

• So who could land in Denver? I’ve got four executives who worked for Elway as Broncos that have been ruminated on as GM candidates of late: 49ers VP of player personnel Adam Peters; Buccaneers director of player personnel John Spytek; Bears assistant director of player personnel Champ Kelly; and Patriots assistant director of player personnel Dave Ziegler. Peters is interviewing for the Panthers GM job this week—he actually had Matt Rhule as a position coach in his playing days at UCLA. Kelly’s name’s been kicked around for the Falcons job. And Ziegler would’ve been Josh McDaniels’s GM in Cleveland last year had McDaniels landed the Browns job. Peyton Manning is one fun name to consider as well—he still lives in Denver—and I wouldn’t be surprised if Elway takes a big swing or two before making the hire.

• Eight days ago, I made the case for Miami’s Brian Flores as Coach of the Year, and I still believe he’s done a really good job. But the Dolphins didn’t make the playoffs and that opens the award up. The easy pick in looking for a coach who flipped a team’s fortunes would be Cleveland’s Kevin Stefanski. But how about the guy who beat Flores by 30 on Sunday? Buffalo’s Sean McDermott, who is in his fourth year, still hasn’t won the award, and if you look how the program is built at Orchard Park, there’s plenty to be impressed with. And this particular year’s team took what McDermott did in making the playoffs in 2017 and—after a rip-the-Band-Aid-off 2018 and 2019—built on it. Over its last six games, Buffalo has beaten its opponents by a cumulative score of 229–110, and won its last three games by a total score of 142–54. All six of those wins were by double digits, and followed the Hail Mess in Arizona. The Bills matched a franchise record for regular-season wins this year. The whole operation is humming and McDermott’s fingerprints are all over every piece of it. He’s deserving, and should be considered for the award.

• I thought it was interesting—as noted in the MMQB column this morning—that OT Joel Bitonio viewed Baker Mayfield’s arrival in Cleveland as a breakthrough moment that helped lead to this year’s breakout. I asked him to go a little deeper into what he meant by that. “He has this quiet confidence about him, where it’s not like he has a persona where he’s this guy and he’s kinda worshipped,” Bitonio said. “Around the guys, he’s just confident in his abilities and the way he holds himself as a player. And he can play. He came into camp and he was making some of these throws, and it’s like, ’Alright, this guy can play in this league.’ And when you have that recipe, there’s just something about him where his personality, he can connect with anybody. O-linemen are a lot different than DBs on a team, but like Baker finds a way to bridge that gap and just be connected with everybody. And he makes it so important, and it’s just someone you want to play with.” And then, Bitonio said, there’s the natural defiance of a former two-time walk-on. “Yeah, and from the start, since he’s been here, he’s always been like, ’We respect the past of the Cleveland Browns but that’s not us. That’s not who we are as a team. We’re moving on from that,’” he continued. “Obviously, that’s in our past and that’s our history, but like as a team this year, and every year so far, we’re a new team. We’re the new Cleveland Browns, and he’s kinda brought that upon us.”

The Albert Breer Show is back on its own podcast feed! Subscribe for Albert’s insight and info, with guests including the biggest names in football.

• Saints assistant GMs Jeff Ireland and Terry Fontenot have emerged as hot candidates early in this year’s hiring process, and both have multiple interviews set up for this week. Fontenot will interview with the Lions on Tuesday and the Falcons on Wednesday, while Ireland will interview with the Panthers on Tuesday and the Lions on Friday. The possibility exists that if Urban Meyer decides to take the Jacksonville job, then Ireland could be his GM there. It’s not hard to see why this is happening either. Take a look at the Saints’ roster, and you’ll see why their roster-builders are in demand.

• When it comes time for coordinator hires, here’s something to file away: The new rules that prevent teams from blocking guys from taking coordinator jobs have a twist. The language spells out that if you have someone on the same side of the ball as the prospective coordinator carrying the assistant head coach title, then the prospective coordinator’s team can block him. Want an example? The Eagles have an assistant head coach, Duce Staley, on the offensive side. So that would mean, say, the Bears could block their QBs coach John DeFilippo or the Chiefs could block their pass-game coordinator Mike Kafka from taking the Eagles OC job. And as a point of reference, 20 of the 32 teams went into this season with someone carrying the assistant head coach title, so it’s easy to see where it could come into play.

• We know about the Falcons (Dan Mullen) and Jaguars (Meyer) dipping their toes into the college ranks. My understanding is that at least two other teams have put in requests to talk to guys currently in college jobs. It may not lead to anything, but it’s at least interesting—and indicative of the continually blurred lines between the two levels.

• Titans OC Arthur Smith looms as an important figure in this hiring cycle. Literally every team with an opening has shown an interest in him, and all but Atlanta have already put in a formal request to interview him. No one’s allowed to talk to him until after Tennessee’s playoff game, which is set for Sunday at 1 p.m. ET. If the Titans advance, it’s unlikely he’ll have time to talk to everyone, which means he’ll have to pick and choose where he goes. It’s a pretty fascinating dynamic, and I can’t remember a candidate ever being in the mix for every single opening.

• With the national title game set, here’s a fun stat: Over the last five drafts, Alabama (16) and Ohio State (15) have combined for 31 first-round picks. That’s close to 20% of all first-rounders, and six per year, coming from two programs. And based on how the two schools recruit, I wouldn’t count on that slowing down any time soon.