Heading into the season, and throughout much of its course, the Denver Broncos appeared to be one of the NFL’s models of franchise stability.

No more.

It is now possible that no team in the league faces more question marks than the would-be Super Bowl contenders after firing coach John Fox following a disappointing divisional playoff loss to Indianapolis.
The biggest one, of course, is whether quarterback Peyton Manning will return for his 18th and presumably final season, or if he will hang it up immediately.

Team president John Elway doesn’t even have the answer to that one yet.

Though he expressed hope that Manning does return next season and said the quarterback will be kept in the loop regarding Denver’s search for a new head coach, there is no guarantee No. 18 will be back in orange.
Manning looked his age down the stretch, though a strained quad muscle that was not revealed until the season ended certainly exacerbated the cliff-like decline.

In the final six games of the year, including the loss to the Colts, Manning only had one game with a passer rating over 100. He had passer ratings over 110 in seven of Denver’s first nine games.

Even if Manning does return, the Broncos new coach will have to deal with the supreme pressure of winning immediately and then likely moving forward without Manning regardless of how next season ends. It’s not exactly the most enticing situation to wade into.

Could the solution be a guy who has already dealt with that pressure — Mike Shanahan — with some sort of arrangement that sets up son Kyle as a coach-in-waiting? (Which, by the way, would be a violation of the Rooney Rule for interviewing minority candidates. But that is how hard it is to say what anyone in Denver is thinking right now).

And what of offensive coordinator Adam Gase? Is he a candidate to replace Fox? Will he go with Fox to Chicago if the Bears make that hire?  Will he stay put and work under a new head coach in Denver?

As you can see, far too many of the sentences written about the Broncos end in question marks rather than periods. And that is a bitter disappointment for a franchise that entered this season expecting to punctuate it with an exclamation point.