VonDoom
10-03-2017, 03:14 PM
I didn't want to start another Siemian thread, but I thought this was good enough to warrant it not getting lost in the shuffle. Some good info here, a lot of stuff on Manning, even some good Talib quotes!
Siemian’s road to the NFL began in earnest when Greg Knapp, then Denver’s QBs coach, visited Evanston, Ill., in the spring of 2015 for a post-pro day workout set up just for the QB, who was still limping from ACL surgery. Knapp, the only coach in attendance, had been tasked with identifying a passer to back up Manning (in what would turn out to be his final season) and Brock Osweiler (a ’12 second-round pick), and he came away impressed with Siemian’s football acumen.
Come draft time, Siemian and his family watched from their home in Windermere, Fla. On Day 3 they were barbecuing when they began to accept that Trevor was destined for undrafted free agency. Siemian’s parents say the Browns and Texans reached out, expressing interest in signing their son once the dust settled. (Cleveland, which has spent decades in search of a franchise passer, used its two seventh-round picks on linebacker Hayes Pullard and cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu; two years later, neither is on its roster.)
At pick No. 247, Siemian finally got a call from the Broncos’ war room. “Knapp said, ‘Trevor, I’m pounding my fist on the table,’ ” Colleen recalls. “ ‘I want them to draft you, but if they don’t, you’re gonna be a preferred free agent with us.’ ”
The new staff worked to build an attack that would give Siemian and Lynch an equal chance to thrive, and when the two QBs brought their playbooks home from their second minicamp, in June, Siemian applied a study technique learned from Manning. “You start with one play,” he says, “and you try to understand the thought behind it, what defensive weaknesses it tries to attack. Then you say What if? for every scenario. What if I get Cover 1? What if I get Cover 3? You take into account how the play looks out of different personnel and you draw that up. Then you move on to the next play. When you get to camp, the plays kind of come to life.” (Osweiler, who’s back in Denver after stints with the Texans and Browns, says he now takes the same approach. “No one had ever taught me that before I met Peyton. We were very fortunate to see the game he was playing in his head.”)
Siemian had arrived at training camp with an elevated understanding of the Broncos’ new offense, which incorporates some spread elements he’s familiar with from college. For some teammates, that new scheme is a welcome departure from an attack that had grown stale. “The offense was pared down last year,” says Talib. “If you’re running the ball well, it’ll work great—but if you’re not, nobody’s gonna go for all that play-action, pop passes and bootleg. It was kind of one-dimensional.
“In this offense you can line up and do anything. [Trevor] might check to a run, a screen, anything. This is the offense Peyton Manning ran. It’s grown-man football.”
Manning called Siemian before the season opener, and before several other games last season, to talk football. Siemian likes to involve his family in his game-day preparation, going over plays with his father, Walter, in a hotel room. Walter will read a play call and Trevor will talk through the scenarios. But when Manning phones, Walter steps into another room. “[Trevor] is very private about that. He won’t share what Peyton says, and I don’t ask,” says Colleen. “I think Peyton respects that about him.”
https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/03/trevor-siemian-denver-broncos-peyton-manning
Siemian’s road to the NFL began in earnest when Greg Knapp, then Denver’s QBs coach, visited Evanston, Ill., in the spring of 2015 for a post-pro day workout set up just for the QB, who was still limping from ACL surgery. Knapp, the only coach in attendance, had been tasked with identifying a passer to back up Manning (in what would turn out to be his final season) and Brock Osweiler (a ’12 second-round pick), and he came away impressed with Siemian’s football acumen.
Come draft time, Siemian and his family watched from their home in Windermere, Fla. On Day 3 they were barbecuing when they began to accept that Trevor was destined for undrafted free agency. Siemian’s parents say the Browns and Texans reached out, expressing interest in signing their son once the dust settled. (Cleveland, which has spent decades in search of a franchise passer, used its two seventh-round picks on linebacker Hayes Pullard and cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu; two years later, neither is on its roster.)
At pick No. 247, Siemian finally got a call from the Broncos’ war room. “Knapp said, ‘Trevor, I’m pounding my fist on the table,’ ” Colleen recalls. “ ‘I want them to draft you, but if they don’t, you’re gonna be a preferred free agent with us.’ ”
The new staff worked to build an attack that would give Siemian and Lynch an equal chance to thrive, and when the two QBs brought their playbooks home from their second minicamp, in June, Siemian applied a study technique learned from Manning. “You start with one play,” he says, “and you try to understand the thought behind it, what defensive weaknesses it tries to attack. Then you say What if? for every scenario. What if I get Cover 1? What if I get Cover 3? You take into account how the play looks out of different personnel and you draw that up. Then you move on to the next play. When you get to camp, the plays kind of come to life.” (Osweiler, who’s back in Denver after stints with the Texans and Browns, says he now takes the same approach. “No one had ever taught me that before I met Peyton. We were very fortunate to see the game he was playing in his head.”)
Siemian had arrived at training camp with an elevated understanding of the Broncos’ new offense, which incorporates some spread elements he’s familiar with from college. For some teammates, that new scheme is a welcome departure from an attack that had grown stale. “The offense was pared down last year,” says Talib. “If you’re running the ball well, it’ll work great—but if you’re not, nobody’s gonna go for all that play-action, pop passes and bootleg. It was kind of one-dimensional.
“In this offense you can line up and do anything. [Trevor] might check to a run, a screen, anything. This is the offense Peyton Manning ran. It’s grown-man football.”
Manning called Siemian before the season opener, and before several other games last season, to talk football. Siemian likes to involve his family in his game-day preparation, going over plays with his father, Walter, in a hotel room. Walter will read a play call and Trevor will talk through the scenarios. But when Manning phones, Walter steps into another room. “[Trevor] is very private about that. He won’t share what Peyton says, and I don’t ask,” says Colleen. “I think Peyton respects that about him.”
https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/03/trevor-siemian-denver-broncos-peyton-manning