Broncos' head coach Vance Joseph handles first “crisis” to perfection

DENVER — Football coaches walk, talk, eat, breathe and live football. When a football problem arises, the head coach has an answer. On the football field, it’s nearly impossible to stump a coach.

But off the field, they aren’t as bulletproof. Broncos’ head coach Vance Joseph encountered his first “crisis” not on the field Sunday afternoon in the team’s Week 2 matchup against the Dallas Cowboys. With 38 seconds remaining in the first quarter and the Broncos up 7-0, mother nature wanted a piece of the action, raining down lightning close enough to the stadium to cause a weather delay.

Fans were told to leave their seats for shelter and the teams went back to their locker rooms. In what could have been a 30-minute delay to multiple hours, Joseph thought on his feet and the outcome was a dance of perfection.

Joseph kept the plan simple. Stupid simple.

The head coach handled it much like an elementary school handles a recess break where the students have to stay inside due to inclement weather outside—put them in a warm room and throw something on a TV to keep them occupied.

“It was really simple,” Joseph said with a grin as he began to unravel his elaborate plan. “First thing we did was turned the AC off. We wanted the guys to kind of stay warm. We turned the football games on, guys relaxed and kind of hung out just talking to each other and it was really simple. It wasn’t a big deal at all. They called us back in about 30 minutes and it was on again. It wasn’t a huge deal at all.”

What made Joseph’s plan during the weather delay that much more intriguing was he didn’t use the coveted time during the break for football purposes. When asked if the team made adjustments during the delay Joseph said, “No, we didn’t change thing.”

“It was obviously the first quarter, it was working for us offensively and defensively,” he said. “We brought the guys in and gave them an update of our original game plan and went forward.”

Despite the hours of meetings, practice and training that the coaches and players put in each and every week for one game on Sunday, Joseph didn’t overanalyze despite an unusual situation. In the other locker room, however, Jason Garrett did the opposite.

“I think we did a good job coming in and game planning what we were going to do when we went back out there on the field,” Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott explained with positivity when asked how Dallas utilized the weather delay.

Not even 15 minutes into the game, Dallas went to the chalkboard to adjust or create a new game plan, while Denver wasn’t more than 100 yards away treating it like a kickback with old buddies. When asked if the locker room favorite “Connect 4” was broken out during the break, Broncos’ outside linebacker Von Miller said, “Actually, we did.”

“Connect 4 and we had some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Sat down and had a couple of rock paper scissors in there,” Miller said with a straight face and tone in his voice in the postgame press conference. “We turned on the music and had a little dance contest. Just keeping it light, dancing is always good when you have the time to. Just came in and danced around. Like you said, Connect 4 and waited 45 minutes and we were right back at it.”

Whether or not Von said “I was kidding” when he walked away from the podium after his elaborate description of what the team did during mother natures break doesn’t matter. What does matter is it’s clear Joseph kept the team in the right mindset during the hour-long break: relaxed.

Even the starting quarterback Trevor Siemian wasn’t thinking about Dallas’ 4-3 defensive scheme in the first 14:22 of play, he was thinking about what time he could get some shut-eye.

“Shoot, we aren’t going to be able to get out of here by 8 o’clock,” Siemian thought as he sat in the locker room during the break.

All in all, the results on the field gave the ultimate scorecard on how to judge Joseph dealing with the delay. After the weather delay, Denver outscored Dallas 35-17, more than doubling the Cowboys’ point total.

“Even the lightning and thunderstorm couldn’t stop us,” Domata Peko Sr. said followed by an uncontrolled cackle.

Joseph and his staff’s predetermined game plan on the field weren’t half bad, either, topping Garrett’s Cowboys in nearly every meaningful statistical category, too. That along with his ingenious plan during the unexpected break made for quite the day for the first-year head coach.

Oh, by the way, he’s undefeated as an NFL head coach—6-0, if you include the preseason.