Bye Bye Mr. Lynch

I never quite warmed up to John Lynch.

He arrived in Denver in 2004, just a couple of years after winning a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was successful here and was selected to the Pro Bowl in each of his four seasons with the team, although it is debatable how many of those selections were based on his performance and how many were mainly on reputation. Did anyone from last year's edition of the Bronco defense really deserve to be on a Pro Bowl roster? Hmmmm. . .

He is enormously popular in Colorado. Any self-respecting store carrying Bronco merchandise had a rack full of #47 jerseys. In addition to being a good player, he has a good reputation in the community and superb media skills. Many skeptics (including me) believed that his popularity in Denver had a lot to do with the fact that he's white. He came along just in time to replace Ed McCaffrey in that respect.

Lynch was released by the Broncos last week, less than a week into training camp. He asked out after deciding he couldn't deal with not being on the field for every snap. Apparently the Broncos' plan was to take Lynch out of the game in passing situations. He is almost 37 years old and entering his 16th NFL season, so he is not getting any younger or faster. The Broncos wanted him back for this year, but of course it was on their terms, not his.

And so he took his ball and went home. Whether he plans to retire from pro football or play for another team is unclear at this point.

Getting back to the main point of this article, I never embraced John Lynch because he never seemed like a real Bronco to me. Real Broncos are guys like Rod Smith, Shannon Sharpe, Karl Mecklenburg, Haven Moses, and Floyd Little. Guys who enjoyed their greatest success in Denver. Even if they didn't necessarily spend their entire careers in Denver, they are still identified with the city. I mean, does anyone really remember Shannon Sharpe playing for the Baltimore Ravens?

In my book, Lynch is not anywhere close to those guys, although he is more of a Bronco than say, Tony Dorsett or Jerry Rice. To me, he's just a guy who came to Denver to polish up an already accomplished career. He's kind of like Neil Smith, who spent his entire career slamming John Elway to the turf as a member of the KC Chiefs and then joined the Broncos and won a pair of Super Bowls.

He proved this by walking out on the team - his own ego outweighed what the Broncos needed at that point in time. So maybe he'll go and continue polishing his Hall of Fame resume somewhere else, or maybe he'll retire. I don't really care.

There was some talk about John Lynch possibly being inducted into the Broncos Ring of Fame. The Hall of Fame selection committee can do as they please - they're clueless anyways. But I hope that Pat Bowlen never decides that Lynch needs to be in the Ring of Fame. HE DOES NOT BELONG THERE.

Obviously, I've never met the guy. I'm sure he's great and I'd probably fall in love with him like every other Bronco fan if I did. But knowing what I know about the situation, I'm glad he's gone. I don't think the Broncos will be any better or worse without him.