Carroll Hardy (Denver Broncos)

Cali_Eagle
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Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2021 7:38 pm

Re: Carroll Hardy (Denver Broncos)

Post by Cali_Eagle »

"Would enjoy knowing if anybody had some real concrete info on how/why Denver missed out on all of that great talent or sent players elsewhere."
I once read (possibly in the book "The $400,000 dollar Quarterback") that Bob Howsam, Denver's original owner had far less money than most of the other AFL (and probably NFL too) owners. So that could be a reason why. Don't know if that qualifies as being concrete but Howsam and Chet Soda Original Oakland owner) and Billy Sullivan (Boston Patriots) just didn't have the money the other AFL owners did.
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Bryan
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Re: Carroll Hardy (Denver Broncos)

Post by Bryan »

GameBeforeTheMoney wrote:As for all those Hall of Famers they drafted and never signed, I don't know who wasn't able to sign them or who the scouts were, but they did an incredible job of drafting. My guess is that Denver didn't have the same amount of money that some of the other AFL teams like KC had and might not have been able to compete with the NFL. Plus, location was sometimes a factor in those days -- and some college coaches encouraged players to go NFL because it was more established. Would enjoy knowing if anybody had some real concrete info on how/why Denver missed out on all of that great talent or sent players elsewhere.
Jack Faulkner had a been a scout for Sid Gillman in the NFL before he got into coaching. He was the HC and talent evaluator for the Broncos 1962 - 64 drafts, which were pretty incredible. Bob Hayes, Paul Krause, Merlin Olsen, Bob Brown....and just a ton of other players who became NFL starters. Impressive stuff. As others mentioned, the Broncos lacked money to win any bidding wars, so most of these players did not wind up on Denver. The fact that the Broncos were probably the worst team in the AFL with poor facilities didn't help, either.

Faulkner had a good eye for talent, but one thing that might make those drafts more impressive than actuality is that Denver's philosophy at the time was to draft the best player and then hope to sign him. Other teams in both the AFL or NFL either 1) had money to sign whomever or 2) drafted players only after they negotiated a contract or were very confident in signing that player. Denver didn't really have any plan, and so they could just draft the 'best available player' even though it didn't really make sense to do so. Owner Gerald Phipps once commented that had all their high drafts picks like Dick Butkus, Merlin Olsen and Bob Brown actually agreed to the terms that Denver offered them, the franchise would have been bankrupt by 1966.
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