The Denver Broncos are Super Bowl champions in more ways than one.

The first day of the NFL calendar year ushered in free agency and a slightly surprising move as former Broncos starting quarterback Brock Osweiler bolted to Houston for a four-year, $72 million deal.

Were the Broncos reeling and unprepared over Osweiler’s departure?

Not exactly.

Broncos football messiah (and General Manager) John Elway made his feelings pretty clear on Osweiler’s departure:

“We’ve stayed true to our philosophy of building a team with players who want to be Denver Broncos and want to be here. That’s been a successful approach for us,” he said.

“While we did offer a very competitive and fair long-term contract to Brock, we ultimately had to remain disciplined while continuing to assemble a roster that can compete for championships.”

The true kicker of Osweiler’s departure was provided by DenverBroncos.com. Within the same piece that discussed Osweiler’s exit, Broncos reporter Andrew Mason threw a rather direct jab at the departed Denver quarterbacks (yeah, you too Peyton Manning):

The Broncos won Super Bowl 50 last season despite having the second-lowest team passing efficiency rating — a combined 74.3 rating for the regular season and postseason, 13.5 points lower than the league average of 87.8. Only the then-St. Louis Rams had a worse collective quarterback rating.

Considering that the Broncos won it all with sub-optimal quarterbacking, they like their chances of remaining a contender with even modest improvement under center. Among the various modes for roster-building, there appear to be areas where they can find it.

Spoken like a true company man.

Assuredly, Denver will not head into the 2016 season with Trevor Siemian (their lone quarterback on the roster at the moment) as its starter.

Elway and the Broncos may not repeat but they will not go quietly into the night.