Should the Broncos bring back Gary Kubiak and Wade Phillips?
In all seriousness, the Broncos’ head coaching search has been a disaster looking from the outside. Should the organization bring back some old faces? I am 100% serious when I say this, as ridiculous as it might sound.
It’s clear that the team’s head coaching search has not gone the way they had hoped. Right now, they appear to be stuck in the mud. They are trapped in a division with Justin Herbert and Patrick Mahomes, and depending on who you ask, have a washed-up quarterback for the next 2-3 years, at minimum.
They have appeared to miss out on their top targets in Jim Harbaugh, Dan Quinn, and DeMeco Ryans. They also have not requested to interview any new faces given what has transpired with their search, which is odd.
Maybe the Walmart gang who is overseeing this search simply was not prepared like you’d want them to be. Maybe they anticipated this going much differently than it has. I think right now, the Broncos just need some mature, veteran, and clear direction for their team.
It’s clear to me that whoever they end up hiring might not have been in their top five choices, so why not throw it back to the last time the team was good?
Yes, that’s right. Why not see what Gary Kubiak and Wade Phillips are up to?
Sure, this won’t happen, but hear me out…
Kubiak was obviously hired by the Broncos back in 2015 and led the team to their third Super Bowl win. In 2016, the year after Peyton Manning retired, the team went 9-7. Kubiak stepped down after that year for health reasons. He is 61 years old.
Wade Phillips was the team’s defensive coordinator from 2015-2016, which was Kubiak’s tenure. He was in the NFL as recently as 2019 and is currently the head coach and general manager of the Houston Roughnecks of the XFL, so even at 75, Phillips is still very much immersed in coaching.
Both men are veteran coaches who have succeeded at the highest levels of what they do. They’d likely bring a disciplined, perhaps old-school approach to the Broncos. Justin Simmons and Brandon McManus were both on the team in 2016 when Kubiak’s regime was still in power.
I’m sure they’d speak highly of how the team was run and the performance during this time. It’s obviously very much unknown whether or not either man would have an interest in coaching the Broncos again, but it’s clear that this search is going nowhere and the team needs to seriously exhaust every single option they have.