Denver Broncos: Retaining Vic Fangio past 2020 would be the right move

The Denver Broncos keeping Vic Fangio at head coach would be the right move.

Since the Denver Broncos won Super Bowl 50, the team has endured a lot of turnover. That includes the head coach spot too. Denver won that Super Bowl with Gary Kubiak at the helm. Since then, they’ve had Vance Joseph and now Vic Fangio.

While that’s not a lot of names, the team has had six head coaches since the firing of long-time head coach Mike Shanahan.

It’s time to keep a coach longer. It appears that the team is going to give Fangio at least another year despite two consecutive losing seasons to start his tenure as a head coach.

Per Adam Schefter, as well as others through the weeks, the Broncos are going to keep Fangio around in 2021.

This is the right move for several reasons.

1. Restarting at Head Coach will get the team nowhere.

Sure, there have been some questionable things that have happened with the Broncos this season. But is head coach really the issue?

It’s a young team that needs as many pieces to stick together as possible. Breaking up the band would ruin any sort of chemistry or rhythm they have going.

2. Injuries have been a huge issue.

It’s hard for me to buy “injuries have ruined the team” as an excuse. It’s just a fact.

There are a ton of players on this team that will go back to being a backup in 2021, including whoever has started at right tackle, left outside linebacker (Von Miller injury), several cornerback spots (A.J. Bouye suspension, injuries to Bryce Callahan, Kevin Tolliver and Essang Bassey), wide receiver (Courtland Sutton with an ACL tear), and tight end (Jake Butt, Albert Okwuegbunam), and the defensive line (Mike Purcell, Jurrell Casey, and Shelby Harris for a number of weeks (COVID).

It’s important to see what this team can be as a full unit. Well, as full as it can be at a given time. Hopefully we can see that sort of thing at least early on in the 2021 season.

The point of this though, is that injuries are not a head coach’s fault.

3. This team isn’t that far off.

Sure, the Chiefs control the AFC West. They likely will for a number of years.

But that doesn’t mean the Broncos can’t sneak into the playoffs at some point with Fangio.

The league is changing the playoff format as of this season, allowing a seventh team in each conference to sneak into the playoffs as a Wild Card team.

That means that the Broncos have a better shot. In order to do so, they would have to have either a better record than any other potential playoff teams, or a tiebreaker between the other potential Wild Card teams.

Another possibility is that the league is considering adding a 17th game to the regular season schedule starting in 2021. This would give Fangio another opportunity to prove himself — if that’s really what you want to call his situation at this point.