Joseph bent on creating “championship habits”
NEW BRONCOS COACH BRINGS A NEW CULTURE ON AND OFF THE PLAYING FIELD BY NARROWING FOCUS
Hangingat Broncosin the headquartersback of the auditoriumis TRUTH in oversized block letters spread over a black-and-white aerial image of Sports Authority Field at Mile High. At the front of the room are smaller blue-and-orange motivators flanking the lectern. To the left: “IRON SHARPENS IRON, LIKE MAN SHARPENS MAN” And to the right: “BE THE MASTER OF YOUR ATTITUDE.”
Just outside the auditorium hangs the largest sign — CHAMPIONSHIP HABITS — in all caps and all blue, consuming an entire wall next to the locker room.
Vance Joseph was hired as the Broncos’ 16th head coach in January and in his less than eight months on the job, the team has undergone a huge change in culture — on the field and off. His fingerprints are everywhere, from the meeting rooms to the players’ T-shirts, to the staff and to the playbook, all bearing the lessons he has learned and lived by as a player and coach.
“It’s simple. I didn’t want a bunch of messages where they’re long mission statements,” said Joseph, 44. “I wanted just three or four things where we all could grab. It’s easy. ‘Championship habits.’ What’s that? It’s a lifestyle for us.”
It’s also a cultural fit that general manager John Elway sought when Gary Kubiak stepped down as coach at the end of last season. After winning Super Bowl 50 behind a historically elite defense, the post-peyton Manning era in Denver began with a playoffless dud and raised more questions than answers about the team’s future.
Joseph arrived as one of the former, being a first-year head coach with only one year of
experience as a coordinator. But in developing a staff brimming with play-callers, in implementing a new offensive scheme, in overseeing another quarterback competition and in slowly peeling back the layers of his vision, Joseph has since spun the uncertainty into hope and promise.
“When you talk about culture, we talk about what that locker room means, how important the players (are) and the way that the players are treated,” Elway said upon hiring Joseph. “The culture becomes something that is very important. This team is less than a year removed from a world championship. It has not been a year since we’ve won the Super Bowl, so it’s very important to find somebody that can fit the culture that we had and also has a philosophy of the cul- ture that we have in this building. Vance checks that box. He has that.”
Elway gets his man
On Jan. 12, Joseph was presented to a crowded room of reporters and Broncos players and coaches at Dove Valley as a “leader of men,” a distinguished label for a man who had never been a head coach. Elway wanted him two years earlier to be the Broncos’ defensive coordinator when Kubiak was hired as head coach. Cincinnati would not let him go. And Elway wanted Joseph again after Kubiak stepped down. He has the indescribable. The moxie. The “it” factor.
Some believe coaches are born with “it” and the wise ones use pieces of their past to apply to their future. Joseph has taken pieces from his first NFL boss in San Francisco, Mike Nolan — “He was a grinder,” Joseph said — and Nolan’s successor, former Bears star Mike Singletary.
“He was a great message guy,” Joseph said of Singletary. “He can motivate and move the room.”
He took pieces from Kubiak, for whom Joseph worked as Houston’s defensive backs coach from 2010-13.
“Good or bad, you couldn’t tell if he was stressed,” Joseph said. “That’s a (heck) of a trait for a head coach.”
He learned some coverage packages former Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, now the Minnesota Vikings’ head coach, that he brought with him to Denver. And he gained a “picture of longevity” and
John Elway wanted Vance Joseph two years earlier to be the Broncos’ defensive coordinator when Kubiak was hired as head coach. Cincinnati would not let him go.