Sorry Broncos fans, Vic Fangio says no to rookie haircuts

Vic Fangio has laid down another law.

No rookie haircuts.

“I just don’t think it’s right. I just don’t believe in hazing,” the coach said Tuesday after practice, admitting that some rookie traditions are still in place. “Guys are getting up in front of the team and doing a little skit every night. Maybe a rookie’s carrying somebody’s pads off the field, and so on, or bringing in the donuts or the breakfast, but nothing physical.”

I, for one, LOVE this.

I know, I know...you love seeing which rookie gets the Friar Tim Tebow cut every year.

But ... really with this tradition??? It’s so dumb.

It’s not that the “hazing” from the haircuts is bad or that some “initiation” to pro football isn’t fun - even for the rookies.

But why embarrass a guy in front of thousands of fans and on social media by messing with his personal look - and then justify it as team building? It reminds me of seventh-grade sleepovers where the first person to fall asleep gets profane pictures drawn all over his/her face. The act may be all in fun - but the purpose is to embarrass.

Emmanuel Sanders wasn’t particularly happy with the decision, but he gets it too.

“Oh, I am upset about that. He’s knows it,” Sanders said in jest. “But at the same time, I respect Vic. I love that guy. Just how he comes in the meetings and breaks down situational football. And how much he cares about his players, how he goes about coaching and everything. It’s awesome to see. So, if that’s how he wants it to go, that’s how it is. But at the end of the day it’s not about that. It’s about wins. And so that’s what we are trying to do around here.”

Exactly.

The reason I like Fangio ending the haircut tradition is because it goes with his entire message to this team - “we are going to be about football.”

Bradley Chubb highlighted just how the new head coach keeps doing that.

“Every team meeting in the afternoon, we start off with situational, whether it be our offense, defense, four-minute, two-minute, end of half, stuff like that,” Chubb said, noting they start every meeting that way before taking it to the field. “And I feel like that helps us out a lot because it gets us in that mindset of what to know to do in certain situations because at the end of the day, if we are up by three points and they need a field goal to win, we know what defense to run, what position we need to be in, keeping them in bounds and stuff like that.”

So Fangio may be considered “old school,” but that shouldn’t be confused with old-fashioned when it comes to the game.

In fact, as Jeffrey Essary pointed out on the radio Monday, as a coach Fangio has actually shown quite an adeptness at evolving with the game and developing defenses to change with ever-fluid offensive schemes.

Fangio is “old school” because he wants everything to be about solid game fundamentals - good tackling, good hand placement, good route running, good hitting, good...everything.

And he wants the team to bond over playing good football and winning, not over a silly f$&%^#@ haircut.