Stokley: Fangio ‘Band-Aid’ comments mean Broncos HC isn’t ‘shortsighted’
Feb 11, 2019, 4:34 PM | Updated: Feb 12, 2019, 11:46 am
Denver Broncos head coach Vic Fangio, speaking with The Gazette’s Woody Paige over the weekend, said despite seemingly a win now mentality surrounding the team he’s not interested in putting Band-Aids on problem areas with the roster.
The new play-caller said the Broncos can’t “do everything to just get to 8-8 now and be 3-13 in 2021,” and the team can’t just throw stuff against the wall and “hope it sticks.”
“If I say I’m not going to be patient, you and everybody else will think I’m going to make some knee-jerk short-term decisions that won’t have long-term benefits. What we’ve got to do, I believe, is let’s go out there and evaluate this team, find out where we need help. Make some good choices for the future, not just for today, if I’m making sense,” Fangio told The Gazette.
On Monday, “Stokley and Zach” co-host Brandon Stokley lauded Fangio’s comments, saying that it says to him that the coach is in it for the long haul.
“He’s not shortsighted about looking at just this year and trying to go to the playoffs and the Super Bowl,” Stokley said. “Of course, that’s what he wants to do. We all want to do that. But also he’s thinking about the future three years down the road.”
Stokley said the comments signaled that Fangio would be OK with bringing along a young quarterback because “it’s about the future.”
“When we talk about possibly playing a young quarterback and will Vic be on board with playing a young guy, this tells me he would be A-OK with it because he knows it’s not about right now with a young quarterback,” Stokley said.
“Pritchard and Cecil” co-host Mike Pritchard, however, is taking a wait and see approach to the comments, citing Case Keenum’s two-year contract as an example of how the Broncos haven’t proven to have that requisite patience in years past.
“Say after three years and he has not produced one playoff appearance, are they going to keep Vic Fangio even though he’s got two years left on his contract?” Pritchard said. “So, I understand that he would love to have patience, and that’s the right way to do it, to have patience, but in today’s NFL, when a coach gets fired after year one, there’s no patience.”
Follow digital content producer Johnny Hart on Twitter: @JohnnyHart7.
