How the Broncos, John Elway built an NFL general manager tree

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — In April 2013, the Denver Broncos were still in pain after an overtime loss to the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC’s divisional round that abruptly ended quarterback Peyton Manning’s first season with the team. But in the “we just have to get back to work” mantra of then-GM John Elway, the Broncos’ scouting and personnel staff had already gathered for predraft meetings.

Nobody knew it then, but that room provided a glimpse at future NFL front offices. Among the scouts, interns and assortment of staffers were six would-be NFL general managers, four of whom are currently in their positions, with Elway forming what would become the Broncos’ deep general manager tree.

“I learned so much,” San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch said. “I’m not sure if I’m in this position if I don’t see it done that way with those people. You can’t see years ahead in that moment … but that foundational desire for people to want to pull in the same direction to succeed — I saw that there, right from John on down to all of us.”

The Broncos (3-2) face the New York Jets on Sunday in London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (9:30 a.m. ET, NFL Network). The 0-5 Jets are in their first season with general manager Darren Mougey, who joins Lynch, the Las Vegas Raiders‘ John Spytek and the Washington Commanders‘ Adam Peters as current GMs who cut their teeth on Elway’s Broncos staff.

That staff also included former Raiders GM Dave Ziegler, who is currently an assistant general manager with the Tennessee Titans. Champ Kelly was there, too; he finished out the 2024 season as the Raiders’ interim general manager and is currently a senior personnel executive with the Miami Dolphins. All six were with the Broncos between 2013 and 2015, three seasons out of a four-year run in which the Broncos tallied 50 regular-season wins, four AFC West titles, two Super Bowl appearances and a Super Bowl 50 championship.

“I think we all had aspirations, but you were so focused on the tasks,” said Mougey, who started as a scouting intern for the Broncos in 2012. “Nobody was sitting around like, ‘Man, I’m going to be such a GM’ … [but] I always felt like it was a talented group. You’d just watch how they worked and how they treated people and know if you got the chance to do this, you’d want it to feel like that.”

As the GMs reminisce about the Broncos days, there are memories of cramped spaces, thousands of player evaluations, arguments, moments that made them laugh and what each called the construction of a “rare” bridge from being co-workers to lifelong friends.

“Adam Peters and I shared an office — it was like a box, like 10 feet by 10 feet, two desks facing each other, glass wall out to the hallway, so like a fish bowl,” Spytek said. “[After] Thanksgiving, we were in there every day. He had outranked me, so he made me have the desk with my back to the hallway so everybody could see what was on my computer screen. … Still makes me laugh.”

While Peters was hired into the Broncos’ scouting department in 2009, it was a group assembled largely by Elway after he was entrusted by former Broncos owner Pat Bowlen in early 2011 to pull the franchise out of a malaise that included missing the playoffs for five straight seasons. More than a decade later, the group holds true to the roots that trace to late nights and shared offices on the second floor of the Broncos’ complex (which some called the “bullpen”).

“You know, I was talking to Adam and [Spytek], especially when they were going through the process of getting those [GM] jobs and then [Mougey],” said Matt Russell, who was the Broncos’ director of player personnel and is now a senior personnel executive with the Philadelphia Eagles. “And I told my wife at that point, I don’t know if there is a record for GMs out of one place, but this has got to be close. A rare thing.”

EACH CURRENT GM has a memory of the moment when Elway welcomed them into the fold. And when asked about the biggest lesson they learned from the Hall of Fame quarterback and Broncos legend, they each used the same word, unprompted.

Bold.

“Just be bold, make decisions with courage,” Peters said. “Think we all learned the value of courage in the job, looking right into the pressure and make the right decision.”

The pursuit to sign future Hall of Famer Manning in 2012 encapsulated that ethos. The then-four-time NFL MVP was coming off his fourth neck surgery and had missed the 2011 season when the Broncos dove in to get one of the most decorated players to ever enter free agency.

As Elway famously said, “There was no Plan B.”

“To see how competitive John was, how driven he was in that role, how much it all meant to him,” said Spytek, who was hired by the Broncos as a Southwest area scout in 2013. “You saw how to go for it, to not be scared ever. Just say f— it. Back when it happened I don’t think people really saw Denver as the option for Peyton Manning or thought Peyton would come here. But John was like f— it, let’s make that happen.”

All four current GMs say they remember Elway’s boldness as they form their own strategies toward free agency, the draft and day-to-day decisions with their rosters. Decisions such as Mougey moving on from quarterback Aaron Rodgers for Justin Fields, Lynch trading for running back Christian McCaffrey in 2022 and Spytek convincing Pete Carroll to come out of retirement to coach the Raiders.

Even Lynch — who attended his first combine with the Broncos’ scouting staff in 2011 while he was still a color analyst for Fox — was not immune to the aura. Lynch was a Hall of Famer in waiting at the time and had been asked by Elway to dip his toe into scouting. Lynch served as an advisor with Denver. And he saw a different side of his longtime friend — a confident decision-maker who was willing to allow those around him to have an unfiltered opinion.

“I mean, I had a playing career, had played for the organization, had been around John in a lot of different situations,” Lynch said. “But I learned John is an intimidating presence; he’s John freaking Elway. … But I would guess if you asked any of us, his ability to listen was so big. He heard us, all of us.”

Lynch, who was hired as the 49ers’ general manager in 2017, said those meetings with the Broncos influenced one of his most significant hires. Shortly after he accepted the 49ers job, Lynch brought Peters in from Denver as his vice president of player personnel.

“Even if he had thoughts that were contrary to John’s, he’d share them and he had the reasons why,” Lynch said. “And when I got the opportunity, I remembered and hired Adam.”

Peters said that the first time Elway asked a scout or another member of the personnel staff for an opinion in a crowded meeting room served almost as a rite of passage. Elway then might challenge that opinion to see whether the staffer was ready to defend it — or he would simply nod at points well made.

“And the first time he agreed with you, and it worked out, man, that felt pretty good,” Mougey said.

“Elway always did such a good job of bringing people in and still letting you know you had a place and a voice,” Peters said. “Some places you might be just a scout, or just pro personnel, or just an intern, but you never felt you were ‘just’ there; you were heard. I remember that, and try to keep that with me as I do this.”

ONE OF THE more unique things about that Elway regime was the “breakfast club.” The environment in NFL front offices, in Spytek’s words, often involves “a bunch of people hunched over screens.” But Elway had a different idea.

If you were on Denver’s scouting staff and working in the building, there was a daily 7 a.m. standing appointment. It would involve a weight training and conditioning workout in the team’s weight room, put together by then-Broncos strength coach Luke Richesson and led by Elway. Attendees say it never felt voluntary, nor did they consider it a chore. It was as normal a part of their day as breakfast. And it wasn’t easy; even Lynch, roughly five years removed from playing, had to push to keep up. He said, “I thought I was in really good shape then, but I was like, ‘Damn.'”

“One of the reasons John built it the way he did was the player in him,” Mougey said. “We were his team, his group, his guys — we agree, we disagree, we shoot the s—, we talk. He was building teams in a team because those were his experiences as a player. It’s powerful. And you could tell he loved that part of it.”

Peters said the 49ers formed their own breakfast club when he and Lynch moved to San Francisco, and that’s when they became invested in each other outside football. As they spent time together, discussions moved beyond the next meeting or deadlines to conversations about family, social life, alma maters and places to eat on the next road trip. And it’s that sharp-tongued, give-and-take that they remember with smiles now.

“It was ball busting, 7 a.m. version,” Spytek said. “It was what John knew as a player, what he brought to us. We knew what was going on in each other’s lives. It creates natural conversations that help do the work. … And most importantly, I think it made the disagreements more functional because we all knew what we were about.”

PETERS SAYS THERE are days when his cellphone almost ceaselessly crackles with activity. Injury updates, agents reaching out, practice squad slots to fill and any number of problems that come with the job.

Yet among the frenzy will be a photo, meme, joke, thought of the day or just a check-in from someone in the still-ongoing group chat.

“A picture will get shared of somebody’s trip or something funny they saw. Something will come up, or somebody will say something or do something in public, and everybody will bust on it,” Mougey said. “We’re all-in there still, everybody from that group in that time, not just [the current GMs] — a lot of important people to me.”

“Sometimes, even some actual football gets done,” Spytek said. “We’re still tight.”

But it’s not all fun and jokes. The bond goes deeper. The Raiders’ current GM can recall story after story of the moments that made him laugh, but the most important will always be an emotional trip to the Senior Bowl in January 2015. It occurred weeks after Spytek’s 21-month-old daughter Evelyn Grace had died on Dec. 24, 2014, from complications from surgery. She was born with cytomegalovirus infection, or congenital CMV, a type of virus that can impact a newborn’s brain, liver, spleen and lungs and effect their growth.

“My wife [Kristen] and I were devastated, our family was devastated, and the guys you’re talking about, they were the people that showed up for me and my family,” Spytek said.

“But Adam Peters — we were supposed to go to the Senior Bowl, and I hadn’t really gone to work since we lost her. He asked me if I wanted to go, so talked it over with my wife and I ended up flying out with him into Pensacola [Florida]. And all that’s left is this two-door, tiny speck of a car, and we were smashed together driving down the highway. And he didn’t need to say much or do much in an impossible time of my life. … You could work a lot of places and never be with people who show up for you the way those guys did and have.”

THE BRONCOS’ PERSONNEL department eventually eroded, a victim of its own success. After Denver’s Super Bowl win to close out the 2015 season, Spytek was hired by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as their director of player personnel. Lynch and Peters left for San Francisco after the 2016 season.

Denver missed the playoffs for eight seasons after the Super Bowl win, and by 2021, Elway had stepped away from running the team’s football operations. Mougey remained after current Broncos general manager George Paton was hired in 2021, eventually becoming assistant general manager before he was hired by the Jets earlier this year.

While everyone has dispersed across the NFL, they still gather each year at the combine. They carve out an evening at The Whistle Stop Inn in Indianapolis to celebrate Tom Heckert’s life. Heckert, a former general manager for the Eagles and Cleveland Browns before he came to the Broncos in 2013 as director of pro personnel, died in 2018 of amyloidosis, a rare blood disorder.

“Everybody who knew Heck tells the same stories and laughs the same laughs,” Peters said. “And you wouldn’t miss it. … It kind of brings us together and we kind of remember all of the people we were with there.”

Even as they all look back on their time with the Broncos, there is still the competition of the job. They’d like nothing better than to hoist a Lombardi Trophy before the others do. And then, as Spytek said, “Everybody else can win one after that.”

Perhaps they’d needle one another in the chat while embracing memories of a cramped second floor, a Hall of Fame legend for a boss and more hope than experience.

“I know there are people who say they can sit in a room and tell which of the scouting interns will be a GM someday,” Russell said. “I don’t think that’s possible, but what I will say is possible — because I saw it with my own eyes in that room — there are guys that are young, have the energy and the confidence that separate themselves. And they have separated themselves.

“I’m not surprised. Not one bit.”