Plenty of people cared deeply about Wednesday’s release of the schedule. Broncos coach Vic Fangio is not one of them.
“I had no reaction, really,” Fango told reporters on Thursday. “I’m only interested to see who we play the first two weeks because that’s who you’ll start planning on in the offseason. Other than that, the schedule at this point in the season is really kind of irrelevant. Where the schedule does matter sometimes is during the season you may play teams that might be missing players. That helps you. Or, you might be missing your own players. That hurts you. Or, you get a team that’s on a hot streak and you get them right in the middle of their hot streak, or you get them when they’re playing down a little bit. There’s no way to predict what’s a good schedule.”
Still, one of those first two opponents is the Bears, the team for which Fangio most recently worked.
“It’ll just be another game,” Fangio said. “I’m sure there’ll be a little bit of build up to it, but it will be special to go against those guys. Those guys were great players and great people. I loved being around them, but for those 60 minutes it’ll be another NFL game.”
The Broncos are hoping Fangio isn’t just another coach. In this era of young offensive minds, Fangio’s no-nonsense, old-school attitude could be exactly what Denver needs.