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Nathaniel Hackett should give up playcalling to focus on game management

The Denver Broncos lack leadership on the sideline and it has to be Nathaniel Hackett to takes on that role.


First off, I am glad the Denver Broncos won their home opener. An ugly win is still a win and winning is hard in the NFL. That said... Houston, we have a problem.

Through two weeks we have witnessed some of the worst coaching in Denver Broncos history. This doesn’t feel like a “work the kinks out” kind of situation either. We’ve seen that with new coaching staffs before. No, this is a systemic management problem that may not even be fixable during this season.

The only guy who could fix it is Head Coach Nathaniel Hackett, but the answer is likely one he won’t want to hear. He likely needs to give up playcalling and focus on game management. I am convinced both areas are suffering with Hackett calling the shots there. The problem is that none of his coaches have experience in their new positions this season, including himself. That means Hackett needs to be more of a direct manager in games and less focused on calling every single play.

Let’s take a tweet recap of all of the times people were scratching their heads or shaking their fists and I’ll be sure to limit the number I include here. There were just too many this game.

This is just a snapshot of the game today. A mix of poor playcalling in situations and poor game management overall. Nathaniel Hackett might be a great playcaller and a great head coach, but he is clearly terrible doing both right now.

A head coaches most important job is running the whole team, not just one side of the ball. It is his job to make sure things get done that need to get done. Like having a kick returner on the field for a punt or making a critical decision on the field to either go for it or kick a field goal, without having to burn timeouts. These tasks are not being done well by his inexperienced staff, so it is on the head coach to, well, coach.

All of this adds up to something that I believe Hackett won’t be able to fix in a week or even in a month. Gaining experience takes times and Denver is out of time as they head into a prime time matchup in Week 3 against a much better football team in the San Francisco 49ers.

So my advice to Hackett would be to give playcalling duties over to his offensive coordinator, Justin Outten, and start managing the game as a head coach should. That might be the quickest “fix” he could implement to help mitigate all of these in-game issues that have frustrated us.

The NFL is the most competitive league in existence. These miscues will begin to cost games. Heck, I would argue it has already cost them a game in Week 1. As a fan, I’m more than concerned at this point and I don’t think these issues will get resolved overnight.

I’m take a strong position here, but what do you think about this? I am open to ideas here. Something clearly has to be done and soon. Let’s debate in the comments section below.