It was impossible for the Broncos to turn the page from their wretched 2-5 start so long as Emmanuel Sanders sat and pouted on the Book of Woe is Me.

“Emmanuel had issues and we had issues,” said John Elway, after trading the disgruntled 32-year-old receiver to San Francisco for the untold promise of future draft choices. “That is why it was a good time for us to go different directions.”

Sanders has left the building.

But the odor from the world of (stink) lingers at Broncos headquarters.

Where the Broncos go from here now rests squarely on the shoulders of young guns such as running back Phillip Lindsay, receiver Courtland Sutton, safety Justin Simmons and guard Dalton Risner.

Ready or not, this is their team now.

The time had come for Sanders to get a fresh start elsewhere, Lindsay said Wednesday, 24 hours after the last remaining offensive starter from Super Bowl 50 departed town.

So let’s raise a toast to new beginnings, with better days ahead, filled with blue skies and orange sunsets.

While we’re at it, let’s also hope Elway is ready to embrace the future, rather than chase ghosts of past glory that are dead and gone.

For all the mistakes committed by Elway in reshaping this team, he has found the right stuff in a young core of Lindsay, Sutton, Simmons and Risner, as well as injured linebacker Bradley Chubb.

How will this new core lead teammates?

“You shouldn’t have to tell another man to ‘Come on,’ because this is your job. This is why they get paid. Every time they wake up and they see their family, they see their little kids, they see their wife, that should motivate them enough right there to be like, ‘I need to handle my business.’ Because as fast as you’re here, you’ll be gone,” Lindsay said.

“I shouldn’t sit here and have to baby somebody and tell them, ‘Let’s go!’ It should be more like we come together, we get closer and we learn more about each other, because the more you know about that person that you’re playing (alongside) on the left and the right, the more you’re going to battle for that person.”

When Peyton Manning was tossing him perfect spirals, Sanders made big catches. But on a losing team that couldn’t get him the football, Sanders made faces and bellyached.

After a discouraging 30-6 loss to Kansas City, Sanders stood at his locker and took passive-aggressive swipes at a pathetic offense. Asked to diagnose what went wrong, Sanders muttered: “I don’t have the answers. Obviously, I do know. But I ain’t gonna say it. … You know. You know the answers.”

Well, the answer was clear to Elway. Say goodbye to Sanders, before his negativity spread throughout the locker room.

But I fear Elway still operates under the delusion that what this team needs most is an attitude adjustment, rather than a major overhaul.

While it’s certainly within the realm of possibility Denver upsets Indianapolis, then returns home against the bumbling Browns with a chance to get to 4-5 in the AFC’s wild-card standings, I’m not so certain Elway is ready, willing or able to give his deeply flawed franchise the honest evaluation it needs.

Since the beginning of the 2017 season, the Broncos’ record is 13-26. In the same time frame, Arizona is 14-24-1, the Bengals are 13-25, the Dolphins are 13-25, the Jets are 10-28 and the Browns are 9-28-1. By the only measure that really matters (scoreboard, baby), Elway is stuck with one of the league’s worst teams.

Who leads the Broncos out of this mess?

Quarterback Joe Flacco reiterated Wednesday that rah-rah isn’t his style. The jokes linebacker Von Miller tells aren’t nearly as funny when he’s not sacking the QB. While an offer Denver can’t refuse for cornerback Chris Harris might fail to materialize before next week’s trade deadline, his unsatisfactory contract situation makes it tempting — and perhaps prudent — to put self-interest before the team’s welfare.

Yes, it was time for Sanders to go. But doing the math, it’s difficult for teammates to figure how subtracting Sanders from an offense averaging 16 points per game will improve matters.

“He was a guy who was a dog when it came to playing this position, and that’s something you can’t teach,” Sutton said.

From the development of rookie quarterback Drew Lock to the space Sutton needs to grow as a leader, success for the remainder of this season should be measured in the individual growth of Denver’s young core rather than the number of W’s and L’s.

Elway, however, acts as if winning now is more important to a bad team in transition than winning from now on.

If I didn’t know better, I would be tempted to say that’s the attitude of an NFL executive feeling the heat and cracking under the pressure.