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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – After a scare on Sunday night involving a trip to the hospital, Denver Broncos vice president of football operations and general manager John Elway did not give his good friend Gary Kubiak a choice. The head coach would not be manning the sidelines this Thursday in San Diego.
“The doctors said a week, they were firm,” Elway explained to a crowd of media at the Broncos headquarters on Monday afternoon.
Elway did, though, give Kubiak a chance to have input on who would replace him for the week. After deliberation, the two decided that special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis would be the most “seamless” move. Seamless being the operative word throughout the day.
“We looked at it, Gary and I talked about the least disruptive situation, and that would be with Joe,” he explained. “Joe has worked very closely with Gary in game-management situations. . . So we thought that that was the best and easiest way to handle the situation. Joe has a tremendous amount of experience.”
DeCamillis, born in Arvada, is a Colorado man through and through, a Bronco through and through. The long-time coach has been in the NFL since 1988 when he first became special teams coordinator in Denver. He’s spent time with five other teams during his 28-year career, but this is home.
When asked by Elway to be the guy, his answer was simple: “Yes sir.”
“He’s paid his dues, there is no question,” Elway said.
The team could have turned to former head coach Wade Phillips, former interim head coach Eric Studesville and many others, but they turned to the man known as “Joe D.”
“Everybody on the staff could have taken it, that’s how good we feel about our staff,” Elway said. “We really felt it was going to be a seamless transition with Joe stepping in.”
“I think the greatest thing is we have a great staff and Kubes set a template for us,” said DeCamillis. “It’s seamless because he’s not a micro-manager. He does so many good things for us, and he lets a lot of our guys do their job anyway. We don’t see a big change this week, and we’re going to do whatever we can to win the game, that’s the main thing. I think, with our staff, that’s going to be a real seamless transition.”
The main reason for that “seamless” word continuing to pop up is DeCamillis’ involvement with Coach Kubiak on the game-management side of things. When it comes to how to manage timeouts, or when to go for it on fourth down, Kubiak is always working with DeCamillis.
“We’re in constant communication,” he explained.
That communication may halt this week, as the team waits to hear from the doctors on how much communication they can have with the head coach, but as for the long term, it appears this latest scare won’t keep Kubiak from his passion, coaching.
“The prognosis for him is very, very good, everybody is excited about the prognosis,” Elway said of his coach who was diagnosed with a complex migraine condition. “The information that we received last night of the different things that have happened, we felt very good about the fact he was going to continue to be able to do what he does. That’s the best thing.”
DeCamillis will be the fourth head coach (Fox, Del Rio, Kubiak) to man the sidelines for the Broncos in the last four years; the team is 41-12 over that time.
