This is officially Gary Kubiak‘s team
From the moment Gary Kubiak got hired until the moment Peyton Manning retired, people were asking how a 39-year-old shotgun quarterback was going to play in Kubiak’s under-center, play-action offense. And as we all now know, he wouldn’t. While there may have been vague visions of a bootleg from time to time (often ending in a self-sack), the Broncos were running a Manning offense last year, plain and simple.
Moving forward, though, the Broncos are going full-Kubiak, and that’s really, really good news.
In Kubiak’s 20 years of coaching, both as a coordinator and head coach, his offenses have only ranked lower than last year’s 19th-placed effort (in terms of points per game) twice: his first and final years in Houston. Otherwise, he’s had a top 10 offense 14 times in his career (70% of the time), including 10 top-five rushing offenses
So, he’s a good coach, and he knows what he’s doing.
Last season, based on Kubiak’s standards, was an extremely disappointing year. The Broncos finished with the 19th-ranked scoring offense, the 17th-ranked rushing offense and the 14th-ranked passing offense.
This offseason, Elway has done everything in his power to construct an offense around Kubiak’s wishes, and he’s done a fantastic job. We’ve already talked about the running backs, but the additions of Russell Okung, Donald Stephenson and Connor McGovern across the line are huge.
And with Paxton Lynch, the Broncos got a guy who fits the Kubiak quarterback to a T: big, athletic and strong.
Oh, and to cap it all off, they drafted a fullback! A fullback!
