There was some chatter around the league at the end of the 2017 season that the Broncos were considering firing head coach Vance Joseph after his first year on the job, but General Manager John Elway opted to bring Joseph back in hopes of better results in 2018.
One of the reasons Elway cited for bringing Joseph back is that he’ll have learned from what went wrong during a season that saw the Broncos start 3-1 before losing eight straight games. Joseph appears to agree, calling 2017 a “teaching moment for me” and explaining that the biggest lesson was that he has to act faster to stop bad results from piling up.
“You’re going to have adversity in this league,” Joseph said, via Nicki Jhabvala of The Athletic. “Every team last year had adversity -- even Philly, who won a championship. They lost their tackle, they lost their quarterback, so it’s my job and the coaches’ jobs to fix it quicker. That [is something] we have to do in this league. It’s going to be hard times. It’s not going to be all roses next year. Absolutely, it’s going to be hard times. It’s my job to fix it quicker.”
The Broncos will also be working to keep the hard times from developing in the first place with Joseph pointing to plans to “incorporate a situational period in practice so we can be a smart football team” as part of the plan. Stability at quarterback with Case Keenum and other roster changes are also seen as avenues to the improvement that may be necessary for Joseph to see a third season with the team.