The Denver Broncos have hired former Giants and Browns head coach Pat Shurmur to be their next offensive coordinator.
The Denver Broncos fired offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello on Sunday after just one season. The team has already found Scangarello’s replacement in Pat Shurmur.
Shortly after the news of Scangarello’s firing, rumors of his replacement appeared.
The former Giants and Browns head coach is getting the gig.
Shurmur spent the last two seasons as the head coach of the New York Giants and the two years before that with the Minnesota Vikings as their tight ends coach and interim head coach (2016) and then their offensive coordinator (2017).
Shurmur has had the chance to coach and have success with a number of players, most notably Giants quarterback Daniel Jones this last season and former Vikings quarterback Case Keenum in 2017 when Keenum had a spectacular year, throwing for 3,547 yards, 22 touchdowns, and just 7 interceptions.
Now he gets to coach Drew Lock, who is heading into his second season in the league and first season as the primary starting quarterback for the Broncos. Lock has seen a ton of change in offensive coordinators during his playing career dating back to his college days. In six seasons, he has gone through five offensive coordinators.
As the offensive coordinator of the Vikings in 2017, he helped spread the ball around to Minnesota’s receivers—Adam Thielen caught 91 passes for 1,276 yards and our touchdowns, while Stefon Diggs caught 64 passes for 849 yards and eight touchdowns. Tight end Kyle Rudolph finished that year with eight touchdowns as well.
It will be interesting to see how the offense changes in 2020, as Drew Lock gets more experience with his pass-catchers and running game. Courtland Sutton finished the year with 1,112 receiving yards and six touchdowns. Tight end Noah Fant is another exciting player to watch in the new offense under Shurmur.
In the running game, Minnesota used three running backs a good amount—Latavius Murray (842 yards), Jerick McKinnon (570) and Dalvin Cook (354). He also worked with Saquon Barkley in New York.
Now Shurmur has Phillip Lindsay and Royce Freeman to use in the backfield. It would not surprise me if the Broncos go after another running back in free agency or the 2020 draft.
The switch from Scangarello to Shurmur was very sudden. It was previously announced that the Broncos were retaining all of their coordinators but this just goes to show that nothing is certain to stay the same in the NFL no matter what teams say.