ENGLEWOOD — Mike McCoy understands you have questions and understands you want answers to them, but he can’t provide them. Not yet. Not next week. Not next month.
But what Denver’s new offensive coordinator can tell you is this: The Broncos will change. The quarterback competition that launched last March will reopen, with a clean slate and no set finish line. The system will be tweaked, and it will be tweaked again, week after week after week throughout the season.
After two years of playing second fiddle to the Broncos’ elite defense, the offense is getting a face-lift.
“The past nine days in the office, we’ve been going over the playbook,” McCoy said Tuesday in his introductory news conference at Broncos headquarters. “We’re going to build an offense around our players. We’re going to do what our players do best. It’s going to change from week to week. We’re going to do whatever we think we need to do to win and score as many points as we can on a weekly basis.”
McCoy, previously the Broncos’ offensive coordinator from 2009-12, is back in Denver and reunited with fellow former Bronco Bill Musgrave to revamp an offense that lagged the last two seasons. Their tasks are tall and evolving, with an emphasis on developing their two young quarterbacks, Trevor Siemian and Paxton Lynch.
Last year, Siemian surprised by handily winning the starting job left vacant by Peyton Manning and Brock Osweiler. Siemian started 14 games, had a trio of 300-yard passing games and a total of 3,401 yards, 18 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, with an 84.6 passer rating. He also took 31 sacks and suffered multiple injuries, his inexperience and the Broncos’ porous offensive line taking a physical toll.
Last year, Lynch experienced a drastic shift from the spread offense at the University of Memphis to the zone-blocking, West Coast system under former head coach Gary Kubiak. The playbook was bigger and more complex. The game was faster. The terminology was different. Lynch’s rookie season was one of learning, and the curve was steep.
This offseason will feature more of the same as the slate clears and Siemian and Lynch engage in another battle for the starting job. The addition of a third quarterback for depth and competition remains a possibility — everything remains a possibility for the Broncos — but the commitment is clear.
For now, new coach Vance Joseph is focused on his two young quarterbacks and their impending competition.
“Absolutely, that’s my vision and that’s what we’re going to go for,” Joseph said. He added: “They’re both smart guys, obviously different with different skill sets. But I’m comfortable with those kids. They’re good football players and we have to build around those guys.” McCoy added more of the same.
“I’m happy with the two guys we have,” he said. “That’s our No. 1 focus right now, is to get the two quarterbacks we have on our roster ready to play.”
In the coming weeks and months, the Broncos’ new staff will huddle together for evaluations — of draft prospects, of free-agent targets, of their current players to determine the roster’s strengths and weaknesses and to lay a foundation for change.
Some of those changes might resemble the scheme McCoy ran in his first stint in Denver and in his four years as head coach in San Diego. The offensive line, a group McCoy said holds the keys to Denver’s offensive improvement — “Our offense will go as far as our offensive line will take them,” he said — might toggle between power and zone blocking.
The repeated catchwords: “flexibility” and “player-friendly.”
“It’s our job in the next couple of months to figure out what each one of those guys do and take advantage of their strengths and minimize their weaknesses,” McCoy said, referring to the quarterbacks. “It’s going to change, but they’re going to start off on the same page in the playbook and we’ll figure that out as time goes and figure out what these two players do and what they like.”
The goal is to hit both spectrums, to provide both continuity and needed change; to provide comfort and enough discomfort to challenge and push Siemian and Lynch and those around them.
As a divisional rival last season while coaching the San Diego Chargers, McCoy had multiple chances to see Siemian in action. McCoy also had four years to build his own experiences as a head coach, a time he said made him a better coordinator and eager to get back to play-calling.
“I’ve got a burning desire to call plays, and I did not do that the last four years,” he said. “That was hard. … But for four years, you kind of miss that, so I’m excited to get back into calling plays.”
The new game plan, while loosely formulated now, calls for changes all around, from the sideline to the trenches.
The unknowns about the 2017 Broncos will remain unanswered for a little longer, but in the coming weeks, the details will be penciled in — only to be erased and revised again.
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