A new era begins at Mile High Report

Hello friends. After ten years of talking Broncos on the Internet, including three years as Head Coach of MHR, I've decided to step down and retire from the world of Broncos blogging. Like Peyton Manning, I'm retiring on top, riding into that orange and blue sunset with a Lombardi trophy in hand. (At least it feels like that, and I like to pretend that's the case).

I'm thrilled that Mile High Report will remain in very good hands, with Zappa (Tim Lynch) running the show from here on out. With the help of Scotty Payne, Laurie Lattimore-Volkmann, Ian St. Clair, and many others, MHR won't miss a beat. There are more changes to the staff coming very soon as well; stay tuned!

We rarely talk about Mile High Report at Mile High Report, so it's interesting when we pause and take the opportunity to reflect on the site itself. As MHR enters an era with its third (official) head coach, it's a good time to do so. Yes, Mile High Report has grown. Our impressions now number in the millions per month. But that's not how I'd like to measure its success; I'd prefer to qualify whether the site has maintained its sense of Broncos Country. Of its community. And I think it has. It's still an Internet comments section from time to time, but it's not an exaggeration to say that the MHR staff has become a family to us; the MHR community has become our extended family. When players retire, they talk about missing the relationships in the locker room, of missing the grind with their teammates. I'm going to miss my MHR family a lot, even if our grind has only been a virtual one.

Tim is someone who loved MHR before I did, so I know this community will be in amazing hands moving forward. It was three years ago to the day that the staff at BroncoTalk and I came over and merged with this staff. Tim was a big reason it worked; he had a previous stint at MHR, and he helped the two staffs blend together. We were then able to add to the staff. If there's one thing I am proud of, it's this group of people that's been put together to serve and represent Broncos Country. We have an amazing mix of voices - analysis, opinion, news - that combine to make MHR one-of-a-kind. Some of these staff additions were easy to find - Sadaraine and Joseph Mahoney, for example, kept putting out excellent FanPosts. They were easy pickings. Other staff additions required a more creative approach. Laurie Lattimore-Volkmann wrote a letter to Peyton Manning in The Denver Post, and I took the initiative to reach out to her to see if she wanted to keep, well, writing letters to Peyton Manning. That turned out phenomenally. A picture of Kelly Fleming as a Seahawks "fan" went viral, and it was only by happy accident that I discovered the person being photographed was a Broncos fan and a science blogger. That was an easy equation to solve.

Just like Broncos Country is worldwide, the MHR staff comes from different backgrounds and perspectives. That is a microcosm of the amazing community we have in the comments. You make MHR what it is today. You help fulfill MHR's mission and give Broncos Country a voice. I know that voice will thrive beyond what it has to this point under Lynch's stewardship.

I'll be around in the comments while taking time to focus on some of life's other priorities. Thank you MHR. Thank you John Elway. Go Broncos!

Monty