Over the weekend, the Denver Broncos interviewed Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan for their head coaching vacancy. Afterwards, he took to Twitter to praise the candidate.
We spent the morning with Kyle Shanahan in Atlanta. He's a very bright coach who's had a tremendous year and has a great future.
— John Elway (@johnelway) January 7, 2017
A complementary tweet is great, but it doesn’t really give any insight into how the interview actually went. For that, we went to our own Les Shapiro, who broached the subject with Eric Goodman during the Afternoon Drive on Mile High Sports Radio on Monday, taking us inside the room for the interview.
“I can tell you that there were five people in the Broncos contingent,” said Shapiro. “{Executive VP of Football Operations/GM] John Elway and [President/CEO] Joe Ellis did most of the talking. At the end, [Director of Player Personnel] Matt Russell did ask a few questions. The other two were [Vice President of Public Relations] Patrick Smyth and [Director of Team Administration] Mark Thewes. From what I understand, they didn’t say a whole lot. They did a lot of listening.”
Shanahan was asked many questions. He had several questions of his own. The topic did turn to the Broncos quarterback situation, and Kyle, who knows a thing or two about the position, gave a candid response.
“The indication I’m getting is Kyle told them that [Trevor] Siemian has some potential, but there are questions about his durability and there are questions as to whether or not he can take them to a Super Bowl,” explained Shapiro, “and Paxton [Lynch] just doesn’t look ready right now.”
The quarterback situation wasn’t the only tough subject they tackled in the interview either. Kyle’s father (and former Broncos coach) Mike Shanahan was also brought up, but perhaps not by who you would have expected.
“I can also tell you that the subject of Kyle’s father was not brought up by the Broncos,” reported Shapiro. “However, Kyle brought it up and Joe Ellis, the president of the club, very, very quickly said ‘I don’t have a problem with Mike Shanahan being back in this building.’”
You can catch the full segment with Shapiro and Goodman, including a little roleplaying, in the podcast below…
https://soundcloud.com/milehighsports/1-9-17-an-in-depth-look-at-what-really-happened-during-kyle-shanahans-interview-with-les-shapiro
Catch Afternoon Drive with Goodman and Shapiro every weekday from 4p-6p on Mile High Sports AM 1340 | FM 104.7 or stream live any time for the best local coverage of Colorado sports from Denver’s biggest sports talk lineup.
