Denver Broncos: Teddy Bridgewater leads top 5 stars of week one
5. Vic Fangio, head coach
Vic Fangio has been criticized, and rightfully so in many instances, for game management in his first couple of seasons on the job as head coach.
Fangio has made curious use (or lack thereof) of his timeouts and he’s had some really uninspiring decisions of whether or not to go for key fourth-down plays in critical win or lose types of situations.
Fangio made the decision to go for three fourth-down plays in this game when not even fans sitting at home were calling for it. He went for a 4th-and-7 when he was in or very close to Brandon McManus field goal range, for crying out loud.
Do you think the third-year head coach is tired of losing? Not just in September, but Vic Fangio is obviously impatient when it comes to winning games and he’ll clearly do whatever it takes.
He may not make those same decisions all year, but I’ll tell you why I absolutely love the decisions he made.
Look no further than Teddy Bridgewater’s near-78 percent completion percentage.
What are the odds of converting any given play, whether it’s 2nd-and-7 or 4th-and-7, if your quarterback completes almost 78 percent of his passes? They’re going to be pretty high.
If your QB is dealing like that, why would you not go for it on 4th-and-7? 4th-and-2? 4th-and-3?
The numbers are in your favor at that point, and Fangio was obviously willing to trust Teddy Bridgwater in that situation to convert.
Would he have done the same for Drew Lock? Who knows? All I know is there’s a massive difference for this particular head coach when the QB is completing 60 percent or less of his throws and when the QB is completing nearly 78 percent of his throws.
Right?
It was good to see this from Fangio, who even admitted himself in the preseason that he might not go for these kinds of plays in a regular season game. You have to have confidence in your QB, but you also have to have confidence in your defense.
We saw Fangio put faith in both during a real game with real consequences after wondering in the preseason whether he would really have the stones to do it.
He proved in this one that he sure does.