Thread: Serious question

With the benefit of hindsight, was replacing Vance Joseph with Fangio an intelligent, productive decision? I'm not asking whether VJ deserved to be fired, or who is the better coach in a vacuum, but rather this; have years one and two under Vic been noticeably better than years three and four under Vance would likely have been? Show your work-- this isn't intended as a "bash Fangio" thread, I do have an ulterior motive here. . .

I do think Vic is more competent as a head coach than VJ was, so I'd say years 3 and 4 for him probably would have been a little worse than 1-2 of Vic. Having said that, I'm not sure he's enough of an upgrade to have justified the move. Especially with some of the other candidates we could have had.

Originally Posted by BroncoWave

I do think Vic is more competent as a head coach than VJ was, so I'd say years 3 and 4 for him probably would have been a little worse than 1-2 of Vic. Having said that, I'm not sure he's enough of an upgrade to have justified the move. Especially with some of the other candidates we could have had.

That was a rough HC candidate season, wasn’t it?

Shanatan Jr was the VJ season.

Originally Posted by Jaded

That was a rough HC candidate season, wasn’t it?

Shanatan Jr was the VJ season.

It was hit or miss, but any class of new coaches is. Arians, Flores, LaFleur, and Kingsbury so far have had more success then Vic. Kitchens and Gase were worse, and Zac Taylor is still TBD.

Originally Posted by BroncoWave

It was hit or miss, but any class of new coaches is. Arians, Flores, LaFleur, and Kingsbury so far have had more success then Vic. Kitchens and Gase were worse, and Zac Taylor is still TBD.

Flores is legit, I love Arians but I’m probably alone on that.

Originally Posted by Jaded

Flores is legit, I love Arians but I’m probably alone on that.

Yeah Flores seems like the star of that class. And probably got the most shit at the time of hire being an ex BB assistant. I like Arians too. If Elway were set on hiring an old, he probably should have been the guy.

Originally Posted by Jaded

Flores is legit, I love Arians but I’m probably alone on that.

Arians' ego bothers me sometimes, but I like his old school attitude and approach. I like Matt Nagy too for some reason.

Originally Posted by Jaded

Flores is legit, I love Arians but I’m probably alone on that.

Love him too. I'd love to see him with this young offensive core. But he wanted to be in Tampa

No the best move would have been for John to make better selections at coach.

Originally Posted by Northman

No the best move would have been for John to make better selections at coach.

OK. Here's the correct answer. Obviously, we know that John's decision to hire Vance Joseph was a monumental brain fart. No one knows why he had such a Jones for VJ. Nobody else in the league could understand it. They figured maybe he knew something they didn't; that he fit their style or something.

But about the best the rest of the NFL could do was kinda shrug. "It could work out. VJ isn't obviously disqualified."

But, he also was not remotely to be considered "best qualified" by anybody. He was not, in short, a top tier coaching prospect.

And nobody was surprised when he flamed out after 2 years and went back to doing what he can do well. Being a coordinator. It's called the Peter Principle.

"The Peter Principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their "level of incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another."

Vance, like Wade Phillips and many other coordinators are not competent head coaches.

So, no surprise there. Next.

Did Elway do a rigorous selection search to find the best candidate? A top tier coaching prospect? Nope!

He already had another coaching candidate in mind.

And once again it was a head-scratcher. A dude who seemed the epitome of middle management. Vic Fangio. He'd been around for ages but nobody ever thought he had the right stuff to be a head coach.

He seemed destined to stagnate at the coordinator level; in a universal recognition that he had already reached the limit of his competence and to promote him any more would be risking sudden failure.

In short exactly what we are witnessing. You can blame the injuries if you like, but other teams have injuries and somehow they aren't all 3-6. Soon to be 3-13 or 4-12.

Special teams are an utter disaster outside of FGs. The defense is riddled by injury but did you see Kareem Jackson take the worst angle in the world on that long pass reception? I'm watching that thinking "Who de F is #22?" Oh! Kareem Jackson; that's who screwed up that play."

Well, I'd say that the entire regime, from Elway on down, is tied to Drew Lock. If he's a bust then they need to clear out the entire organization, staring with the man who drafted him.

Sorry if you don't agree, but that is what needs to happen. But, only if they give Drew Lock every chance to turn this around and he proves conclusively that he is not the guy; as he is doing so far.

No other NFL GM would survive in his job 4 straight seasons like 5-11; 6-10; 7-9; 4-12. None.

If that happened in Cleveland (as it has in the past) or New York the GM would lose his job. If that happens here, injuries or no injuries, Elway's head is the first that needs to roll. Just like everywhere else in the league. The Broncos cannot be immune to failure because "it's John Elway!"

Results are the only things that matter. And it's been a long-ass time since that SB. That buys you 4 straight losing seasons, but not a fifth.

They need to turn this thing around and show us something.

Because we cannot trust John Elway to go back into the draft and select another QB. Not after his history of picking QBs since Peyton Manning.

Originally Posted by Cugel

OK. Here's the correct answer. Obviously, we know that John's decision to hire Vance Joseph was a monumental brain fart. No one knows why he had such a Jones for VJ. Nobody else in the league could understand it. They figured maybe he knew something they didn't; that he fit their style or something.

But about the best the rest of the NFL could do was kinda shrug. "It could work out. VJ isn't obviously disqualified."

But, he also was not remotely to be considered "best qualified" by anybody. He was not, in short, a top tier coaching prospect.

And nobody was surprised when he flamed out after 2 years and went back to doing what he can do well. Being a coordinator. It's called the Peter Principle.



Vance, like Wade Phillips and many other coordinators are not competent head coaches.

So, no surprise there. Next.

Did Elway do a rigorous selection search to find the best candidate? A top tier coaching prospect? Nope!

He already had another coaching candidate in mind.

And once again it was a head-scratcher. A dude who seemed the epitome of middle management. Vic Fangio. He'd been around for ages but nobody ever thought he had the right stuff to be a head coach.

He seemed destined to stagnate at the coordinator level; in a universal recognition that he had already reached the limit of his competence and to promote him any more would be risking sudden failure.

In short exactly what we are witnessing. You can blame the injuries if you like, but other teams have injuries and somehow they aren't all 3-6. Soon to be 3-13 or 4-12.

Special teams are an utter disaster outside of FGs. The defense is riddled by injury but did you see Kareem Jackson take the worst angle in the world on that long pass reception? I'm watching that thinking "Who de F is #22?" Oh! Kareem Jackson; that's who screwed up that play."

Well, I'd say that the entire regime, from Elway on down, is tied to Drew Lock. If he's a bust then they need to clear out the entire organization, staring with the man who drafted him.

Sorry if you don't agree, but that is what needs to happen. But, only if they give Drew Lock every chance to turn this around and he proves conclusively that he is not the guy; as he is doing so far.

No other NFL GM would survive in his job 4 straight seasons like 5-11; 6-10; 7-9; 4-12. None.

If that happened in Cleveland (as it has in the past) or New York the GM would lose his job. If that happens here, injuries or no injuries, Elway's head is the first that needs to roll. Just like everywhere else in the league. The Broncos cannot be immune to failure because "it's John Elway!"

Results are the only things that matter. And it's been a long-ass time since that SB. That buys you 4 straight losing seasons, but not a fifth.

They need to turn this thing around and show us something.

Because we cannot trust John Elway to go back into the draft and select another QB. Not after his history of picking QBs since Peyton Manning.

They were obsessed with him since Mike Brown kept us from signing him his defensive coordinator and I've said this over and over but Mike Brown should have gotten a ring for keeping VJ so that we could hire Wade Phillips who actually gave us our super bowl.

I think Fangio gets one more year regardless of this season. It's too easy to say that this season was ****** from the get go because they got no real off-season with a new OC and the team has been ravaged by injuries to key starters.

Broncos were not going to write the check for Arians.

Fangio is a much better coach than VJ. The lopsided loss to the Raiders has me worried, but winning any of the next 3 keeps Fangio his job. Arguably, his job is secure no matter what, but the pattern of laying down cannot be ignored.

Originally Posted by dogfish

With the benefit of hindsight, was replacing Vance Joseph with Fangio an intelligent, productive decision? (Show your work)

I hate show your work test questions. I was the kid that asked the teacher if I could just put down the answer without all the tedious bean counting.

Anyways.

No, there is no clear improvement from Fangio. What we have now is what we would have had if VJ was still coach in terms of known results and a subjective feeling of 'hope for the future'.

Fangio has a 10-15 record, VJ had an 11-21 record. However, this Raiders loss feels like 10 losses, so advantage VJ.

Coaching game-management head scratchers have been a wash. Both demonstrated an uncanny knack for bewildering strategic blunders and clock management ineptitude. Push.

Offensively, both coaches have presided over a nearly unwatchable brand of offensive football. They have had good passing defenses built around Von Miller that are formidable but cannot achieve a playoff-eligible record alone. VJ had some awful OC selections in McCoy (fired midseason) and Musgrave (meh). Fangio (and Elway?/Ellis?) tried Scangs and now Shurmur.

However the decisions have come to be made, the musical chairs at OC set to an insane metronome speed has done nothing for developing an offensive identity.

The defenses have been fine. The other side of the ball...

So Fangio was able to lure Munchak to help set the concrete and develop an offensive identity. You can argue that Bolles has turned the corner, but otherwise there is nothing praiseworthy about Munchak's results. Perhaps that is a personnel issue as well.

Hope for the future hinges around the development of potential QBOTF Lock. This would have been the same with VJ. This is the hardest part of the question--projecting what years 3 and 4 would be like with VJ.

If we rewind to 2019, Fangio began the season 0-4 on the way to 3-8 and sniffing the #1 overall pick. It didn't look like firing VJ was an upgrade at that point. However, Fangio seems to have 'kept the locker room' in terms of being professionals who show up on Sunday and play a full 60 (ish, kinda, I guess). Then the Scangs/Lock era began with a blistering 4-1 start and the people had hope.

How would Lock have done with Musgrave? Or would VJ have brought in Scangs? Or some other OC who would have done even better? Would VJ have fired Scangs or would the 'stay the course, steady the ship' approach resulted in Lock having a greater mastery of the same offense instead of having to master a new offense with new receivers and a new OC and curtailed offseason contact?

I'd say advantage VJ in that dept (he'd have kept Scangs and shown a stable hand--this is kind of the hidden premise here, stability vs. turnover)...but it all comes down to how Shurmur and Lock mature in this coming season.

I don't see enough so far in the Fangio decision that proves the hire was intelligent and productive enough to overcome the disruption from institutional turnover.

But they both suck, so ...

Originally Posted by Hawgdriver

I hate show your work test questions. I was the kid that asked the teacher if I could just put down the answer without all the tedious bean counting.

Anyways.

No, there is no clear improvement from Fangio. What we have now is what we would have had if VJ was still coach in terms of known results and a subjective feeling of 'hope for the future'.

Fangio has a 10-15 record, VJ had an 11-21 record. However, this Raiders loss feels like 10 losses, so advantage VJ.

Coaching game-management head scratchers have been a wash. Both demonstrated an uncanny knack for bewildering strategic blunders and clock management ineptitude. Push.

Offensively, both coaches have presided over a nearly unwatchable brand of offensive football. They have had good passing defenses built around Von Miller that are formidable but cannot achieve a playoff-eligible record alone. VJ had some awful OC selections in McCoy (fired midseason) and Musgrave (meh). Fangio (and Elway?/Ellis?) tried Scangs and now Shurmur.

However the decisions have come to be made, the musical chairs at OC set to an insane metronome speed has done nothing for developing an offensive identity.

The defenses have been fine. The other side of the ball...

So Fangio was able to lure Munchak to help set the concrete and develop an offensive identity. You can argue that Bolles has turned the corner, but otherwise there is nothing praiseworthy about Munchak's results. Perhaps that is a personnel issue as well.

Hope for the future hinges around the development of potential QBOTF Lock. This would have been the same with VJ. This is the hardest part of the question--projecting what years 3 and 4 would be like with VJ.

If we rewind to 2019, Fangio began the season 0-4 on the way to 3-8 and sniffing the #1 overall pick. It didn't look like firing VJ was an upgrade at that point. However, Fangio seems to have 'kept the locker room' in terms of being professionals who show up on Sunday and play a full 60 (ish, kinda, I guess). Then the Scangs/Lock era began with a blistering 4-1 start and the people had hope.

How would Lock have done with Musgrave? Or would VJ have brought in Scangs? Or some other OC who would have done even better? Would VJ have fired Scangs or would the 'stay the course, steady the ship' approach resulted in Lock having a greater mastery of the same offense instead of having to master a new offense with new receivers and a new OC and curtailed offseason contact?

I'd say advantage VJ in that dept (he'd have kept Scangs and shown a stable hand--this is kind of the hidden premise here, stability vs. turnover)...but it all comes down to how Shurmur and Lock mature in this coming season.

I don't see enough so far in the Fangio decision that proves the hire was intelligent and productive enough to overcome the disruption from institutional turnover.

But they both suck, so ...

I'm not buying that you hate to show your work. I can't read all of that