The glaring difference between Vic Fangio's preseason approach and his predecessor's

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Ah, the preseason, the egg nog of NFL football.

When the holidays come around, and you see egg nog on the shelves at the store, you think, “Oh, I gotta get some of that!”

Then, you pour yourself a big ol’ glass of nog, and by the third sip, you realize it’s really not that good.

While it’s quite exciting that the Broncos are going to play a football game on Thursday, it will only take a couple sips of the preseason egg nog to remember why the exhibitions are a massive tease.

And this year might even be worse, for all the right reasons.

Let’s go back to the 2017 preseason, new head coach Vance Joseph explained that winning preseason games is still important, noting that the team wouldn’t put together a full game plan for their games, but that he would give them “enough to play well.”

In his first preseason game as a head coach, the Broncos beat the Bears 24-17.

“Winning is winning, guys,” he said after the game. “It doesn’t matter if it’s preseason or not.”

The Broncos went on to win each and every one of their four preseason games.

“That’s exciting,” Joseph said following the 4-0 start. “Winning is winning.”

Heading into the 2018 preseason, Joseph echoed a similar message.

“I think winning is important,” he said. “Winning is a habit, so you want to win games.”

Joseph wanted to win in the preseason, and he did, finishing his career in Denver with a 7-1 record in exhibitions.

Now, this is not to suggest that wanting to win is a bad thing, but hearing Vic Fangio talk about his very-different approach to the preseason is just another in a long line of, “Ahh, that makes sense” moments from the new head coach.

“The main thing that we want to accomplish is get the individual and the team ready for the regular season,” Fangio said early this week. “One of our biggest jobs is to make sure we pick the right 53 guys. We want to see guys go out and play. There will be times whereas coaches we may have a good feel for what the other team is going to run, but we’re going to call something that’s hard for us just to see if guys can handle it. You know a hard assignment, not hard mentally.”

In other words, Fangio plans to do things that may actively work against winning but work towards his overarching goal of evaluation.

Of course, that doesn’t mean he won’t care about the result come game day.

“You know, as we stand here today, [the final score is] not that important but when we get on that sideline on Thursday night, it’s like playing a game of horse in the backyard, you still want to win,” he said. “We want to win, but we know there’s bigger fish to fry. We’ve got to get evaluations of these guys to help us pick the best 53 for the team.”

When the Broncos take the field on Thursday, expect to see the coaching staff experiment with things you wouldn’t normally see on a Sunday. You’ll see a corner left on an island against a better receiver, a light box called in a run situation, a tackle attempting to block a good pass rusher without a chip block from a back, a run up the middle against a stacked box and more.

On the surface, it may seem like players aren’t being put in the best position to succeed, but it’s really an opportunity for them to shine. If they can succeed in these purposefully-tough situations, that sends a bright signal to the folks in charge of who has a job on Sept. 1.

Of course, there’s the flip side, which is that this could result in some ugly, ugly moments for the Broncos throughout the preseason.

So, on Thursday, don’t be surprised if your egg nog is a little sour, just remember the bigger picture, and that egg nog isn’t that good anyway.