3. Make sweeping changes on offense
The Denver Broncos obviously brought in Pat Shurmur and quarterbacks coach Mike Shula to give Drew Lock the best coaching they felt was available at the time.
They chose the veteran coaches over Rich Scangarello and TC McCartney, but Lock has struggled badly at times, looking like a rookie in his 12th NFL start. That’s not exactly what the Broncos wanted to see from their new offensive brain trust.
There is value in continuity in the NFL. We’ve seen it with the Raiders and Derek Carr/Jon Gruden’s system. We’ve seen it in Buffalo with Josh Allen/Brian Daboll’s system. We’ve seen it over about 1.5 seasons with Kyler Murray/Kliff Kingsbury in Arizona.
There are plenty of other examples, but those are all examples of teams that have bought into a long-term plan and are now among the league’s top-scoring offenses in 2020, and there are others.
But if you don’t like what you see at all in 2020, sweeping changes could be made. At this point, it’s hard to argue that Lock has been worse than Shurmur, or that Shurmur has been worse than Lock. Both seem to have issues right now and the offense is just not executing well.
If the Broncos go for another quarterback, they should probably first find a different offensive coordinator. If they go for a different offensive coordinator, should they force Drew Lock to change offenses yet again?
The team needs to build an offense around a quarterback, not find a quarterback to fit an offense. The former has been the formula for success in today’s NFL, at least in helping players transition early on.
The question here becomes — if the Broncos are going to make sweeping changes offensively, is the best option going to come from an offensive coordinator change or would they have to hire someone as their head coach to get the guy who could really make a difference in this regard?
This is the tough aspect of continually changing things on your coaching staff and at key positions like quarterback on the roster.