The Afternoon Drive crew were joined by Andrew Mason, denverbroncos.com writer, on their show yesterday to talk Broncos news coming out of the NFL’s annual meetings.
Mason is on his way back from traveling with the team to the annual NFL meetings in Arizona, and weighed in on several quotes new head coach, Vance Joseph, had during those meetings.
Here are the three big takeaways I got from the conversation.
Tony Romo could end up being a broadcaster next year, and not playing football at all.
This was Andrew Mason’s opinion when asked about the Tony Romo to Denver rumors. He did reiterate that he believes nothing has changed since all of this started, and so anything could happen at this point. But his opinion was that Romo would retire and go into broadcasting.
This makes as much sense as the other two options as Romo has struggled with injuries, would be picking up and moving to a new team, city, offense, coaching staff, etc. Plus, Romo is great on TV. My dream broadcaster team would be him and Peyton Manning, with Al Michaels or Rich Eisen hosting.
The good news for Broncos fans is that CBS wants to hire Tony Romo, better news for Broncos fans, they want him to replace Phil Simms.
— The Orange Page (@theorangepage) March 30, 2017
The Broncos feel Lynch and Siemian have different ceilings.
This one was an interesting one. Vance Joseph was asked about Trevor Siemian and this is one of the things he said:
Vance Joseph, on Trevor Siemian: "He plays with a calm demeanor ... he plays with the ability to not turn the football over."
— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) March 28, 2017
Eric and Les’ question was: does that inspire confidence if you’re a teammate hearing that about the guy who potentially starts at QB for you this year?
Mason did say that he wouldn’t read into it one way or another in terms of whether to be encouraged or discourage by that statement, but did point out that while Trevor Siemian has the ability to not turn the ball over and manage the game well, he had a lot of interceptions dropped last year, so he still has some room to grow to even get to the place where the above statements are true.
Lastly, Mason said that while there is belief among the team that Siemian can and will improve with better health and more experience, those kinds of comments coupled with many of the other quotes on the two young QBs make it seem like the Broncos view the two’s ceilings differently.
Broncos can be patient at Left Tackle
The obvious hole on the roster is left tackle, currently, and Mason thinks that the reason Denver hasn’t signed anyone yet is because the guys that are out on the market, King Dunlap specifically, aren’t going anywhere as the market has died down a bit.
So Denver could potentially go into the draft without a left tackle, make people think they are going OT in the draft, and potentially leave the draft without a starting quality LT, if no one falls to them, and sign a guy like King Dunlap the next day.
He compared it to 2013 when Elvis Dumervil left and Denver had a huge need at edge rusher, didn’t address it in the draft, and signed veteran Shaun Phillips the day after the draft, and he went on to have 10 sacks that year.
I always enjoy Andrew Mason’s insight and discussion. Check out the full interview above starting around the 4:05 mark.