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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 dogfish

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. . .

Too close to call. Jury is out.

Elway thought Kubes was going to be here too at the time.

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.

I thinks it's to hard to judge this year with all the injuries we have.

Heck, the last three HC's have had enough warts that part of me wonders if we should have sucked it up and let McD get through his growing pains.

Not completely ready to write Fangio off, but he's done some head scratching things, like many time management blunders, which makes you wonder if he's got what it takes to be managing the game from the sidelines.