With 170 regular-season victories and two Super Bowl titles from 1995-2008, Mike Shanahan remains the most successful head coach in the history of the Broncos. Now, if Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan has his way, he’ll follow in his father’s footsteps and take over the Broncos’ sideline. The popular head coaching candidate is a possibility to fill several vacancies around the NFL, but his preference is to end up in Denver, league sources told Mike Garafolo of NFL Network.
It’s easy to understand Shanahan’s appeal to head coach-needy teams, as the 37-year-old has distinguished himself as one of the league’s premier offensive assistants in stints with the Texans, Redskins, Browns and Falcons. Atlanta won the NFC South and has a first-round playoff bye thanks largely to its Shanahan-coached offense, which ended the regular season atop the league in DVOA and scoring. The Falcons piled up 71 more points than second-place New Orleans and scored on more than half their offensive possessions.
Now, if Shanahan parlays his success as a coordinator into the Broncos’ head coaching job, he’ll do as his father did and team with John Elway. Of course, in Mike Shanahan’s heyday, Elway was the quarterback. He’s now the general manager of a franchise that has less appealing signal-calling options in Trevor Siemian and 2016 first-round pick Paxton Lynch. The younger Shanahan would have to get more from either Siemian or Lynch than Gary Kubiak did this season, though the team could look outside the organization for a more estalished starter in the coming months.
Regardless of its future direction under center, it’s clear that the Broncos need help on offense after lackluster showings in each of the past two seasons. Denver’s defense carried a below-average offense to a Super Bowl championship a year ago, but the team wasn’t able to replicate that in 2016 en route to nine wins and a third-place finish in the AFC West.
why would they hire Kyle Shangan
he has only been average offensive cordinator at
best ask Donovan Mc Nabb how effective he was in Washington he lonly lasted a year in Cleveland and didnt
really make a difference he is surrounded with elite players in Atlanta that is why their offense is so good
maybe Elway will micromanage him like he did with Fox and Kubiak
He also quit the Cleveland job because the front office tried to force decisions on him…like making Manziel the starter. its not like he was fired there.
He’s overrated. He has the benefit of having Matt Ryan as his QB Enough said
There were more than a few rumblings during the 2015 season that Shanahan’s offense was extremely complicated even for a veteran QB like Ryan (who many had considered to be very cerebral). There were also comments that seemed to suggest that in his first season in Atlanta that Shanahan attempted to utilize square pegs in round holes just to keep his offense the way he wanted instead of attempting to adjust it to be more suitable for the players that were allotted to him.
In any event the woes of 2015 are since past, and the regular season production of the offensive unit in Atlanta appears to had been a resounding success for 2016. I’m interested to see what is dialed up for the post season because with the current young defense in Atlanta I’m not confident they will go far in the playoffs.
As a long time Raider fan, I’d prefer not to see it, but Denver would do very well hiring Kyle, and keeping Wade as their DC.