As the Broncos begin to look for a new head coach who will be accepting a job that comes with an annual Super-Bowl-or-bust mandate, one of the potential candidates is a guy who recently said he won’t be a candidate for any job.
Ravens offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak, before becoming coach of the Texans in 2006, served as offensive coordinator of the Broncos. As a player, he spent nine years with the Broncos and quarterback (now G.M.) John Elway. Vic Lombardi of CBS4 in Denver, appearing on Wednesday’s PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio, explained that Kubiak is a viable candidate.
If Kubiak alters his not-this-year stance and ultimately becomes coach of the Broncos, a couple of awkward wrinkles could emerge.
First, Kubiak’s offense requires periodic quarterback mobility, for example when one of the various rollout pass plays are called. Obviously, that wouldn’t necessarily work with the largely immobile Peyton Manning.
Second, in Houston Kubiak coached the one team that Manning was interested in joining three years ago, but that wasn’t interested in Manning. And Peyton has a long memory; he wanted to play for the Texans, the Texans weren’t interested, and Kubiak’s fingerprints reside somewhere on that decision.
Yes, the Texans and Kubiak opted to stick with Matt Schaub over Peyton Manning. Matt Schaub. Matt. Schaub.
Peyton would have to get past that one before working with Kubiak.
And Peyton will have input in the hire. Elway already has said so. For any other quarterback in any other circumstance, that would prompt plenty of criticism. The mere fact that Manning has that kind of power makes the job even more challenging that it otherwise would be — especially if Peyton enters 2015 with the mindset that this will be his last shot at trying to win that elusive second Super Bowl.