He’s the new Broncos center because of an injury, but Dan Koppen now has the distinction of snapping to two of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game.
He’s giving it to Peyton Manning now, and will see his old quarterback Tom Brady this weekend in his old home. Koppen started 134 total games for the Patriots over nine years, and will go back there Sunday.
“I’m sure it’s going to be fun. A little bit different, a little bit different view,” Koppen said, via Lindsay Jones of the Denver Post.
After a broken leg landed him on IR in New England last year, he was released in final cuts, and landed a backup job with the Broncos, who happened to have signed that other quarterback who has done a thing or two. He became the starter when J.D. Walton suffered a broken ankle Sunday.
“I’m fortunate to be here, and be around these guys, but it is unfortunate that it’s this way. You don’t want to see anybody get hurt,” Koppen said. I’ve just got to go out there and do my job, whatever the coaches ask of me, and do that.”
While Koppen was as low-key as you’d expect a former Patriot to be, he did say there were similarities between the offenses, and Brady and Manning’s ability to run the kind of no-huddle that makes communication between center and quarterback crucial.
“I’m pretty familiar with it. It’s along the same lines of what we ran in New England, which helps, just different verbiage and all that stuff,” Koppen said.
Understated, yes. But he also has a unique perspective on two of the best sets of hands to throw a football.