Former Broncos TE Joel Dreessen Comments on Gary Kubiak

The last time we saw Joel Dreessen on the football field with the Denver Broncos, it was during one of the most forgettable Super Bowls in the history of a team that has plenty. Dreessen was released by the Broncos, who tried keeping him around as long as they possibly could but injuries were too much and Dreessen couldn’t give the Broncos what he could when they signed him in 2012, and he was out of football in 2014 all together.

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But Dreessen, a former Colorado State football star, has stuck around the Colorado area and has an obvious connection in the Denver Broncos’ head coaching search as it pertains to Gary Kubiak, his former head coach with the Houston Texans and the presumed leading candidate to be the next one for the Broncos. Dreessen said some really interesting things to the Denver Post in regards to Kubiak and former Broncos head coach John Fox.

“Saturday nights, when coach Gary Kubiak would speak, everybody in that room would get chills on their arms,” Dreessen said on The Sports Show. “We’d all go to team snack just all fired up ready to run through a brick wall for the guy. There’s an element of ho-hum to John Fox, where Saturday nights you walk out of there like, ‘All right, it’s another ball-game.’ You want to bleed for a guy like Gary Kubiak. Not that I didn’t want to bleed for John Fox, but there’s a different way they go about speaking to the team. I love Gary Kubiak. I’d take a bullet for that man. I think he’s a phenomenal football coach. I do.”

“He would never let his team step on the field that uninspired, especially when it mattered most.”

Dreessen also had some really interesting comments about the pace at which the two coaches led practice.

“I always enjoyed John Fox,” Dreessen said. “I did enjoy him as a head ball coach. There were some things that — like I said, I spent five years with Gary Kubiak — there are some distinct differences that stand out to me to this day — like speed of practice being one of them.”

“With Coach Kubiak, the practice was as fast as can be. We were moving from drill to drill. If you were walking, you were wrong. You were getting yelled at.”

“He would never let his team step on the field that uninspired, especially when it mattered most. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

The comments by Dreessen reflect what many believed to be true about Fox, in that there’s simply not a lot of urgency in practices and game preparations. As Dreessen pointed out, things were drawn out and not always pointed. The Broncos were probably the best roster in the NFL the last two, perhaps even three years, and yet they couldn’t put it together when it came to winning the biggest games.

Don’t get me wrong, Fox led the Broncos for some really big wins and a phenomenal record overall as well as an almost spotless record against divisional opponents, but when the Broncos needed to win games, Fox’s record wasn’t anything that Bears fans would be overly thrilled about.

In short, the differences that John Elway pointed out of getting to the next level that he had with Fox were likely founded in Fox’s approach to practices and game planning. You hear about Pete Carroll in Seattle holding an entire day of practice dedicated to turnovers, and it’s no wonder that team has such great chemistry. It’s not just that one thing, but all the little things in how you approach a game.

These comments by Dreessen shed light on a situation that so many people knew to be true but you probably won’t hear from many players.