MMQB: How Vance Joseph's worst year got him the job

Some good Broncos content out there today. Here's a piece from Robert Klemko about our new coach:

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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — John Elway was eager to talk about lessons learned. The Broncos had just missed the playoffs for the first time since 2010, and now he was tasked with finding a new head coach.

So Vance Joseph reached back to the worst year of his football life. In 2013, his ninth season as an NFL assistant coach, his Houston Texans went from preseason AFC contenders to losers of 14 consecutive games.

That was Joseph’s last of three seasons in Houston working under Gary Kubiak, Denver’s last head coach, who retired due to health reasons. And in that interview, it became clear that Joseph shares Kubiak’s calm delivery and attention to detail.

“We talked about the issue of expectations overwhelming a team, and not having the mental toughness and the leadership to overcome adversity when expectations are high,” Joseph says. “Every year they pick and choose teams that should win the championship, and that can swallow your team if you let it, so you have to go to the mentality of winning every day. How do you go about your weeks? The same, every day.”

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After the 2015 season, new Dolphins head coach Adam Gase hired Joseph as his defensive coordinator. He took the reins of a defense that lost two pro bowlers (defensive end Olivier Vernon and cornerback Brent Grimes) in free agency, and would lose safety Reshad Jones and linebacker Koa Misi to injuries early in the season. Defensive headliner Ndamukong Suh knew little about the first-time coordinator prior to the season, so he reached out to Jared Crick, a former Nebraska teammate who had played for the Texans during Joseph’s tenure. “Ndamukong wanted to know what Coach V was about, and I told him, Coach stays even keeled,” Crick says. “In the best of times and the worst of times, he demands perfection of his guys. He’s never riding the wave.”

Crick found himself making the same call to Suh in reverse a year later, asking the all-pro defensive tackle what Joseph had been like as a coordinator once it became clear Joseph was a frontrunner for the Broncos job. “Talking to Suh, he was saying the same things that I experienced,” Crick says. “A super prepared guy who does everything he can to make sure his guys are equally prepared.” He had been as Perry describes him today: “Demanding but not demeaning.”

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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/05/24/n...eph-john-elway

All his players say great things about this guy. He's a teacher. But you do a lot less coaching like that when you're head coach. You've all seen Hard Knocks every year. The coach does a LOT of schedule managing, and personnel managing, and making sure that every part of his organization is run right and practices are properly scheduled because there's not a lot of time, etc., etc.

The Head Coach is a lot more of an executive than he is a coach. He still makes some game-day decisions, but mostly he manages the organization and coordinates with Elway and his senior management about personnel decisions.