The Broncos currently don’t have a traditional owner. The authority of Pat Bowlen has been transferred to a trust, and Joe Ellis makes the decisions required of the team at the league level. Eventually, Ellis will be involved in deciding which one of Bowlen’s seven children becomes the owner of the team.
“All I can do is try and do the right thing,” Ellis told Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post. “I don’t necessarily think that everything I do would be exactly what Pat would do. But he entrusted me in this position. He spelled it out for me back in 2005, and I’m going to honor my commitment to him.”
The commitment includes selecting the next owner from Bowlen’s progeny at the appropriate time. Ellis was asked how he will do it.
“You do it very carefully,” Ellis said. “And you try to do what you think is very fair. If you waver from those ideas, it’s not going to work out.”
As noted in June, there’s no guarantee that any of the seven children will qualify to own the team. There’s also no specific timetable or deadline for one of the Bowlen children to earn the right to succeed their father. At a minimum, it will take several years; in theory, it could take many years.
“When a child emerges that has the capability and has earned the right to have that job and take over their father’s chair, the three trustees will determine that,” Ellis said, referring to himself and two other trustees. “Nothing has changed dramatically. . . . There’s no scoreboard, no leaderboard. We’re not handicapping the children or anything like that.”
The hope is that one of the children naturally will emerge as the right answer, with the skill set and experience and interest combining to make him or her the obvious choice.
