INDIANAPOLIS — How big a mess are the Broncos? How far have they fallen in the NFL pecking order? And how quickly can a team with a first-time head coach and a new starting quarterback climb back in the playoff conversation?

“We’re not the team that won the Super Bowl in 2015. But I do think the roster is better than winning 11 games in the last two years,” Vic Fangio told me.

The new coach of the Broncos stood in hubbub of pro football’s meat market, where individual players and their football dreams are reduced to a number. Heisman winner Kyler Murray is QB 11, while Devin White of Lousiana State is LB 41.

So here’s what took me by surprise. While on assignment at the NFL combine, Fangio advised me: “Forget about the draft picks.”

Say what?

Before running his first practice for the Broncos, Fangio is caught in a numbers crunch. This is a team Fangio acknowledges as being “in transition,” and by that very definition, it means Denver is more than one or two impact players away from serious Super Bowl contention. But at the same time, football operations chief John Elway — who fired Vance Joseph after two seasons, believing the team underachieved — expects his new coach to get the Broncos back in the playoff conversation. And do it pronto.

A three-year rebuilding plan, which might require a humbling step or two back to take a giant leap forward, is simply not in Elway’s competitive nature.

“That’s right,” Elway said. “That’s why we want to win now and from now on. That’s not going to change.”

What’s more difficult to compute is whether the Broncos’ desire to win 10 games in 2019 detracts from the more arduous task of building a championship roster. The desire for short-term gratification in order to appease a fan base unaccustomed to the pain of a single losing season, let alone two in a row, seems to trump what I see as a need for major surgery on the depth chart.

I’m afraid Denver is in denial that its 11-21 record during the past 32 games isn’t really as bad as it looks, and will keep slapping a Band-Aid on the crisis of the moment rather than developing a long-term plan for the team’s revitalization.

For example: What does Fangio regard as Job No. 1 in his first year as coach?

“Our most important job as a coaching staff between now and kicking it off next September is helping the current roster players improve. Forget about the draft picks. Forget about free agency. We’ve got to make our current players better. That’s job No. 1 for us,” Fangio said.

“No matter how you look at it, our final 53 is going to probably be made up of 30-some players on the roster now. We better get them better. That’s Job No. 1 … If we can do that, we’re on the right track, and now (if) we add a couple players in free agency and/or the draft, then we’ve got a chance.”

OK, for the sake of argument, let’s say the new coaching staff retains 36 players from a Denver team that finished with a 6-10 record last season. That requires Fangio to find so much talent to fill out his 53-man roster it almost demands drafting a plug-and-play starter with the 10th pick in the opening round rather than taking a shot at a rookie quarterback to learn the ropes behind veteran Joe Flacco. In free agency, does Elway need to spend handsomely on a quality veteran wide receiver (for example: Adam Humphries of Tampa Bay) rather than waiting and hoping Emmanuel Sanders makes a full recovery from his Achilles injury?

In 2018, three teams (Houston, Indianapolis and Chicago) made the playoffs after suffering double-digit losses only a season earlier. So it’s not out of the question for the Broncos to jump back in the playoff picture with Fangio on the sideline. But it won’t be easy.

“We have a totally new coaching staff here, with new systems both offensively and defensively. To me, that’s a team in transition,” Fangio said. “We’ve got another draft and free agency period coming up, and hopefully we can add a player or two on both sides of the ball to speed the process up.”’

Does Fangio walk into his next team meeting and talk to the Broncos about making the playoffs?

“No,” Fangio said, looking me square in the eye.

Then what does the coach stress to the team?

“Getting better,” Fangio said. “It’s a process.”

A process requires patience.

I trust Fangio, who worked for seven NFL teams before getting his first head-coaching gig in Denver, knows what he’s doing. But do Elway and Broncos Country have the patience for anything less than the instant gratification of a winning season in 2019?