It’s a fantastic thing the hair that hasn’t fallen from Vic Fangio’s head turned grey before he took a job in Broncos Country.
This football team is a mess larger than the spill that bounced everyone from Vance Joseph to Case Keenum out the door at Dove Valley Headquarters. Rather than devoting their new head coach a maybe the Broncos should have given Fangio a mop.
John Elway hates it when I suggest he s a coach killer. But Elway has done his rookie coach no favors throughout Fangio’s brief tenure in Denver.
When the Broncos could have drafted an impact defensive player for their defensive-minded head coach, Elway instead chose a quarterback controversy waiting to happen, asking veteran Joe Flacco to lead the team back to playoff contention while looking over his shoulder at rookie Drew Lock at precisely the identical time.
Insert the hissing match Elway got into with star cornerback Chris Harris more cash, and it’s enough to make me wonder why Fangio would trade hanging at Wrigley Field during his downtime in the springtime for trying to put in a world-class defense with no only world-class participant in the secondary.
By most accounts, rsquo & trouble doesn;t rattle Coach Vic. Maybe rsquo & that;s one reason Broncos cornerback Bryce Callahan, who followed Fangio from Chicago to Denver, reverently refers to the coach as the Godfather.
Fangio talks Callahan explained Tuesday, adding that the Broncos’ new on-field boss has “this swag to him, kind of like mafia men. ”
Callahan laughed at his description of Fangio. But here’s a thing: What sunk Joseph as the coach in Denver was just the kind of balderdash that Fangio has already witnessed in a town that bleeds orange.
Acumen in X’s and O’s can make any coach a soccer genius. But how he will take care of the hullabaloo of a soccer catastrophe is the great unknown with Fangio, such a quiet man he can visit a Nuggets playoff game and have nobody in the Pepsi Center detect he s there.
Josh McDaniels attracted a brilliant offensive mind to Denver but was undercut by his Jekyll and Hyde personality in the meeting room. Joseph naively trusted that coordinators he hired whether it was Mike McCoy or Joe Woods — were there to help him, when both hastened his death.
On the other hand, Gary Kubiak won the Super Bowl despite his conservative offensive bent, since he deftly found a way to manage two huge egos, whether it was necessary to seat Peyton Manning or tone down Elway’s blowhard, aggressive nature.
All the about Flacco’s comments that suggest a higher priority is placed by him on winning than mentoring a rookie were blown out of proportion. But isn’t anything and everything involving a quarterback in the NFL ripe for controversy and melodrama?
No quarterback is more popular than his won-lost record.
“That is the nature of this business, and that’s the beauty of it,” Flacco stated.
In a city where Elway and Manning established the gold standard, while some mere mortal quarterback is subject to being run out of town after throwing three interceptions in a game, I can practically guarantee you Fangio will need to deal with QB controversy the first time Flacco loses two matches in a row. I’m willing to wager Fangio handles that controversy will likely be a lot more critical to his success than the brilliance of his game plans.
In all likelihood, the schemes of Fangio will look sharp without Harris on the field for the Broncos.
Everybody loves Chris. But Harris pushed with a season for renegotiation. Although this tiff should be all about the Benjamins, it’s gotten personal between this proud cornerback and Elway, whose obsession with winning makes it hard for him to view anything in life.
Linebacker Von Miller enjoys Harris like a soccer brother and fully believes he deserves dollar as cornerback. Miller, however, also made one observation about his own contract negotiation with Elway that is instructive in the case of Harris.
“I actually wanted to become a Denver Broncos for life,” said Miller, recalling.
If Harris is intent on being paid $15 million per year, I can’t begrudge every dime being sought by him. But I also don’t find any way Elway will pay Harris top dollar.
Would Harris hold out for less than top dollar? Would Elway call his bluff and force Harris to perform the last season of his deal, or consider trade offers for one of the team’s couple Pro Bowl-caliber talents?
Whatever the outcome, allow the cash spat between Elway and Harris be solved before the Broncos report to training camp in July.
This is a hassle Fangio doesn’t deserve or need.
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