Vance Joseph hopes Bill Musgrave will grow passing game and ‘not be so scattered’ in passing concepts

The Denver Broncos dismissed Mike McCoy as offensive coordinator on Monday and Vance Joseph immediately began to open up on what has plagued the teams offense this season.

Essentially, McCoy was putting too much pressure on the quarterbacks to dissect and understand complex passing concepts that neither Trevor Siemian nor Brock Osweiler was able to do with any sort of consistency. That ultimately led to his decision to relieve McCoy and elevate Bill Musgrave to call the plays on offense.

“Mike McCoy was the coordinator,” Joseph said of the differences between McCoy and Musgrave. “It was Mike McCoy’s system. Billy Musgrave has coached a long time in this league, but he was the quarterback coach. That wasn’t his responsibility, it was Mike’s. Moving to Billy, I think we’re going to have a chance to have a more efficient pass game with simply simplifying the concepts and helping our quarterbacks by having a cleaner progression on where to go with the ball. That’s why it was made. I’m looking forward to Bill having a chance to put his touch on offense, having the chance to watch our pass game grow a little bit and not be so scattered in our passing concepts.”

This change is all about production. The Broncos offense was not producing under McCoy and Joseph felt the cause was the complexity of the passing game and the stress it was putting on the young, experienced Siemian.

With Musgrave, they will be looking to implement more college concepts into the offense. The move to Paxton Lynch to start in Week 12 against the Oakland Raiders proves that they are hoping these changes will benefit him the most and help generate some points.

“It has to,” Joseph said on whether the scheme will change. “It’s a different coordinator. Again, when you’re talking about an NFL offense, terminology is the key. The concepts—everyone runs similar concepts, but the terminology of what to call things is where the problems kind of come in. We have to figure out a way to keep the terminology the same, but kind of simplify the concepts and get to a more efficient brand of a passing game. That’s what I want.”

Efficiency is a word Joseph repeated over and over again after firing McCoy. It’s also a word that none of us would ever use to describe the Broncos offense in 2017 - or 2016 - or 2015. This is a multi-year problem Joseph is trying to solve and it might not be fair to put all of the blame on him a mere 10 months into the job.

The important thing now - and the thing John Elway will likely be evaluating - is how does this team finish the 2017 season? Many fans are all about embracing for the tank, but no one in Dove Valley is in that mindset and we shouldn’t want them to be.