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Good morning, Broncos Country!
Broncos head coach Vance Joseph gave a short Q&A with Broncos employees on Thursday, highlighting what he’s doing to prepare for the team coming back in a few short weeks.
While John Elway will take the lead on free agency and the draft, Joseph will be cultivating the thing he’s known for and the thing he was brought in for - fixing the culture.
"I want our football team to get back to just being hardworking, being engaged every day and being good guys," Joseph said. "That's important also. Being a good teammate is important to me."
Joseph is looking for a team culture that’s about service, trust and transparency.
"And that's important in football. Culture plus talent, that wins games," the new head coach said.
Obviously without talent, there’s no winning - but neither is there winning without culture, Joseph added.
"Talent without culture, you can't win in this league. It's vice-versa," he said. "I think culture is a big key to winning football games in the NFL, having everyone on the same page."
That view may give a few hints as to any players Joseph may - or may not - want to bring in. Some free agents such as Miami Dolphins DT Earl Mitchell, who played in Joseph’s defense and played for Bill Kollar in Houston, Bengals’ LT Andrew Whitworth, Dallas Cowboys’ G Donald Leary, and even Patriots’ DT Alan Branch may intrigue Joseph - or may not.
Left tackle market is going to be flooded with a bunch of declining vets. Big position of need so interesting to see how salaries shake out
— Jason_OTC (@Jason_OTC) February 16, 2017
Joseph believes the No. 1 priority is to retain your guys and then look at who else is out there.
"Free agency's different. You're going to go out and sign a guy you don't know. That's tough. You didn’t draft him, you don't know his background. That part of the game, you've got to be careful about," he said, adding that the first choice is always the guy whose work ethic, attitude, talent is a known quantity. "You bring a stranger to your building, you have no idea who the guy is. He may be a great player, but he may be a problem day-to-day. So you've got to be careful of not retaining your own first before you look outside of your building."
But obviously, going outside for an OL and DL guy in free agency seems like a no-brainer when the current guy on the team just isn’t cutting it (pun intended).
Noting cap space and nine draft picks, Joseph will be looking to follow John Elway’s lead in both.
"Every year, he’s made a splash with free agency. And he hasn't missed, so that’s going to be John's lead...hopefully we can get better before the draft," Joseph said.
"We can't waste a day." - Coach Joseph, who spent THIS day learning about our personnel at @SportsAuthField
— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) February 15, 2017
's " https://t.co/QJfo4uI4M3 pic.twitter.com/7gQqKQwLDT
But the new head coach has also definitely highlighted coaching as a bigly part of the team getting better.
And part of that will come down to offensive coordinator Mike McCoy and his quarterbacks coach Bill Musgrave working well together. Both have had bigger positions, and both like calling plays.
Could that cause tension? Perhaps...and Joseph hopes it does.
"That tension is always good tension," he told ESPN. "But with those personalities, it won't be an issue ... [Musgrave] called plays for a playoff team a year ago and he's been great with young quarterbacks...he kind of broke [McCoy] into the business, so having that relationship between those two guys, it's going to be awesome for us to have all those minds come into one game plan each week."
Horse Tracks - docllv's pick of the day
Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark | The Players' Tribune
In February, as a 21-year-old starting goalie, I’d backstopped Canada to an Olympic silver medal. In June, as the third goalie for the New York Rangers, I’d drunk out of the Stanley Cup. I have a girlfriend at home. I have a turbo sports car parked behind me. I have the horizon in front of me — so much horizon — and as I look out past the end of it, I am completely calm. I’m going to see how fast this sports car can go … and drive it right off this cliff.
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