Today’s question about the Broncos comes from Kris Carlson.

Q: Any guesses to how the Broncos’ three-year plan will unfold? If the plan is to be a contender by Year 3, yet with a great crop of quarterbacks coming out next spring, of whom John Elway must covet a few, even beyond Andrew Luck and Matt Barkley how would that play out? Would a rookie be groomed for 2013? What kind of odds do you give Tim Tebow of being the guy next year? Will they re-sign Kyle Orton if he has a successful season?

A: Kris, with just a couple of days to go to before the start of the regular season, that’s a lot to digest about the future.

The Broncos, especially executive vice president John Elway, general manager Brian Xanders and coach John Fox, want to compete as quickly as possible, be it Year 1, Year 2 or Year 3 and beyond. They also, like every franchise in the NFL which doesn’t have one, are on the hunt for the quarterback who will be the foundation of whatever they build.

Elway considers quarterback the most important piece and anyone who saw Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees do their thing Thursday night cannot argue that point.

Overall they will continue to take the roster toward “younger and faster,” which has been Elway’s mantra since he took the job. They want impact athletes all over the field who play fast, and the Broncos will continue to draft that way, at least if they maintain their discipline on the board and stick to their plan.

Free agency, again if they maintain their discipline even in times when people don’t want them to (see: Packers, Green Bay or Steelers, Pittsburgh), will be only a smattering of work. And frankly the lure of free agency only legitimately increases for a team if they haven’t been successful in the draft and don’t have somebody groomed to fill a need.

The good draft teams use it for one or two key spots, not a year-to-year salary cap makeover. New England will be an interesting experiment this year, because a franchise that was very draft heavy in Bill Belichick’s tenure has now leaned decidedly toward free agency to make one last push at a title with Tom Brady at quarterback.

But make no mistake, the Broncos are still on the hunt for a franchise quarterback, even with Tebow on the roster. They scouted heavily and in person at pro days all of the top quarterback prospects in the 2011 draft and will do so again in 2012, given the class of quarterbacks next spring is already considered far better than this past year.

Stanford’s Luck, USC’s Barkley and Oklahoma’s Landry Jones sit atop the class with a select few others who could be first-round picks as well. But Luck, on and off the field, just may be the best all-around, pro-ready prospect at the position since Peyton Manning entered the league in 1998.

Tebow’s future, at least in some ways, is up to him. He really needs to do what Brady Quinn did this past offseason.

Work with quarterback coaches, either the Broncos or some he hires, all through the offseason, on his footwork, anticipation and the ability to work through the progressions on pass plays. He’s mobile and can run himself out of trouble, but his ability to be the team’s starter over the long-term is hitched to how he plays from the pocket.

And whether anyone believes that it doesn’t matter because that’s what Elway believes it takes to win a championship. And Elway is A) the boss and B) a quarterback who is in the Hall of Fame having won two championships and having said “those championships were won from the pocket.”

Tebow is the only quarterback on the current Broncos roster under contract for 2012 so that gives him a little advantage once the offseason begins. If the Broncos intended to keep Orton past this year, they likely would have already started to negotiate with him — and indications are they haven’t — on some kind of extension.

But with a good year Orton will be a 29-year-old quarterback, who has started most of his seven seasons in the league, in the open market. That’s a big potential contract with the biggest paydays likely happening elsewhere.

Jeff Legwold: 303-954-2359 or jlegwold@denverpost.com