A herd of more than 40 Broncos’ operatives — player personnel directors, scouts, assistant coaches, the video staff, the head coach and assorted other subordinates — led by head horseman John Elway are formulating the franchise’s strategy before the NFL draft at the end of the month.

The Broncos’ braintrust is analyzing, strategizing, inspecting and dissecting, interviewing and reviewing, evaluating and calculating. Thousands of hours of players’ tapes have been watched, and hundreds of teams’ games were viewed in person; at least 100 college players will have been interrogated at all-star games, the NFL combine, pro days and private visits to Dove Valley.

The council embedded in the Broncos’ bunker will debate, assess positives and negatives and hold debriefings with the players’ college coaches, and the team’s security force will vet the players’ backgrounds and injury histories. Then, the executives will rank by position and overall the players eligible for the draft April 28-30 and create “The 2016 Broncos Big Board.”

Years ago John Elway received a critical piece of advice from his father, Jack, a brilliant former college head coach, then the Broncos’ director of player personnel: “Look inside a player’s heart and check his belly for passion and fire.”

Elway the Elder proved Elway the Younger’s judgment wrong about an undersized Purdue quarterback. Elway never forgot the “Drew Brees” lesson when he became the Broncos’ vice-president of football operations. He would sign overlooked college free agents like Chris Harris and C.J. Anderson, a castoff kid — Brandon Marshall — and he would draft an ex-automobile factory worker, Sylvester Williams, and two basketball players.

The GM was channeling Hoagy Carmichael’s “Heart And Soul.” He brought in the most renowned duo to play Were-wolf since Bela Legosi and Lon Chaney Jr.

Experts such as a Wyoming shepherd, a podiatrist, a mailman with a flat-screen TV, season ticket-holder No. 91 who drools orange and jock talk radio maggots who don’t know which way to wear a jock are telling John who, when and why to draft.

However, the organization comprehends slightly more now than in the franchise’s inaugural drafts in late 1959 before the AFL’s first season (1960).

The Broncos’ football scouting department consisted of one baseball authority — Bob Howsam.

The late Mr. Howsam is the father of both professional baseball and football in Denver, and a statue of him should be erected outside the stadium and the ballpark. Howsam and his family built old Bears Stadium, which grew into Mile High Stadium, and he would own the minor-league baseball team. And he became the original owner of the city’s American Football League franchise.

On Nov. 22, 1959, the AFL held its first draft, and players were not listed by rounds, but rather, in alphabetical order. The Broncos would not hire a general manager, Dean Griffing, until Dec. 1, and its coach, Frank Filchock, on Jan. 1, 1960.

So the drafting was left up to Howsam, who apparently utilized the Witness Protection Program, the phone book, suggestions from Wyoming sheepherders and the college football preview magazine sold by Street & Smith, publishers noted for their pulp fiction and comic books.

Howsam picked 33 players. Not one of them ever played a game for the Broncos. One drafted player who contacted me recently, and asked to remain anonymous, said he was offered $250 to try out at the camp in Golden, and he had to pay his expenses.

On Dec. 2, each AFL team selected 20 more players. By then, Griffing was in charge. Nineteen of his 20 picks never made the Broncos roster. One, Emmett Wilson, out of Geo rgia Tech , instead played for the semipro Chattanooga Cherokees.

Bob Hudson, advertised in Denver as a young standout defensive end from Clemson, actually was a washout from the NFL. He was the only drafted player, of 53, to stick with the Broncos in 1960 … for two games before being traded.

Drafting in 2016 may not be an exact science, but, at the beginning, it was blind man’s bluff.

In his first five seasons of being in control, as the final decision-maker, Elway has chosen 38 players. Half (19) have started in games. Thirty-four had made the team or been placed on injured reserve. At least nine of his picks in rounds four through seven have become real NFL players.

Over the past five seasons the Broncos’ draft, despite being positioned in the bottom half of the rounds, must be judged in the top five.

So, the Broncos know what they are doing. With 10 picks (the most since 10 in 2009), assuming they don’t make trades, the Broncos will draft a safety, a cornerback, an inside linebacker, two defensive ends, a guard, a tight end, a wide receiver, a running back and, yes, another quarterback.

In the Duke we trust.

Woody Paige: woody@woodypaige.com or @woodypaige