Vet­er­an pro foot­ball writer Jason Cole inter­viewed more than 200 peo­ple for his biog­ra­phy on Bron­cos gen­er­al man­ag­er John Elway — “Elway: A Relent­less Life” — that is avail­able Tuesday.

Cole’s 368-page book drops as Elway starts his 26th year with the Bron­cos, the first 16 as a Pro Foot­ball Hall of Fame quar­ter­back and 10 as the cur­rent per­son­nel chief.

Cole answered ques­tions from The Den­ver Post last week about the book:

(Some answers have been edit­ed for con­text and length.)

Q: You start the book by writ­ing about being a Stan­ford under­grad in 1980 and ing Elway play against Cal­i­for­nia. Fol­low­ing Elway all these years lat­er, what was com­pelling about him as a book subject?

A: “As the title indi­cates, the qual­i­ty I find most com­pelling about Elway is his relent­less pur­suit of com­pe­ti­tion, joy, hap­pi­ness — what­ev­er you want to call it. I cov­ered Dan Mari­no when he tried to become an exec­u­tive with the Mia­mi Dol­phins. I could tell from Day 1 that Mari­no didn’t want to put in the long days or do the thank­less work that goes into being a foot­ball exec­u­tive. He quit in two weeks. Most peo­ple of that stature don’t go into man­age­ment because it’s a lot less glam­orous and less fun than every­body thinks. Elway loves it so much he did it for years in the Are­na League to pre­pare. He’s still doing it now even as the Bron­cos are try­ing to get back to the top. You have to want it. Deeply, pas­sion­ate­ly. When you’re a guy like John Elway, you can basi­cal­ly sit in your back­yard, print mon­ey just being your­self and live easy. He refused and I want­ed to know why. What made him go on this relent­less chase of competition?”

Q: “The Dri­ve” in Cleve­land remains mem­o­rable all these years lat­er. As you ed the dri­ve and inter­viewed sources for the book, what res­onat­ed for you?

A: “The final 11 plays of ‘The Dri­ve’ are either pass­es or runs by Elway. It becomes his show and his show alone. Coach Dan Reeves basi­cal­ly cedes con­trol of the game to Elway, even though there was a lot of time left on the clock at the begin­ning of the series.

“Even the over­time dri­ve to win was pret­ty much Elway’s work. There is a moment dur­ing ‘The Dri­ve’ when the cam­era flash­es to Reeves on the side­line, dressed in that trench coat, basi­cal­ly star­ing at what was going on and allow­ing Elway to just be himself.

“To me, there are two ways to look at that moment. First, it was a breath­tak­ing achieve­ment that is cap­tured in everybody’s mem­o­ry for­ev­er. That’s the sports fan/historical per­spec­tive. The sec­ond way to look at it is how hard-head­ed Reeves was. Here is Elway prov­ing that he can han­dle the biggest moment under incred­i­ble duress (at least on a sports lev­el) and Reeves’ reac­tion was not to say, ‘Hey, he can han­dle more and maybe we can do what the 49ers and Dol­phins are doing on offense.’ It was to main­tain iron-fist­ed con­trol of the offense and stay stuck in the 1970s style of foot­ball. Reeves is a very good man and was a very good coach, but he was also very stuck in his ways when coach­ing Elway.”

Q: Was the Elway-Dan Reeves rela­tion­ship ever good?

A: “Elway did stick up for Reeves dur­ing his Hall of Fame induc­tion speech and I think Reeves sat next to Elway’s moth­er, Jan, dur­ing the induc­tion. They made their peace. Reeves also shook Elway’s hand after the Den­ver-Atlanta Super Bowl, so I think there is a lev­el of grudg­ing respect. They respect each oth­er as com­peti­tors and I think there’s an under­stand­ing that when you’re in the mid­dle of com­pet­ing at that lev­el, you’re going to have com­bus­tion. It’s normal.

“There’s also no ques­tion in my mind that Reeves believed in Elway’s tal­ent. Reeves knew that Elway was one of the great­est quar­ter­backs ever and Reeves leaned heav­i­ly on that abil­i­ty in the fourth quar­ter of so many games. There’s no ques­tion that Reeves saw Elway in the same way that Tom Landry saw Roger Staubach.

“The prob­lem was that Reeves didn’t adjust to the changes in the rules and the game as it evolved in the 1980s. With Elway run­ning the show, Reeves’ sys­tem was good enough to get the Bron­cos to the Super Bowl. It wasn’t good enough to take the Bron­cos over the top.”

Q: On the flip side, what were able to glean from the Elway-Pat Bowlen relationship?

A: “It was a lot clos­er than even I under­stood before­hand. I always knew Elway and Bowlen were tight, but not to the point of that kind of friend­ship. I don’t know if it was by acci­dent or not, but Bowlen was one of the first own­ers to get that the quar­ter­back is, in some respects, part of team man­age­ment in the mod­ern era of the NFL.

“At the same time, Bowlen had a very strict under­stand­ing of what lines could or couldn’t be crossed. After Elway retired and want­ed to return to the game, Bowlen didn’t push Mike Shana­han to include Elway in the orga­ni­za­tion. Bowlen didn’t bring Elway back in any offi­cial capac­i­ty and cre­ate any hint of ten­sion. He allowed Shana­han to run the team as Shana­han want­ed. But Bowlen did give Elway the chance to get back in foot­ball in the Are­na League and Elway took full advan­tage of it.

“As a result, there’s no ques­tion Elway has a deep love and respect for Bowlen. Those tears were very real and the emo­tion was very deep when Elway had to announce that Bowlen was no longer run­ning the team on a day-to-day basis.”

Q: As some­body who cov­ered Elway and fol­lowed him as a play­er, how sur­pris­ing was it that he got back into the NFL as a gen­er­al manager?

A: “Not as much as some peo­ple. I had been fol­low­ing Elway’s career path in the Are­na League and I knew he want­ed to get back in the game, so that didn’t sur­prise me. I think jump­ing all the way to the top of the foot­ball orga­ni­za­tion­al chart was a lit­tle surprising.

“That said, the Bron­cos were pret­ty des­per­ate to restore order in the post-Josh McDaniels days and if you’re going to bring Elway back, he’s not real­ly going to play sec­ond fid­dle. The fact Elway has tak­en to it so effec­tive­ly shows how seri­ous­ly he thought about the chal­lenge and about being pre­pared to do it.”

Q: Dur­ing the 2015 off­sea­son, when Elway demand­ed Man­ning take a pay cut, how close did Manning’s camp come to say­ing, “We’ll go some­where else”?

A: “Not that close. Man­ning was hurt and it was obvi­ous to the rest of the NFL. I think there were two teams, Hous­ton being one of them, that did some seri­ous home­work on Man­ning. Both came to the con­clu­sion that he was too much of a risk physically.

“Addi­tion­al­ly, I think Man­ning is very much like his father in that he wants to be around his fam­i­ly and his chil­dren. His kids were about five at the time and the idea of mov­ing or com­mut­ing for a one- or two-year gig wasn’t real­ly in the works. Yes, Man­ning was frus­trat­ed and unhap­py about tak­ing a pay cut and with the changes in the coach­ing staff. Was it enough to get him to leave the sit­u­a­tion? Obvi­ous­ly not.”

Q: The mil­lion dol­lar ques­tion in the post-Man­ning years: Could you find a com­mon theme in the quar­ter­backs Elway has signed/acquired and why they didn’t pan out?

A: “Well, let’s start by say­ing that sign­ing Man­ning was a coup and I don’t think peo­ple com­pre­hend how crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant Elway was to mak­ing that happen.

“Man­ning and Elway are rare humans of high achieve­ment who talk the same lan­guage. That doesn’t mean they always agree, but they intu­itive­ly under­stand each oth­er and what it takes to be great. That’s no small thing. Fact is, I don’t think Man­ning signs with the Bron­cos with­out Elway. From there, I don’t think the Bron­cos sign key play­ers with­out hav­ing Man­ning and Elway.

“I would also say this: I know it’s easy in hind­sight to say that Brock Osweil­er was a bust. How­ev­er, when Osweil­er was called upon in 2015 to sub for Man­ning, Osweil­er did a pret­ty (darn) good job until the first half of the San Diego game. In ret­ro­spect, if you tell me that I’m going to spend a sec­ond-round pick on a guy in 2012 and he’s going to play a crit­i­cal role in me win­ning a Super Bowl four years lat­er, I’m good with that. …

“Excus­es aside, Osweil­er is also emblem­at­ic of the typ­i­cal quar­ter­back Elway has tak­en pri­or to Drew Lock, for whom the jury is obvi­ous­ly still out. Those quar­ter­backs are big and strong-armed. Osweil­er, Pax­ton Lynch, Joe Flac­co and even Drew Lock all look about the same. Case Keenum was dif­fer­ent, so this is obvi­ous­ly not an absolute.”

Q: What was your favorite Elway anec­dote from the book?

A: “So many. Elway against Dar­ryl Straw­ber­ry in high school is a clas­sic moment. … Every­thing about the 1983 trade (with the Bal­ti­more Colts) is fas­ci­nat­ing and espe­cial­ly how (then-own­er) Edgar Kaiser made his vision pay off. The vision of Elway look­ing in the mir­ror after the 49ers Super Bowl. His blow up with Reeves. His calm and cool in recruit­ing Manning.

“But I think my favorite is prob­a­bly the back sto­ry to ‘The Heli­copter’ (play against Green Bay in the first Super Bowl win) and how Elway saw it before it hap­pened. He antic­i­pat­ed it days before the game. His intel­li­gence and under­stand­ing of the game were para­mount to his skill. If he doesn’t antic­i­pate it, the play prob­a­bly doesn’t suc­ceed and the Bron­cos maybe don’t beat Green Bay. It’s a moment of ath­let­ic genius where both the men­tal and the phys­i­cal play out. Elway didn’t have a great sta­tis­ti­cal game against the Pack­ers, but he was bril­liant at the crit­i­cal moments. In a sense, it’s the same men­tal acu­ity Elway showed in that base­ball game against Straw­ber­ry and Cren­shaw High. In the end, for all his immense phys­i­cal skill, Elway’s great­est attribute might be his pas­sion and mind for the game.”