Rank Your Choices for Head Coach

[champ11]

13 hours ago, germ-x said:

Here is my ultimate take on the current HC search.

No one wants Chuck Pagano or Mike Munchak.  Even if they have them ranked #1 or #2 in this forum, it is always with a caveat.  The thought process is these 2 will bring stability, which is needed, and Denver can target a better HC in 2-3 years or groom a young coordinator to take over. 

My response to the above is; when has that actually happened and do you really think organizations are thinking in that regard?  I get people will go back the the Fox/Kubiak HC exchange and point to that scenario, but that’s few and far between and Denver had a SB winning caliber team for 3 years before that move and the HC lasted 2 years with the organization. As far as the grooming portion, I literally can’t point to a scenario in recent memory where that has actually happened and if it did it wasn’t successful.  99% of the time organizations hire outside of the current staff. 

Pagano and Munchak are better than Joseph, no doubt.  They’ll account for a few more wins and bring more stability.  They’ll be good for making this organization 8-8, 9-7, maybe throw in a 10-6 here or there.  But they aren’t great coaches.  They will put Denver in NFL purgatory, which sadly seems to be the current mission.

The 2 things Denver needs most is a QB and offensive innovation.  The 2 names above I don’t see helping in either of those areas.  

Denver seems to be in an old boys club mentality.  Where connections mean more than anything.  Elway can’t seem to get away from the past or Colorado connections.  They landed Manning who took the franchise away from this for 4 years and as soon as he left he reverted back to the only thing he knew.  Late 90s/early 2000s football and people he had relationships or connections with.

I have been a huge supporter of Elway and defended his stability with the organization.  However, this is the hire that will make or break him, IMO.  If he goes with Pagano/Munchak/Kubiak I think it will be his undoing in his role as the Denver Broncos VPO.

Man, I'm with you...it's just hard to see this organization not in NFL purgatory with the current ownership situation.

It's just going to be a very hard place for a young, first time coach to grow and succeed with the messed up power structure. This whole organization would need to be fully invested in this young coach and a rebuild. You need ownership, front office, and coach to be aligned in a vision for an organization to succeed.

We currently don't have ownership. Elway won't even say the ******** word rebuild. The fan base is completely off their rocker. 

A young coach is going to come and make mistakes. They will have failures and you need to be committed to them for the long haul. There needs to be a commitment to flipping the roster over and developing young talent. They brought VJ in as a win now coach when it clearly should have been about development. Epic failure.

I look at the Nuggets - easily the best organization in the city over the last 3 or so years - and they brought in a coach when the rebuild started, stuck with him even though he has had major deficiencies, and now it is being paid off. The whole organization sacrificed wins to develop their young coach and players. The Broncos need to take this approach and they simply won't do it. A young coach would be coming into a very difficult situation to succeed in.  

[AnAngryAmerican]

14 hours ago, germ-x said:

Here is my ultimate take on the current HC search.

No one wants Chuck Pagano or Mike Munchak.  Even if they have them ranked #1 or #2 in this forum, it is always with a caveat.  The thought process is these 2 will bring stability, which is needed, and Denver can target a better HC in 2-3 years or groom a young coordinator to take over. 

My response to the above is; when has that actually happened and do you really think organizations are thinking in that regard?  I get people will go back the the Fox/Kubiak HC exchange and point to that scenario, but that’s few and far between and Denver had a SB winning caliber team for 3 years before that move and the HC lasted 2 years with the organization. As far as the grooming portion, I literally can’t point to a scenario in recent memory where that has actually happened and if it did it wasn’t successful.  99% of the time organizations hire outside of the current staff. 

Pagano and Munchak are better than Joseph, no doubt.  They’ll account for a few more wins and bring more stability.  They’ll be good for making this organization 8-8, 9-7, maybe throw in a 10-6 here or there.  But they aren’t great coaches.  They will put Denver in NFL purgatory, which sadly seems to be the current mission.

The 2 things Denver needs most is a QB and offensive innovation.  The 2 names above I don’t see helping in either of those areas.  

Denver seems to be in an old boys club mentality.  Where connections mean more than anything.  Elway can’t seem to get away from the past or Colorado connections.  They landed Manning who took the franchise away from this for 4 years and as soon as he left he reverted back to the only thing he knew.  Late 90s/early 2000s football and people he had relationships or connections with.

I have been a huge supporter of Elway and defended his stability with the organization.  However, this is the hire that will make or break him, IMO.  If he goes with Pagano/Munchak/Kubiak I think it will be his undoing in his role as the Denver Broncos VPO.

i do agree with the vast majority of this. However, I do think the "old boys club mentality" is not unique to the Broncos. Bob Quinn hired Matt Patricia as his head coach. Bill O'Brien hired Romeo Crennell and Mike Vrabel as defensive assistants. Kyle Shanahan has Mike LaFleur, Taylor Embree and Bobby Slowik on his staff. The common denominator, almost all hires, whether its a head coach or a quality control assistant, are made via connections. 

As I've said multiple times, the situation we're in now requires us to go the safe route. No one would prefer to see us roll the dice on a hot young mind, whether that's Zac Taylor or someone like Matt LaFleur or Dan Campbell, more than I would. i just don't see that happening, however. I think there is an outside chance that Taylor charms Elway enough that he decides to roll the dice. What would have to happen, in that scenario, would be for Elway and the entire organization to throw their full support behind him and make it perfectly clear that no matter what the on field product looks like or what the final record is in 2019, they're sticking with him for the duration of his contract (4 or 5 years). 

I don't see that happening. And truthfully, each day that this drags on I get more and more down on the whole process. We have two uninspiring former-HCs, a guy who's not even preparing for the interview, a young offensive guy who's never called plays and a Belichick assistant who is most likely a Rooney Rule throw-in. Furthermore, we got word yesterday that each candidate, in addition to meeting with Elway one-on-one and the committee, is meeting with Joe Ellis despite the fact Ellis said otherwise on Monday. Shocking that Joe Ellis would say something publicly and do the opposite, you could knock me over with a feather when I heard that. Things are so bad even Mile High Report is calling out Ellis, and not for the first time, and this is a blog that almost always parrots the party line and, back in August, was predicting 13-3 and 12-4 type finishes this year. 

I almost feel like the only way to get back into serious, Super Bowl contention is just to our luck our way into it. Because everything about this franchise at this moment screams mediocrity. 

[AnAngryAmerican]

15 hours ago, germ-x said:

I’m saying Taylor or Flores.  Fangio came out today and said he isn’t even preparing for these interviews.  No wonder he hasn’t gotten one in the last decade.

You lost me at Flores. You just can't hire a Belichick assistant, no way, no how. Even long-experienced ones who have real responsibility in key areas - Mac, Mangini, Crennel, now Patricia - have been unmitigated disasters. And don't give me Bill O'Brien, he is and always has been his own man, has a long track record in other places and was a HC before in tough circumstances at Penn St. I admire Flores working his way up, as you eloquently explained the other day, but he has very little real authority in Foxboro and would likely be a Mac-/Vance-level s***show here. 

Regarding Fangio, I can understand someone saying, for PR reason that's he focused on the Bears' upcoming playoff game, but I don't see him as the type who says the politically correct thing. I wager he's being honest. And, even not knowing for sure, if I'm Elway I pull the interview request. If they do hire him, the odds of which I think are remote, how do you stand before the fanbase when you introduce him and explain that away. 

[AnAngryAmerican]

1 hour ago, champ11 said:

Man, I'm with you...it's just hard to see this organization not in NFL purgatory with the current ownership situation.

It's just going to be a very hard place for a young, first time coach to grow and succeed with the messed up power structure. This whole organization would need to be fully invested in this young coach and a rebuild. You need ownership, front office, and coach to be aligned in a vision for an organization to succeed.

We currently don't have ownership. Elway won't even say the ******** word rebuild. The fan base is completely off their rocker. 

A young coach is going to come and make mistakes. They will have failures and you need to be committed to them for the long haul. There needs to be a commitment to flipping the roster over and developing young talent. They brought VJ in as a win now coach when it clearly should have been about development. Epic failure.

I look at the Nuggets - easily the best organization in the city over the last 3 or so years - and they brought in a coach when the rebuild started, stuck with him even though he has had major deficiencies, and now it is being paid off. The whole organization sacrificed wins to develop their young coach and players. The Broncos need to take this approach and they simply won't do it. A young coach would be coming into a very difficult situation to succeed in.  

Agreed. 

While I generally don't like cross-sport comparisons your point about the Nuggets is apt. The difference is most in Colorado don't follow the Nuggets all too closely, even now in first place they barely get a mention. The microscope on the Broncos is of much higher magnitude. 

What I've gleaned over the last few days, talking to friends, people at the bar, reading online, is that a lot of fans, casual and well-informed alike, would accept a Zac Taylor type learning on the job for a year or two. It's similar to drafting and starting a young QB. It's like how most fans I've spoken with would have preferred us to have drafted one of the rookie QBs and let him take his lumps rather than go with the limited and unexciting Case Keenum.  But the franchise seems poised to make a Case Keenum-like choice at HC. 

If I am correct and the team opts for the safe route at HC (Pagano or Munchak) it will be met with a collective shoulder shrug from the fan base and a portion of the local media. They will do a good job selling the hire (the Broncos PR team is one of the best in the NFL) and some corners of the media will eat it up with a spoon and ask for second helping. But by and large most will be largely un-enthused. Hiring Zac Taylor, on the other hand, would provide some serious excitement, the most since Peyton came to town. A Pagano/Munchak hire will be met with the same fan response as the Vance hire. I also think that a sizable portion of the fan base would forgive Elway & Co. if they swing for the fences with Taylor but, after three or four years, he proves to be a lazy fly ball to deep right field. 

Ironically, by trying to go the safe route the franchise might be doing itself more harm than good, at least from a short-term PR perspective.

[DiehardBronxFan]

32 minutes ago, AnAngryAmerican said:

Agreed. 

While I generally don't like cross-sport comparisons your point about the Nuggets is apt. The difference is most in Colorado don't follow the Nuggets all too closely, even now in first place they barely get a mention. The microscope on the Broncos is of much higher magnitude. 

What I've gleaned over the last few days, talking to friends, people at the bar, reading online, is that a lot of fans, casual and well-informed alike, would accept a Zac Taylor type learning on the job for a year or two. It's similar to drafting and starting a young QB. It's like how most fans I've spoken with would have preferred us to have drafted one of the rookie QBs and let him take his lumps rather than go with the limited and unexciting Case Keenum.  But the franchise seems poised to make a Case Keenum-like choice at HC. 

If I am correct and the team opts for the safe route at HC (Pagano or Munchak) it will be met with a collective shoulder shrug from the fan base and a portion of the local media. They will do a good job selling the hire (the Broncos PR team is one of the best in the NFL) and some corners of the media will eat it up with a spoon and ask for second helping. But by and large most will be largely un-enthused. Hiring Zac Taylor, on the other hand, would provide some serious excitement, the most since Peyton came to town. A Pagano/Munchak hire will be met with the same fan response as the Vance hire. I also think that a sizable portion of the fan base would forgive Elway & Co. if they swing for the fences with Taylor but, after three or four years, he proves to be a lazy fly ball to deep right field. 

Ironically, by trying to go the safe route the franchise might be doing itself more harm than good, at least from a short-term PR perspective.

I think this is very, very accurate.

[AnAngryAmerican]

I have been trying to find out who comprises Elway's HC search committee and I finally found out. 

Courtesy of 247sports:

Quote

The Broncos' search committee — Elway, personnel director Matt Russell, football administrator Martin Thewes and PR chief Patrick Smyth 

Why Patrick Smyth on the search committee? I guess the Broncos need to consider PR when making the hire, all successful teams do that...eye roll...

Of course Russell is going to be there given the great recommendation he made last time when he hired frat brother as HC. Martin Thewes (who I believe goes by "Mark" not Martin) is a holdover from the Mac regime, like Russell, and also was involved in the last search. I'm sure his top choice is the unqualified Belichick lackey Brian Flores. 

Oh well. 

[AnAngryAmerican]

Like most of us suspected, per Albright. 

 

[paul-mac]

6 minutes ago, AnAngryAmerican said:

Like most of us suspected, per Albright. 

 

 

I suspect that Zac Taylor was the one who had the chance to "blow away" Elway and the other members of the search party and get the job as an outsider, so the fact he's interviewed and hasn't seemed to shoot up the pecking order suggests to me it'll be Munchak or Pagano.

 

Flores was always just a rooney rule guy and Fangio probably ruined his chances with the "no preparation" comment.

[thebestever6]

3 minutes ago, paul-mac said:

 

I suspect that Zac Taylor was the one who had the chance to "blow away" Elway and the other members of the search party and get the job as an outsider, so the fact he's interviewed and hasn't seemed to shoot up the pecking order suggests to me it'll be Munchak or Pagano.

 

Flores was always just a rooney rule guy and Fangio probably ruined his chances with the "no preparation" comment.

So thats us casting a wide net this time smfh .

[AnAngryAmerican]

5 minutes ago, paul-mac said:

I suspect that Zac Taylor was the one who had the chance to "blow away" Elway and the other members of the search party and get the job as an outsider, so the fact he's interviewed and hasn't seemed to shoot up the pecking order suggests to me it'll be Munchak or Pagano.

Flores was always just a rooney rule guy and Fangio probably ruined his chances with the "no preparation" comment.

Yeah I agree it's going to be Munchak or Pagano and with either it will be Kubiak as OC. I guess I can live with either choice as HC, though neither really would excite me. I'd also be okay with Taylor but like you say it doesn't sound like he really blew the staff away. It would like it if the HC is Munchak/Pagano with Taylor as an empowered OC and Kubiak as an assistant HC or adviser in some way. 

Truth be told, the idea of Fangio really turns me off. Not only his "I'm not preparing" comment but the fact that he is a 60 year old DC who's never gotten a HC job before. That old-school, "rah-rah" stuff doesn't really work in today's NFL. Hiring him would give me serious pause. 

[Broncofan]

The one reason that would be justifiable for such a meh process (Fangio being one of our top 5 is nuts given what he admitted to - even if it was meant to be more about preparing for PHI, that kind of answer shows an utter lack of communication skills that's a huge red flag if you are looking for a HC) and result - if a bunch of candidates let it be known they weren't interested.   

We already have a strong indication that McCarthy did just that.   It's not crazy with our ownership battle, Elway's power in the org, and our total lack of QB options and roster depth, that a bunch of guys said no thanks.   Of course, it's not like Elway can say that publicly.   But with 8 teams, and a pretty meh HC pool to begin with, it's certainly possible.  

[thebestever6]

The Fangio not preparing really doesn't bother me. I took it as hes fully focused to coming up with a gameplan to stop the Eagles. I respect that he's focused in his role to his current employer  .

Did he have to say he had zero preparation absolutely not. But Shanahan when the falcons had the bye he said I'm only worried about the next opponent right now that stuff will work itself out.

[AKRNA]

54 minutes ago, AnAngryAmerican said:

Yeah I agree it's going to be Munchak or Pagano and with either it will be Kubiak as OC. I guess I can live with either choice as HC, though neither really would excite me. I'd also be okay with Taylor but like you say it doesn't sound like he really blew the staff away. It would like it if the HC is Munchak/Pagano with Taylor as an empowered OC and Kubiak as an assistant HC or adviser in some way. 

Truth be told, the idea of Fangio really turns me off. Not only his "I'm not preparing" comment but the fact that he is a 60 year old DC who's never gotten a HC job before. That old-school, "rah-rah" stuff doesn't really work in today's NFL. Hiring him would give me serious pause. 

IMO HC searches often result in perfect examples of the "Peter Principle". That being, everyone rises to the level of their own incompetence and then stays there.

A guy thats a great OC or DC gets a HC job and fails miserably. Happens quite often. Fangio I think would fit that bill.

[Dale Finlay]

I would not have a problem at all if Mike S was brought in as our head coach and Kubiak as OC,imagine our running game with Lindsay/Freeman, in turn would protect the offense from Case until next year when we have a shot at a legitimate QB in draft,keep our defense off the field.Strong draft in trenches this year so I say draft accordingly this year[ lineman on both sides] sprinkle in a DB/LB ,I still believe if you can run the ball and play good def chances are still good for winning in NFL[ see Baltimore this year]

[thebestever6]

15 minutes ago, Dale Finlay said:

I would not have a problem at all if Mike S was brought in as our head coach and Kubiak as OC,imagine our running game with Lindsay/Freeman, in turn would protect the offense from Case until next year when we have a shot at a legitimate QB in draft,keep our defense off the field.Strong draft in trenches this year so I say draft accordingly this year[ lineman on both sides] sprinkle in a DB/LB ,I still believe if you can run the ball and play good def chances are still good for winning in NFL[ see Baltimore this year]

You can but you still need a top pick next year or else we're in no mans land again.