Denver Broncos: Why Vic Fangio absolutely has to get a win over Jets
Thursday Night Football in Week 4 features a battle between two winless teams.
The Denver Broncos did not expect to start the season 0-3 for the second year in a row and now, on a short week and down to their third-string quarterback, find themselves up against a team just as hungry for its first taste of victory.
The New York Jets are 0-3 and have looked atrocious in the process. Their head coach, former Broncos offensive coordinator Adam Gase, is already hearing the rumors that he is on the hot seat.
But for Broncos head coach Vic Fangio, that seat is starting to warm up as well and if he loses on Thursday night, that seat could be boiling hot. And it should be.
The Jets are a really, really bad football team. You can make the case that they are the worst team in the league. However, the Broncos have not been much better.
But the Broncos should be the much better team. But what happens if they lose this game?
Fangio will have started 0-4 in consecutive seasons. There isn’t a long list of coaches that can say that, at least not successful ones.
But all the built-in excuses are there for Fangio. He’s starting Brett Rypien at quarterback during a short week. He is already dealing with a slew of injuries. That is what his sympathizers will point to.
But at some point, you have to be able to overcome things like injuries and playing shorthanded. You have to be able to do that against a team like the Jets who are averaging 12.3 points per game and have been outscored by an average of 19 points in three games this season.
They can’t do much of anything right. They can’t score points, they can’t play defense and they have managed to destroy the beginning of Sam Darnold‘s young career. In other words, every team should beat the Jets this year, even those that are shorthanded.
But can you already hear the excuses if they beat the Broncos on Thursday? I can.
“It was a short week combined with an east coast road trip”.
“Rypien was making his first career start and had little time to prepare”.
“Have you seen all the players Fangio has lost due to injury”?
All of that will be said, but if you have watched the Jets play this year, none of it should matter. Even if the Broncos have all these injuries and are moving ahead with Rypien, they should beat the Jets, even if it’s not a convincing win.
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Let’s be honest. At this particular point, the Broncos are not a very good football team. But they should still beat the Jets. If they don’t, questions should be asked.
Sure, there is an argument to be made that a team should give a coach an extended chance to prove he is or is not the right guy. That argument was used with Vance Joseph and he was given a second year with the team despite absolutely deserving to be fired after his first year.
What has Fangio done to make you feel he is any better than Joseph? He might be, but he certainly hasn’t shown it.
Good coaches overcome things like injuries. It is up to the organization to make sure there is solid depth on the roster to move forward with.
The Broncos have to win this game. More importantly, Fangio has to win this game. If not, any questions regarding him or anyone in the front office are fair to be asked.
You can only listen to excuses for so long.