Back-to-back Super Bowl champions, has a nice ring to it, eh? Only been done eight times in NFL history, one of those eight, of course belonging to the Broncos.
Current Denver head coach Gary Kubiak was a part of that repeat — just one of two repeats in the last twenty years — as the offensive coordinator. Obviously, John Elway was also a part of it, the quarterback of the twice-victorious Broncos. The men in charge know what it takes to double-up and on Tuesday, Kubiak addressed the challenge.
“As a coach, you’ve got to figure out what makes that group tick and what gets them playing at their best,” he explained. “I think it’s exciting because you do know there is so much work to do. It’s not like you’re walking back in there and saying, ‘Ok, this is the same group of guys.’ It’s going to be different. I’m excited about it and challenged by it and challenged by some of the things we’ve got going on. I think our players are, too.”
The challenge of repeating has become obvious during this offseason for the Broncos. You have success due to players having success and when players have success other teams are willing to pay them lots of money. It’s nearly impossible to keep together a championship roster. One of the remarkable things about the ’98 Broncos, though, was despite rebuilding a bit, they got even better.
“We were a different team. That’s the thing,” Kubiak told. “I remember the year before we leaned heavily on running the football. We came back the next year and we were a little bit different offensively. I remember changing some because we needed to improve. We came back the next year and threw the ball really well with John [Elway] especially getting that run late in the season.”
One man who was an essential part of that incredible run in the 90’s is then-head coach Mike Shanahan and while he isn’t a part of this group, that’s not t0 say he still isn’t a large influence.
“I think you all know that I’m very close with Mike,” said the current head coach. “I talk to Mike a great deal. I would say that I lean on Mike through conversation, but I lean more on Mike through my experience with Mike, too. That’s what I really lean on. I don’t bother him every Wednesday and say, ‘Hey, Mike, how about this?’ I go back and think about how he did things and how he approached things. . . I can remember us going back to my second [Super Bowl year] with Mike and how we went about things and our offseason and how he dealt with the coaches coming off the long season that we had. I could remember some of those types of things and how we went back to work. I think I lean on those things on a regular basis.”
One of the biggest challenges in repeating is overcoming the dreaded “Super Bowl hangover,” but when asked about that, Kubiak became the first person ever to be excited about overcoming a hangover.
“I’m looking forward to it. It’s a nice thought to have,” he said. “I’ve been a part of it for a while in this league. I’ve been a part of a few teams coming off of those. But, like I said, every year is different. I’ll need to find and we’ll need to find as an organization and as a football team the thing that gives this next team a chance to be as successful as possible. I’m looking forward to it.”
It sure is easy to say you look forward to a challenge when you’re sitting atop the football world, but Kubiak sounds legitimately excited to descend the mountain and start all over again.
“I think you’re always thinking about what your approach is going to be with your team the next time,” he told. “Obviously, coming off a Super bowl win, how do we go about it? We’re going to have a lot of new faces. We’re going to be a different football team and it’s going to be a different year. My approach is going to be that we have to have the same standard in what we do and how we do it.
“There are a lot of guys coming back that were very successful and played extremely well,” he added. “We’ve got to show them, along with the guys we’re bringing in, that we’re going to continue to help them get better and give them a chance to go back out this year and put themselves in position again. My approach will be about our standard more than anything. I’ve never been one to talk about, ‘We’re going to do this,’ or, ‘We’re going to do that.’ I think we need to get this next football team as good as we possibly can. I think we got everything we could out of last year’s. I feel good about that but now it’s time to move on.”
Once you’ve won a Super Bowl championship, it seems it would be easy to rest on your laurels and many teams have been caught doing just that. But maybe it’s the fact that guys like Kubiak and Elway have been a part of a back-to-back run that has them so hungry to do it again.
