Denver Post Broncos writer Parker Gabriel posts his Broncos Mailbag weekly during the season and periodically during the offseason. Click here to submit a question.
Why is Davis Webb so well-regarded? I’m not trying to knock the guy, but he’s only been a quarterbacks coach for a year and it’s not like we were super amazing in the passing game. It just sounds like he’s the second coming of Adam Gase in terms of QB coaches.
— Mike, Denver
Hey Mike, totally fair question. I wrote a story over the weekend about Webb and the critical role he’s playing as Denver’s 29-year-old quarterbacks coach in a group full of guys that are either inexperienced (Bo Nix), have a lot to prove (Zach Wilson) or a combination of both (Jarrett Stidham).
It’s maybe not a perfect comparison, but Webb’s kind of like a big-time prospect in baseball or an early draft pick in football, right? He’s young, he’s got tools that teams around the NFL seem to covet and he’s in a job coaching quarterbacks that typically is where teams look when they’re eyeing coordinators, head coaching candidates, etc.
Webb gets rave reviews from former teammates and coaches alike for his ability to teach. He did it even as a player with his “Dragon reports.” But he did more than that, too. He told me a story last summer about how the Bills got Stefon Diggs during the COVID-19 pandemic and Diggs had to learn the offense.
“There were no coaches allowed so I was meeting with ‘Stef’ an hour (at a time), three days at a week,” Webb said last year. “No one asked me to do that. They said, ‘We got Stefon Diggs.’ I said, ‘I got it. I’ll get him up to speed.’ We were in year three or four of that system so he was playing catch-up, but boy he played catch-up quick.”
Webb has played in a bunch of different styles of offenseand has figured out how to be fluent across each of them. Teaching is about relating to both the subject matter and the student and then finding the path that allows the student to connect it all. Webb apparently has a knack for it.
That does not mean he’s destined to be the next Kyle Shanahan or that he’s a sure-fire upper-echelon NFL position coach. The Broncos certainly had middling quarterback play last year from Wilson and Stidham and some of that falls on the quarterback coach, for sure.
But it says something about Webb that Buffalo tried to hire him as its quarterbacks coach even before the 2022 season when Webb was 27 years old and still playing.
This is part of what makes him a compelling figure in the Broncos’ story this year and beyond. They absolutely have to make strides in the quarterback department and they’re tasking a guy who’s undeniably really bright and well thought-of but also undeniably very young and inexperienced as an actual coach to help lead that charge.
Like last year, there are a lot of years of experience around Webb and the quarterbacks in Payton himself, coordinator Joe Lombardi, passing game coordinator John Morton and now senior offensive assistant Pete Carmichael Jr., too.
Have the Broncos announced when they’re going to wear their throwback jerseys this season?
— Phillip B., Aurora
Hey Phillip, nothing official yet that I’m aware of, though we can put a pretty good guess on at least one date.
The Broncos’ alumni weekend is Oct. 6 for a home game against Las Vegas. Among those being honored are, of course, 2024 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Randy Gradishar and 2024 Broncos Ring of Fame electees Steve Foley and Riley Odoms. They all played on the 1977 team. The Broncos throwback uniform is a near exact replica of the 1977 uniform. In the design process, club officials picked that year because of its significance — they broke through and made the franchise’s first Super Bowl that season — and its place in the middle of the Orange Crush era. The throwback uniforms are designed to be just like that year’s model down to the patterns of the stripes in the socks.
I’m not a math major, but that seems like one plus one equals two.
The thing to keep in mind is that teams can wear alternates and throwbacks up to three times in a season. So if we figure that Oct. 6 is a good bet for the retro uniform, then there are two other times during the course of the season the Broncos can either wear that throwback or their navy alternate uniform.
Ja’Quan McMillian balled out last year. The dude just makes plays. He’s one of the best nickels in the league. We have to lock him into a long-term deal.
— Marvin Lee, Colorado Springs
He sure did, Marvin. One of the most impressive developments of the season, obviously, was McMillian going from barely making the roster to playing like one of the league’s top playmaking nickels in a few weeks’ time.
Nickel has become a premium position, too, in modern defenses. There aren’t many guys who can stay stout in the run game and make plays in the backfield while also covering some combination of backs, receivers and tight ends.
McMillian’s going to have to keep proving it, obviously, but he’s playing his way toward a lot of money. It just is possible it won’t come for a while still.
At present, he’s under contract for 2024 at $915,000 base salary and then his contract expires. If I have my Collective Bargaining Agreement jargon translator working properly today, McMillian would then be in line to be an exclusive rights free agent since he’d have two credited seasons (2023 and 2024) to his name. He was on the practice squad for 17 of 18 weeks as a rookie in 2022 before starting Week 18, which isn’t enough to get a credited season.
ERFAs can be re-signed at the league minimum by their current team and other teams don’t get a chance to get into the mix.
So McMillian’s not likely going anywhere anytime soon. If he keeps playing at his 2023 level, though, you’re exactly right, Marvin. He’ll be well worth considering for a long-term deal.
Will it be quiet and calm before training camp starts or might we see some madness and mayhem with Sean Payton and Broncos management?
— Ed Helinski, Auburn, N.Y.
Hey Ed, thanks for the question.
You never fully count out the possibility for madness and mayhem, but in general the Broncos have been in a relatively stable stretch here after the blockbusters of cutting Russell Wilson and Justin Simmons and trading Jerry Jeudy earlier this spring.
Famous last words, right?
There’s always the chance Denver will add another veteran or two as the summer goes along. Last year, remember, they cut kicker Brandon McManus after the draft and added Frank Clark on a one-year deal right about this time. The Clark move didn’t pan out the way Sean Payton and company hoped, but it was a move partially in response to Baron Browning’s offseason knee surgery. So something along those lines can’t be ruled out, especially if any injury issues beyond Drew Sanders’ Achilles tear come up. Neither can a surprise veteran cut after next week’s mandatory minicamp, though at this point you might figure that most will start training camp and see what happens from there.
As far as anything major on the coaching staff or front office — management, as you put it — never say never but that group also seems like it’s landed in a stable spot for now. Emphasis, though, on “for now.” You just don’t typically see organizations make major changes this time of year. To be sure, some people will be under the microscope this fall. But that’s every team in the NFL.
Otherwise, you’re talking about potential trades or long-term deals and those pictures haven’t changed all that much this spring.
We know receiver Courtland Sutton and left tackle Garett Bolles want new contracts — Sutton has two years remaining and Bolles is entering the final year of his deal — and defensive tackle D.J. Jones is also heading into his contract year.
We know the club at some point will set about trying to come to long-term agreements with cornerback Pat Surtain II and right guard Quinn Meinerz, though neither of those has to be done by the time the season starts.
So yeah, there are plenty of ways the Broncos could make news in the next month-and-a-half before training camp gets here. The question is just how many of them hit.
First things first: It’s about time the Broncos honored Steve Foley and Riley Odoms and inducted them into the Ring of Fame. It’s been long overdue for both guys. But can we bring up a couple of other guys who should also be in already? How about Ed McCaffrey and Al Wilson? Ed was clutch during those ’90s Super Bowl teams and Al’s one of the greatest defensive players we’ve ever had. Do you think they may make it next year?
— Mark, Arvada
Hey Mark, thanks for writing in. Not quibbling with your choices, necessarily, but there will be others to consider, too.
Namely, you’d have to think it won’t be long before the late, great receiver Demaryius Thomas is inducted. When that happens, will he be a standalone class?
Foley and Odoms are the first to be added to the Ring of Fame since 2021, which means they’re the first since the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group bought the team in 2022. They wanted to take their time, tailor the committee and really get to know the process before the first additions of their tenure. Now going forward the question will be about the rate at which additions are made. As your question suggests — Foley mentioned this extensively, too, when he spoke to reporters last week — there is no shortage of good candidates. But it’s also not likely that there will be multiple additions per year every year.
Remember, before 2022 the club had inducted 13 Ring of Famers in 11 years. In the 11 years before that, it was just six.
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