How fear could be the key to the Broncos' success in 2018

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — This offseason, as Vance Joseph tried to swallow the jagged object that is a 5-11 season and get on the path to improvement, he turned to his bookcase.

The Broncos head coach grabbed a book titled Why We Win. The book, written by longtime sportscaster Billy Packer, features interviews with dozens of legendary coaches across all sports and focuses on, well, the title, what led them to so many wins.

In one excerpt, Packer asks coaches about failure, and the parallels between the responses are nothing short of staggering.

Joe Gibbs: “I probably remember the defeats, the real bitters ones—they’re as vivid as the great victories—there was a fear of failure for me. And I don’t think you overcome that. I think if that’s in you—a fear of failure—I think that motivates you. Even after won our third Super Bowl, the next year I was right back in the same mindset.”

Tommy Lasorda: “I think the fear of facing failure has to be there at all times. I think that is what generates your interest. This is what motivates you, is the fear of failing. Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘Where there is fear, there is a great deal of courage.'”

Sparky Anderson: “I think my whole career, the thing that drove me to try to do things right, was the fear that I would fail, not only myself, but fail a player.”

Dean Smith: “I think that motivation is greater if you’ve failed before. When a team fails, or loses, I think you’ll see them respond.”

For the Denver Broncos in 2017, the fear of failure was missing.

“Obviously, when you work at a place like this that has won a lot of games over the years, sometimes you assume it just happens,” Joseph admitted on the eve of 2018 training camp.

“I feel like there are times where I just get a sense that as an organization maybe we’re looking at a slogan on the wall, three [Lombardi] trophies in the locker room or Super Bowl banners at the stadium facing our audience. We kind of assume that is the way it’s going to be,” team president and CEO Joe Ellis said back in January, alluding to the same problem.

Over the course of the last 35 seasons—since Pat Bowlen became the team’s owner—the Denver Broncos have appeared in more Super Bowls (7) then they’ve endured losing seasons (6). Failure, for all intents and purposes, wasn’t an option for the Broncos, and as they cruised out to a 3-1 start that came on the heels of a 4-0 preseason, failure was far in the rearview mirror.

“Then, all of the sudden, the floor fell out,” Joseph recalled.

Over the course of an eight-game losing streak, failure had to pay rent at Denver Broncos headquarters. Like the first spook of a horror film, before the Broncos could even fear the beast, it was right in their face.

Now, after nearly eight months with failure as a roommate, the fear is real.

“I think last year has motivated all of us to get better… That made our football team very, very humble, but also hungry,” Joseph explained. “We get it, how hard it is to win games in this league, and teams aren’t just going to lay down for the Broncos, we have to earn it. I think we’ve all gotten better from last year.”

As the Broncos open up camp on Saturday morning, failure will have a front row seat in the VIP tent on the sidelines, right next to the family members who saw the full effects that it can have on a football player or a football coach.

Every time a player looks over to see who came out for them that day, they’ll remember what failure felt like. Every time they catch themselves wanting to take a rep off, they’ll remember what failure felt like. Every time Joseph wonders if he should stay in his office an hour longer, he’ll remember what failure feels like.

In January, when Joe Ellis first mentioned the idea of complacency, he noted that he believed it was his responsibility to do right by Pat Bowlen and rid the building of anything less than a desire for greatness. What he didn’t realize is that failure would take care of it for him.

And just in case the slogans he mentioned on the wall had anything to do with it, they’ve made a small yet significant change. Now, when players leave the team auditorium and head for the locker room, they don’t see some rah-rah catchphrase or a super bowl trophy, they see a command from the owner that put into place the standard that was somehow taken for granted in 2017.

“I want us to be number one in everything,” it reads accompanied by the face and eyes of a man who feared failure enough to turn the Denver Broncos into one of the most successful franchises in all of sports.

May the fear be with you.