{"id":831,"section":"sports","section_label":"Sports","url":"https://www.brokenews.co/sports/831","headline":"Former Broncos GM John Beake dies at 87","dek":"Beake, who engineered the trade for John Elway, built Denver into back-to-back Super Bowl champions.","body":"John Beake, the longtime Denver Broncos general manager who was instrumental in the trade that brought John Elway to the team, has died at 87. The Broncos announced his death Saturday, saying Beake's family confirmed the news.\n\nBeake spent 14 seasons as Denver's general manager, a tenure that culminated in back-to-back Super Bowl championships following the 1997 and 1998 seasons. Elway, the quarterback Beake helped acquire, became the face of that era and led the franchise to its first titles.\n\nBeake's work in the front office is remembered as foundational to the Broncos' rise into one of the league's premier franchises during the 1990s. The trade for Elway in particular reshaped the team's trajectory for more than a decade, setting up the championship runs that followed. Details on funeral arrangements were not immediately available.","published_at":"2026-10-18T05:50:08.332287+00:00","source_count":3,"written_from":[{"outlet":"ESPN","publisher":"ESPN","title":"Beake, GM of Broncos' back-to-back Super Bowl teams, dies at 87","url":"https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/50206700/ex-broncos-exec-john-beake-helped-land-john-elway-dies-87"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Former Broncos executive John Beake, who helped land John Elway, dies at 87","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/former-broncos-executive-john-beake-012149466.html"},{"outlet":"The Athletic","publisher":"The Athletic","title":"John Beake, Broncos GM and architect of John Elway-led championship teams, dies at 87","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7699469/2026/10/17/john-beake-broncos-gm-dies-obit/"}],"more_coverage":[{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Former Broncos GM John Beake, architect of back-to-back Super Bowl champions, dies at 87","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/former-broncos-gm-john-beake-architect-of-back-to-back-super-bowl-champions-dies-at-87-220144230.html"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Former Broncos GM John Beane dies at age 87","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/former-broncos-gm-john-beane-223159893.html"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Broncos Super Bowl-winning GM John Beake passes away at 87","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/broncos-super-bowl-winning-gm-002558044.html"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Former Broncos GM Who Traded For Elway Passes At 87","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/former-broncos-gm-traded-elway-021519740.html"}],"image":{"url":"https://a1.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2022%2F0608%2Fr1022916_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg","credit":"ESPN","width":1296},"embed":null,"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","attribution":"Analysis data is licensed CC BY 4.0. Credit brokenews and link to the story page you took it from. Source headlines, story titles taken from a source headline, and quoted passages remain the property of their publishers and are quoted for comparison, not licensed onward.","terms":"https://www.brokenews.co/about#reuse"}