The Denver Broncos will pass on Andrew Luck and they will do that even if they do end up hiring Jim Harbaugh as the future HC of this franchise. There are at least a couple of reasons why they will do that and they're all plain as day.

1) The "John Elway" factor.

John is back, he is a part of the Broncos and for those that regularly listen to him on his radio-spot they understand that he is as committed to the Denver fans as he is to the Denver Broncos organization. In fact, one of the biggest reasons that brought Elway back was that he was disheartened by how the team was starting to lose its unique connection with its fanbase. So how do we bring it back? By drafting Andrew Luck of course - NOT! All anyone needs to do is re-watch any game of the final season, recall memories/stories from Training camp or whatever else to understand the impact that Tebow had (and has) on our fans. Sure some may say they're only acting this way because our alternatives were Orton (many disliked him - depsite a stellar performance this year) and Quinn. But if that's true, than why did his Jersey blow-up the sales column? Because fans would rather see him than Orton? Heck no! Because Tebow electrifies.

Not to mention the fact that his talent and skill-set directly connects with this fanbase and the kind of football we are used to (and love) seeing! Its passionate, emotional, edge-of-the-seat, until the last ticking second - kind of football. John Elway gave of that and its been the single greatest common blow thats ruined every other good quarterback that's every tried to play for the Broncos (besides Cutler I suppose - but even then, his late-game picks really killed any clutch-QB hopes anyone really had in him). It's the "John Elway" factor and it demands keeping Tebow around. Tebow-mania has swept Broncos Country and it couldn't be any more obvious. Any "Luck" we're going to draft Stanford's next great quarterback? I think not.

2) Defense

The organization didn't choose to get rid of the big orange "D" on our helmets - it ran away. Our D has been falling apart since the late nineties and only been given stop-gap FA's and a few good early-round draft swings (by a HORRIBLE scouting department under the Goodmans I might add) and it's no surprise that we can't stop people from running (and passing) all over us. We need to (and will) use our draft picks to inject talent and energy into our patchwork aging defensive starting line-up.

There's an extremely high chance that drafting Andrew Luck means losing out on MORE than just our #2 pick. We'll likely need pry him away from Carolina's grasp by offering Orton as well as our own first round pick (which should be used for Defense anyways, as stated above) and probably an additional pick. There's no knowing what some of the QB-desperate teams will be throwing at Carolina to jump up to get Luck and we SURELY don't need to be competing for that player when we've got 3 competent QBs already on the roster.

Sure, we'll likely trade Orton - but we don't have to if we don't want to. And if Tebow pans out and becomes a good quarterback (or even Great) than we're already winning that battle. Jumping up the board - as we'll likely have to - for Luck just doesn't make sense. And even if he does fall to #2 we STILL need to be using those early-round picks to swing on promising and unproven defensive players, not promising and unproven offensive ones. There is ALWAYS a risk when drafting, some higher than others, and Luck has the same chance of becoming a great player as anyone else that gets drafted. He either will be or he won't be, it's always 50/50.