The eyes. People who try to explain how John Elway does what he does are always talking about his eyes at this or that moment, as if that can explain the uncanny vision he possesses. It seems a little pat to assume that a physical trait can offer clues to a cerebral one. Still, they are striking. Big, blue, bright, boyish eyes, unambiguous and unguarded, which haven't aged with the rest of his face and somehow seem at odds with his cowboy affability. Often, Elway concentrates so intensely on what he's looking at that he falls into a trance.

This isn't a metaphor. Whether he's reading a scouting report or watching tape, he becomes not just fixated but fixed in place: “My wife, my kids, my assistant sometimes have to yell at me—they'll ask me a question three times, or even put a hand on my shoulder, to snap me out of it. Which is why I spend a lot of time by myself in the off-season right here”—his office overlooking the Denver Broncos' practice field in Englewood, Colorado, where I find him seven months after he won his first Super Bowl as general manager. “It's quiet,” he says.

As a quarterback, Elway's powers of perception—the way he knew without looking, down to a tenth of a second, when to step from a collapsing pocket—seemed less a function of “vision” than of sonar. Now he's adapted that supernatural ability to the executive suite. “It's not just that he knows how to spot talent,” says Ed McCaffrey, the former Broncos receiver who won two Super Bowls with Elway in the '90s. “The thing that sets his football IQ apart is that he can project it into the future. He can see where a player is now and where he's going to be next year, then three and four years down the road. That's very rare.”

Although the balcony off Elway's office has a perfect bird's-eye view of the field, he likes to descend to the sidelines during practices. “Most people would argue that you see more up in the box, and I guess you do, but that may not be the truest version of what's going on,” he says. On the field, he can watch individual players. “Does a guy play snap to whistle? How hard does he play in the fourth quarter? Is he still battling when his team is behind?” In other words, heart—and Elway knows you have to be up close to spot it.

Even so, Elway is not one to interfere when it comes to calling plays or giving speeches. “Coaches need to verbalize,” he says, but “I always felt there was no way I could teach what I knew, and that even if I could, it would be the wrong stuff to teach.” Or as he said at the 2011 press conference announcing his appointment to the Broncos' executive suite: “I know what I don't know.”

Although Elway stays out of his coaches' day-to-day, he may be the most activist general manager in the league. In 2012, he made the biggest free-agent splash in NFL history by signing Peyton Manning. Three years later, he replaced coach John Fox with Gary Kubiak, his onetime backup and roommate. The Broncos have gone 70-and-29 (and counting) since Elway took the job, winning the AFC West every season and, oh yes, Super Bowl 50.

At age 56, Elway is back. (Of course he is: The man engineered 46 game-winning drives on the gridiron.) So forget F. Scott Fitzgerald and his natterings about second acts in American lives. You should listen instead to Elway's former teammate Rod Smith, a three-time Pro Bowler who prophesied thusly back in 1998: “As long as John's alive, it's his team.”