Don’t get mad at the front office just yet, and let me tell you why.

1st and foremost, this Orton/Tebow/Quinn dilemma was not of their making.  This was handed to them from our fearless friend McDaniels with no clear path out of it.  Likewise, with the NFL lockout in place, there was nothing they could do about it during the whole offseason to compound matters. 

We can all scream to the high heavens that Orton is a more proven prospect than Kolb, a better long term answer than Hassleback or McNabb, and certainly a better QB than Matt Moore, but it really doesn’t matter that we believe that or that EFX believes that, what really matters is what do other teams believe that is the case.  And the fact is, no other teams believe any of those items are true and unless you have a team that believes Orton is a better option than who they have or who they can get, it really doesn’t matter what we believe regarding Orton’s value.  It is plain to see now that the Cardinal's interest was basically to force the Eagles to lower the asking price for Kolb and once Miami knew that the Cardinals were not interested, there was no reason why they should pay out for someone they know will likely get cut.  The biggest issue with being able to move Orton and get any value for him is his contract (which once again I point out was McDaniels choice), and until that contract is renegotiated to make it more cap friendly, no team is going to give anything resembling the value we want for Orton, especially when there is no team that thinks he is a long term solution and especially if there is only one team that has a need/want for his services this season.

So where does this leave the Broncos front office, well quit frankly stuck between a rock and a hard place right now.  We could cut Orton and let him sign with someone else, which may seem like a waste, but may actually be the best value for us right now, in that it would free up 9 million in cap space to sign FA that we want.  We could keep Orton and hope that a QB goes down in preseason and the other team wants a proven QB over their back-up, but that is a gamble.  Or they could keep Orton and let Tebow sit another year and then allow Orton to become an UFA or likewise let Tebow start and pay Orton to sit on the bench for 9 million, which won’t happen. 

But given the circumstances regarding this issue, there really is no great option for the EFX team to take.  My feeling is that if Orton is not the future long-term QB of the franchise, then there is no reason to keep him here.  We would be much better served being able to use that 9 million on some FA that will hopefully be here more than one year and can build up the team.  It also allows a fair evaluation of Tebow’s ability and help determine if he can be the QB of the future or if we need to look at someone else.

So I would caution anyone who is mad at the Front Office to realize, this was not of their making, but they are doing the best job they can to clean up the mess that McDaniels left.