Great defensive playcalling matters not when you have complete incompetency everywhere else.

It’s harsh, but true. Vic Fangio is going to have to fight to keep his job come January and it’ll be due to his poor choices at coordinator running the offense and special teams.

Everyone should point back to 2019 when Rich Scangarello found a way to make it easy for Drew Lock to get positive plays on offense helping the team finish 4-1 down the stretch. That finish gave us all hope for 2020, but Fangio decided to fire Scangarello to bring in a more experienced playcaller in Pat Shurmur.

At the time we were surprised he retained special teams coordinator Tom McMahon and fired Scangarello, but most of us were optimistic with that 4-1 finish and looked forward to 2020.

We all know what happened, Lock flopped leading the Broncos’ offense to the 28th scoring team and 32nd in giveaways. It is clear that Shurmur came into 2021 convinced the issue was the quarterback, not his scheme, so they brought in Teddy Bridgewater. Where are we now? 23rd in scoring and 11th in giveaways. Marginal improvement in scoring, which I would attribute to the scheme more than the quarterback and a massive improvement in giveaways, which I would attribute more to the quarterback than the scheme.

The point is, it wasn’t the quarterback really. It is the playcalling and scheme. There is just too much talent on that offense to continue seeing Noah Fant used as a sixth offensive lineman or running a quick two yard out like he’s some unathletic tight end out there. That’s just one common frustration. There are plenty of others and we’ve all talked about them on this site.

Then you have McMahon, who somehow continued to remain employed here year after year. His units have a knack for showing up at the worst possible moments.

Fangio’s loyalty is what is going to sink him here in Denver. They all have five more games to save their jobs. Frankly, the only thing I’m looking for that might have me pound the table to keep Fangio is consistency. Show us some consistent, competitive football down the stretch. I just don’t think we’re going to see that and the only reason Fangio is the blame is because he hired those who are.

Sorry for the early morning rant. On to Horse Tracks!

Horse Tracks

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