Does Gary Kubiak Have Soft Spot For Backup QB's?

Don't forget your history Denver Broncos fans.

NFL teams are going to chase after the ways that worked until they don't work any more. For a few seasons now, defense has been fighting the offense tooth and nail to determine the championship path of perfection. While no one in Denver is going to complain about the heart trauma we endured en route to winning the crown, no one in Denver- especially the coach- wants to risk heart or health to have a season similar to last year if we can avoid it.

The idea that any champion would prefer not to repeat the same championship journey they just traveled is somewhat unusual when you think about it, but that doesn't take into account the truth of Denver's season.

The truth was as bumpy as riding a wild Bronco promises to be. That ride is actually the same that Denver fans have always endured, fighting to get national commentators that actually want us to win while working our nationally televised games.  Usually, we are the team they pick to lose.

Denver Bronco favorite, Norris Weese,
was injured in 1979 and passed away from cancer
at age 43.  Is this the year for Norris, and Gary?

I understand.  Our history has plenty of victories laced between predictably traumatic losses as well. Some NFL fans once made a business out of betting against the Broncos while I quickly learned the necessary knowledge of never betting for them.  Not that the Broncos don't win, they just never seem to win when my money is on the line.

That is our history.

Coming up short. Getting our hearts Orange Crushed before we could Mile High Salute at the world. We are the underdogs like Norris Weese.

Do you remember Norris Weese? Weese was the player we cried for when Craig Morton's old arse was giving us a headache, and our defense too much work again. Morton's geriatric similarities to what we endured last year, with an old and less than agile Peyton Manning, had this town screaming for the backup just like we did with Weese.

Weese almost saved us in our first Superbowl from having to listen today to Dallas Cowboys fans remind us that they won that game and that they are still America's Team. Thanks to that Superbowl IT session, Weese got the starting job the next year, but a knee injury that year (1979) ended his playing career forever. Weese passed away from cancer in 1995. He was 43 years old.

Thankfully, Manning's injury (wink, wink) made way for Brock Osweiler to prove himself a capable player in the league, but he also helped to prove that he really didn't have IT either, while proving the same thing that Manning had been proving before he got too hurt to watch anymore.

Osweiler and Manning both proved that Denver's defense was other worldly.

We just about saw the backup step up and be the hero, until suddenly he started to really look like a backup again.  How that scenario played out combined with how this current QB scenario is playing out shows telling signs of what happens when your head coach has been carrying the clipboard for too damn long.

Back in his playing days, Gary Kubiak was our other Norris Weese. Fans of sports love to engage in revisionist history, but the truth is that a lot of you fans did not really like Michael Jordan the way you like him now, and John Elway had to finally win a couple of titles to avoid the same career ridicule that Manning was about to endure if last year's SB50 win didn't fix that for him too.

Elway was a high risk player for years. For some time, his passes were too hot even for his own teammates to handle.  His first coach was way too conservative and often boxed the team into such predictability that we could be diagnosed and disrupted rather easily by the opposing defense.  Elway did not always thrive in that conservative format even though he always showed signs of IT. Like Paxton Lynch, Elway was drafted in the kind of slot that makes you have to show and prove, not sit and stew.

Between 1983 when Elway arrived and 1984 when we got rid of Steve DeBerg and forced our young QB to sink or swim, Elway got benched more than once. At first it was for the more experienced DeBerg, until we got rid of him, leaving backup duties in the hands of Kubiak. 3 out of 5 of Kubiak's career starts came during those first two season of Elway and Kubiak, simply because Elway was that bad back then.

What is the difference between a legendary starter and their backup?  We don't really know because those backups serve a role to make sure we never really get to know them that well.  They are the spot duty bridge that keeps the legend afloat throughout the season so that they can be legendary when times comes to make their legend known.

In reality, the legend Manning ended up being as good as he needed to be when he needed to be good. Yet, his good was the same good that Elway displayed when he finally became a champion himself. Both versions of good involved turning around and handing the ball to the bucking Bronco out of the backfield in Terrell Davis or CJ Anderson last season.

Denver, as a franchise, might be looking to return to the way it was, but the way it was had Hall of Fame quarterbacks winning titles in the end of their careers. Similarly, both were motivated and humbled by failure and frailty, seeking to end things on a good note.  The way it is NOW has two backups types trying to do what the HOF'ers typically take care of on championship teams while keeping the heir apparent away from his inevitable throne.

Will A Game Manager Do?

Trent Dilfer was already a regular starter of the Baltimore Ravens team that he is credited for "game managing" to a championship. That team was a lot like this team though, on the list of defensive GOAT's in the NFL. Denver's defense joined that conversation after winning the Superbowl last year, giving room and rise to the possibility of a "game manager" quarterback replacing Manning to help this team win it all again.

What we should consider is the fact that the Denver Broncos tried like heck to keep Brock Osweiler for too much money, but lost him to Houston for too much money.  Would the Broncos have offered too much money if Kubiak did not think Osweiler could be groomed to be worth the money? Early report from Houston is that Osweiler probably isn't really worth the money.

In other words, Mark Sanchez is not only trying to compete against his own butt-fumbling history, he is competing with a coach who clearly has some secret Norris Weese syndrome; some love and wonderment for a backup who seems to have IT, but never really got a chance to show IT because of whatever reason backups like to use.

Is Jordan Taylor making us need a 6th receiver and one less QB?

For now, the guys that would usually be out in front are out of the way, and the only thing keeping Trevor Siemian from getting a chance to show he can lead this championship defense to another one is our collective anxiety of going into a regular season with two inexperienced quarterbacks, and that's it.

Keeping two QB's and cutting Sanchez might make room for a 6th receiver, a spot Jordan Taylor will need opened if he hopes to be the next great white receiver from Denver.

Kubiak has lauded the ability of Siemian for some time now, especially on the day that he had to explain why we needed Sanchez in the first place.

Kubiak might have named Siemian the starter when we first lost Osweiler if there had already been a book on him to go with.  He is now attempting to help Siemian write a book that Broncos fans will respect and believe in enough to stick with him until Lynch can't be held down anymore. Siemian is nursing a shoulder ding that he took while trying to stop the pick 6 that he threw against San Francisco, yet his coach has named him as the starter, not knowing if he'll even be healthy enough to play? That's all you need to know to understand that the coach has a soft spot for backups like he was.

Kubiak entered the league the exact same year that Elway did and served as his backup for 9 years in Denver. He compiled a 3-2 record in spot starter duty, and had 14 touchdowns with 16 interceptions and 1,920 yards passing. There is no easy way to say, one way or the other, what type of player Kub's would have been if given the chance because history doesn't work that way. Sanchez on the other hand has had chances more than once and seems capable at times but extremely bad at other moments.

We've seen some of his worst play in recent years (YouTube the worse if you have not), but none of it has really happened while in Denver yet.  Although we all want to hold him to account for the interception and the fumbles that happened in the first two preseason games, no one wants to hold the coach to account for not running the ball more than he passed it, like we expect he will do in the regular season.

If we want to be perfectly honest, who in the entire western hemisphere doesn't realize that Peyton Manning has retired, and the Broncos are searching for their next quarterback?

Does this guy look like he has IT, or is he more ordinary
like Kyle Orton? Is ordinary good enough for this team?

Clearly, every defensive coordinator in the league knows this, so the expectation of too many hand off's would contradict the types of things you're looking to evaluate when evaluating quarterbacks: things like throwing accuracy and pocket awareness.

Sanchez is fairly good with accuracy but pretty crappy with pocket awareness.  Running the ball a lot more will help this, but he may never get to that luxury if he can't show us how he'll react when things are off schedule; when defenses are defending us like the defending champion we are.

Siemian may not have the IT factor that wows your senses, but he does have some special stuff that makes you feel Gary Kubiak warm, or Norris Weese kind of comfortable. Without a doubt, he has the quiet hopes of the coach that, with opportunity and growth, he might do no worse than what Manning and Osweiler did last year.

Better yet, he'd like him to do just a little bit better than Manning and Osweiler did last year if he can. Kubiak's search is for someone that can keep it close enough for our defense to make plays by limiting turnovers.

I expect Siemian to get a real shot this year in part because of the backup syndrome of our head coach who has already named Siemian a starter this week even though he is not fully healthy from the hit he took. Kubiak might have squelched the questions of who will get the benefit of game 3 game planning and minutes, but he is also signaling to the entire league who he hopes will win the first game of regular season job by giving that player the inside track to prove himself Kubiak or Weese like.

I am still hopeful that Kubiak, and Broncos fans, give Sanchez a fair chance to show how he would run THIS offense and not some distorted tryout version of our offense that allows defensive opponents to not play honest.

Not that I think Sanchez offers us any real hope for victory. His reliably marginal play behind our reliably stringent defense could actually serve as a functional bridge for Siemian to be our new Norris Weese, wanted and supported by fans for several games, buying time for Lynch- the guy with IT- to get ready to take us to that next level.

Conversely, if you make Siemian the immediate starter, moving to Sanchez in the hopes of him being something dramatically better or different than his history, would be foolish to expect and hard to sell to fans without severe skepticism. Sanchez's only real value to this team is to be thrown to the wolves; to serve as a bridge to Siemian and then Lynch, which means Sanchez plays as long as we are winning. Siemian must equally serve as a bridge to Lynch who must NOT be given the job but must win the job in practice. Lynch must be given enough time to learn his role without getting shell shocked and ruined by NFL edge rushers while learning.

Not that players with IT ever experience that kind of shell shock, but they do experience injury when placed in the wrong NFL situation.

Will being a career coach /backup QB help Kub's
or cause him to have a soft spot for the wrong guy?

Unless Sanchez does something we've never seen him consistently do, and balls out like he's auditioning for his next team (which he is), Siemian is being given the first chance to also ball out and keep the rookie from seeing the field this year if he so desires.

Either way, this season promises to be another serious display of Denver's coaches making the most of whatever hand they are dealt and still yielding championship performance. We'll need a lot of luck to shine on this team and end an eery turnover trend that's been happening for over a year now.

If the Broncos are truly lucky enough to actually win another title- with butt fumble or a backup QB no less- this one will be for Kubiak the coach and for Kubiak, the clip board carrying, lifelong backup quarterback. 

And for Norris Weese.