Takeaways from John Elway, Vic Fangio press conference

A new culture has been set in Denver

One of the exciting things to come from this press conference was John Elway spending quite a bit of time talking about what he thought of Vic Fangio in his first year as a head coach. He commented on a lot of things, but the over-arching theme and what he was getting at is that the culture in Denver has changed for the better.

"“I think the one thing that we talked about last year when we hired Vic was the fact of his attention to detail. You know what, we took care of the little things. You look at what we did penalty-wise and the discipline that the team played with, I think all those things made drastic turn-arounds from where we’d been. I think that was a start, but that’s what Vic impressed with, his attention to detail. One of the great things he did, it’s hard to make the transition from the box to the sideline and be able to call a defense and be the playcaller from the box compared to the sideline. I think that was seamless. He did that tremendously. He was able to not lose anything of what he did as a defensive coordinator and continue to do what he did on the defensive side, but also be a tremendous head coach. The players believe in him. Again, when we talked about last year and talked to Vic before he was here, those are the things that stood out to me. That’s kind of what we needed. All those things came to fruition and where we are and the discipline that we play with. That’s only going to get better. He’s got one year under his belt. That’s going to continue to get better. On the base of what he’s put on our football team, they understand what those points are. That’s only going to continue to get better.” John Elway (via Broncos PR)"

The players believe in him. The discipline has been drastically turned around. They took care of the ‘little’ things.

Those all add up to culture being changed from what it was, and most importantly, the Broncos have a culture in their locker room where they feel like they can win again. Part of that has to do with the fact that Fangio and his staff had guys ready to play down the stretch when everyone in the league — including and maybe especially the Broncos — was struggling with injuries.

The players like Fangio. He may be a bit ‘old school’ but he’s done a great job with this team in short order and despite the Broncos lacking for depth, he and his staff did a great job of getting whoever was suiting up to believe they could go out and win a game.

The culture in Denver has been established with Fangio running things, Elway likes it, and it seems this team has higher expectations now.

When asked if the playoffs were a realistic expectation for 2020, John Elway simply replied, “Yes.”

Fangio, in his classic form of dry humor, said, “If we win enough games.”

For the first time in what feels like a long time, the Broncos seem to have things in place to be able to win enough games to make the playoffs next year. The foundation is set, and now it’s on Elway and Fangio to put the right pieces around the core that has been established.