Whether Vance Joseph gets fired or survives as coach of the Broncos is now in the hands of 10 draft picks that have never played a down in the NFL.
Good luck with all that.
Did the light bulb go on for general manager ? Let’s hope he has finally realized talented-but-immature draft picks (see: Lynch, Paxton) can drive a coach into retirement (see: Kubiak, Gary).
And does Joseph have the coaching chops to install a game plan to not only win on Sunday, but also give a developing young player meaningful snaps at the same time?
“You want players to come in and have the maturity to play early. Obviousy, the coach has a big part in that,” Joseph said Saturday.
Bradley Chubb and Courtland Sutton, the marquee names Denver put atop its draft board can play. It’s Joseph that apountry should be worried about.
I can’t promise you Sutton, the big receiver selected in the second round out of Southern Methodist University, will turn out to be more like than .
But I can tell you this: Joseph did a terrible job of maximizing the potential of the eight draft choices Elway gave him in 2017.
One year ago, the Broncos lost 11 times, and there were at least 25 reasons why. But, without a doubt, a major problem was the inability of Joseph to teach first-round pick Garret Bolles how to block without holding, not to mention how the coaching staff failed to put DeMarcus Walker in a position to succeed and never found a way to get running back De’Angelo Henderson on the field.
The coaching basics, ranging from smart game-planning to sound scheme implementation and insightful in-game adjustments, often seemed beyond the grasp of Joseph during his first season on the job as an NFL head coach.
There’s no question Chubb is a natural-born pass-rusher. But is it fair to be concerned Joseph might be slow to find ways to fully integrate Chubb, a plug-and-play fit as a defensive end in a 4-3 defensive alignment, into Denver’s 3-4 scheme, which is built to ’s skill set? Joseph said Chubb is a SAM linebacker. For now. We’ll see.
From the first snap of the home-opener against Seattle, the Broncos need Chubb to be Thor, not Baby Groot, in the infinity war that is a 16-game regular season. But I like the way Chubb thinks, when he says the best way to mess with a quarterback’s head is by being “consistently on his neck and breathing on him.”
As the Broncos slid from champs to the AFC West basement in a span of two years, there were whispers at Dove Valley Headquarters the millennials in the Denver locker room walked around with a sense of entitlement rather than a sense of purpose. This was a team with too many players without a clue of what it takes to win a championship.
“You can’t come in and have that high horse of … you owe me something,” Sutton said. “You can’t do that.”
Broncos offensive coordinator sat in the corner of the room, silently nodding his head in agreement, when Sutton faced the cameras at his introductory news conference and said he brought a similar skill set as Thomas, while fellow draftee DaeSean Hamilton of Penn State was more like . What got Musgrave’s chin really bobbing, however, was when Sutton declared the Denver offense needed was zero drop-off in production whenever he and Hamilton entered the huddle to give their veteran teammates a rest.
At the sports books in Las Vegas, the current over/under win total for the Broncos is listed at 7.5. Sounds like a fair wager. But, if you’re betting the under, I doubt seven victories will save Joseph’s job.
What happens, though, if Chubb rolls in as a rookie and records 10 sacks, while Sutton merits enough targets to contribute 40 catches, with five of those receptions for touchdowns? Denver makes the playoffs. Guaranteed.
Elway, who hates to lose, is better at the quick fix than the patience required by the draft.
“We’re going to get graded on how the draft turns out. But, ultimately, the true grade is whether we win football games or not,” Elway said. “We’d rather win football games than the day after the draft.”
But for any NFL team to build a championship contender through young players in the draft, itap all about coaching them up.
Do you trust Joseph to get it done?
The Denver Post needs your support.
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