I could dig this up but you’ll have to trust me for the meanwhile; it was already reported and I believe it came from Bowlen.

What’s odd is his comment about waiting after finding a HC to find a GM, since this implies he didn’t have that prospective GM in house already. Maybe he meant he wouldn’t make the decision until selecting a HC, although he may be intent on adding an actual GM while still retaining Xanders, Goodman & Goodman in the roles they currently occupy.

I suspect that whatever the final arrangement will be Bowlen will want to maintain a more active role in team management. He gave away a lot to Shanahan and may not want to get left out (relatively speaking) of the decision making process again, and/or he may want to create two power bases with himself as the intermediary between the the HC and GM, or something along these lines. I don’t expect another Jerry Jones but I think Bowlen has learned something about the danger of consolidating too much power under one hat.

I became curious when I read this from styg:

I don’t think Xanders really handles much in the way of personnel duties, he’s more of an ivory tower or thinktank kind of guy, responsible for looking at the big picture

Curiosity aroused, I got this from denverbroncos.com:

Xanders will serve as a contributor in player personnel, salary cap management, contract negotiations and football operations for the Broncos. He will assist with strategic planning, player evaluations and acquisition execution with regards to pro personnel and evaluate assigned positions of need for the NFL Draft.
The 37-year-old also is responsible for the long and short-term strategic planning of the Broncos’ salary cap and cash management.

So, yes, there is the ‘thinktank’ part of things, but what I’m getting is that Xanders works with the Goodmans on personnel issues: his specific piece of the puzzle is to keep us out of cap trouble, help negociate contracts, help decide who is worth keeping and also what holes will be filled, whether via draft or FA. Once those decisions are made, he is responsible for overseeing or directly negociating the contracts and/or the trades.

We don’t talk much about him, but it’s my belief that in order to put together another SB run, he’s going to be a key piece of the puzzle. The intricacies of the cap and financial contracts have astounded and confused most of us, and in this age of football he’s probably going to be essential. This is a short background, same source:

Xanders worked with the Falcons in a variety of capacities, including player personnel, coaching, salary cap management, information technology and business management. He was a member of Falcons’ coaching staff on their 1998 team that became the first in franchise history to earn a Super Bowl berth (XXXIII).

Selected by the Falcons to attend the NFL’s 2005 Stanford Graduate School of Business Program on Management, Xanders has given speeches at multiple universities on labor economics, football administration and player personnel issues.

A former middle linebacker who played for Bobby Bowden at Florida State University, Xanders was a member of four bowl-winning teams with the Seminoles that had a 42-7 combined record. He was an All-Atlantic Coast Conference academic team selection and graduated from FSU with a bachelor’s degree in business management along with a master’s degree in business administration.

Thank goodness we have him, and I hope he does it well.

The Ms are in much better shape with the new GM Zduriencik. Bavasi made no end of ridiculous moves that crippled the future of the franchise.

Anyway, they should be better in ’09 than ’08, although how much better has a lot of variables. Okay, end thread drift.

Maybe he can be convinced to bring in a Yoga instructor or somebody with experience on stretching?

Shanny surrounded himslef with yes men, and got rid of those that did not agree with him!