During his extended meet with media on Tuesday morning from the NFL annual meetings in Boca Raton, Florida, Denver Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak covered a plethora of topics.
Of course, in meetings like this, certain quotes make the headlines and others fall to the wayside. That doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy of your time, though. With that in mind, we compiled the best quotes from Kubiak’s address that you may have missed.
On Draft Prospect, QB Carson Wentz
“I’m very impressed with him. He does everything you want a guy to do. He’s under center, he’s in the [shot]gun, he moves around and he throws the ball on the move. I like the way he went to the Senior Bowl and elevated his play. I just like watching him practice. I’m probably just like a lot of guys. I think he’s going to be a really good pro and he’s got a bright future.”
On Arian Foster being available
“Obviously, Arian played really [well] for me and I know how Arian works and takes care of himself. I know he’s had some rough injuries here over the past few years. The thing that I’m encouraged about from my relationship with Arian is I know how hard he’ll work to get back. I know how driven he is to come back and play. We’re going to look at everybody who is out there. There is no doubt about that. It will be interesting to see where he’s at. It’s my understanding that he’s not quite ready yet. He’s still got some time left, so we’ll see. We’ll look at everybody.”
On stable of running backs in this year’s draft
“I know there are some real good ones at the top. I think just looking at the draft briefly, offensive line looks like a really strong [position this] year. I think that gives you a chance to continue to get better. Other than that, I think the draft looks deep to me just dealing with John and [Director of Player Personnel] Matt [Russell] for the last month-and-a-half. It looks like maybe a deeper draft than it is a higher-ended draft. I think there will be a lot of good football players there on Day Two and Day Three.”
On DeMarcus Ware returning
“That was very big. First off, he played very well. I think somebody told me percentage-wise, he only played 40 percent of the time when you went back and looked at the snaps. DeMarcus, healthy, I think is a tremendous complement to Von and had a lot to do with Von’s success. You all know his influence in our locker room and the job he does. That was a big part of it but it still gets down to how well he plays. I think his leadership and him wanting to be a part of our football team was a big part of it.”
On replacing Malik Jackson on the line
“We have to see. [DE] Kenny [Anunike] is coming off injury. He’s been beat up for a couple of years and he’s got to get healthy. There are some things we can do with ‘Sly’ (NT Sylvester Williams and [NT Darius] Kilgo. Bill [Kollar] can be creative in there in how we play those guys. Obviously, we’ve got four guys on our roster right now that have played a lot of football for us. We’ve got to get better there in the draft and that’s something we plan on doing.”
On 2015 draft pick, TE Jeff Heuerman
“We’re counting on him big time. You look at us releasing ‘O.D.’ (TE Owen Daniels)—and you never know what can happen there down the road—but when Jeff came in he was very impressive. We feel like Jeff can be a total tight end. He’s not [just] a receiver. We think he has the ability to do both (catch and block). He’s a very confident young man and he comes from a winning program (Ohio State). We are counting on him a great deal [along] with [TE] Virgil [Green]. It’s a big offseason for him and he’s worked really hard. He’s really been ready to go probably [since] a few months ago.”
On how much Demaryius Thomas will benefit from the offseason program
“He missed all last year and the offseason. He’s going to be working with the new quarterbacks. That’s going to be extremely important. I think the big thing for us is for D.T. and Emmanuel to be moving around a little bit more than they have in the past. That is something we want to do with them within the scheme. We need to move them around a little bit more. I think D.T. had some balls go through his hands and he’s got to hang on. If you go back and look at some of those, I think his year would have been just as big. Two very good players with a lot of confidence. We need to do everything we can to get them touching the ball the most they can.”
On Shane Ray’s development last season
“I think he’s ready to make the jump. I think one of the things about Shane, you go back and not many guys come onto a team as a first round pick and then they’ve got two potential Hall of Famers in front him. He came into a unique situation. I think it was a shock for him initially. I think it took him some time to gravitate to those two guys and say, ‘I’m over that. Now let me learn from these guys.’ I think Shane started to do that at the end of the year. We’re expecting big things from him coming up.”
On Ray transitioning from a down linemen to a stand-up rusher
“It took some time to work through that. Going from having your hand down to standing up, that was a change from him coming out of college. I think Shane could not have watched two better guys the last two years. It will be interesting yet exciting to see how he comes back and gets back ready to go—tattoos and all.”
On whether WR Jordan “Sunshine” Taylor is ready to compete for a roster spot
“I think anytime you’ve got guys on your practice squad that—I think you guys and us throughout the course of the year as we talk—there are always a few guys that you’re very excited about. It may be they’re never activated or got a chance to activate, so obviously we talked about him and we talked about [C] Dillon Day. I think we have some really good guys on our practice squad that have a chance to take a big step. I don’t want to put too much on them too early. Obviously, they look like two kids that have a chance to help us this year.”
On his expectations for linebackers Todd Davis and Corey Nelson
“Todd and Corey are going to have an excellent opportunity to start. That’s the first thing. Big opportunity in their careers. I mean, we could actually flip-flop those guys and ‘B-Marsh’ could go to [former ILB] Danny’s [Trevathan] spot. That’s something that we talked about. We have a really good young player in [ILB] Zaire Anderson who is another guy that was on our practice squad that you all have asked me about a few of times that we think a lot of. He’s got a chance to be a really good player. We need to get better there. We need to improve our competition, which we’ll do through the draft or however we go about it. Obviously, those guys need to step up.”
On Kapri Bibbs’ chances to make the team at running back
“You know what? He can. I had a talk with him about 10 days ago. I think he’s very talented. I think Kapri needs to understand that—let me say this the right way—he hasn’t done anything in this league, so it’s time for him to go do something. That means he’s going to have to take a big step as a player, as a special-teams player. He shows flashes of, ‘I can do this,’ but it needs to be on a consistent basis. He and I have had that talk. But yes, I think the talent is there. I think he’s very capable of helping our team and being a factor in this league. It’s going to be up to him.”
On whether Wade Phillips considered retiring after the Super Bowl win
“I hope not. What would Wade do if he wasn’t on Twitter or coaching ball?”
