ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur remembers watching film of former Broncos’ quarterback Tim Tebow with Mike Shanahan.
After 14 seasons of mostly success while leading the Denver Broncos’ organization, Shanahan became the Washington head coach from 2010-13. LaFleur was his quarterbacks coach.
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“His expectations and his level of detail, you better be on it otherwise you were going to feel him,’’ LaFleur said prior to the Packers-Broncos joint practice at Broncos Park. “I’ve never been around somebody who could focus as long as he could.”
Broncos Country will never forget the Te-bow! season of 2011. Entering the 2012 draft, Washington with the No. 2 overall draft pick knew they were going to take another run-oriented quarterback in Robert Griffin III.
“We’re getting ready to implement the zone read (offense for Griffin) and we didn’t want to talk to anybody around the league about it,’’ LaFleur said. “So we would sit in there for hours and we had this cutup (of tape) that was a couple hundred plays long and it was Baylor’s offense, it was the Carolina Panthers with Cam Newton, and it was Denver actually with what they were doing with Tebow.
“And I’ll never forget, we’d watch it all, I mean, we were in there for a couple hours. And everyone is somewhat exhausted from the process and he’s like, ‘Yeah, let’s run it back to the top.”
That got the media chuckling.
“We were all looking at each other, ‘How is this guy still doing this?’ But, yeah, he had some stamina when it came to watching tape and he was so thorough in the draft process with how he evaluated players. I just think there were a ton of lessons that we took from our time there.”
RGIII was the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and Washington made the playoffs in 2012. But it otherwise didn’t go well for Shanahan in Washington – other than he had one of the all-time greatest assistant coaching staffs. Besides LaFleur, Shanahan’s son Kyle and Sean McVay all went on to impressive success as NFL head coaches.
Shanahan is a strong candidate to be pushed forward by a Pro Football Hall of Fame subcommittee not only for his back-to-back Super Bowl titles as Broncos' head coach, but also his incredible coaching tree.
“Coach Shanahan has had a tremendous impact,’’ LaFleur said. “I learned so much from him, not only Xs and Os-wise but how to manage a staff. The attention to detail that he would put into it is like nobody I’ve ever been around. I think all of us, we had a … when you look back at it we had a lot of guys who have gone on to be head coaches. I think it’s because we learned the right way from coach Shanahan.”
The Packers held a team dinner Thursday night at Shanahan’s steakhouse and they were going to Top Golf down the road from the Broncos’ practice facility Friday night.
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Bronco Bits
Rookie receiver Devaughn Vele didn’t practice Friday after he left the practice field Thursday with an undisclosed injury. Broncos coach Sean Payton said Vele was fine and might even play Sunday in the preseason game against the Packers. …
There were two scuffles between teams with no serious punches thrown. The first occurred after Packers' quarterback Jordan Love had a pass batted at the line of scrimmage and it popped into the arms of Broncos' linebacker Alex Singleton. As Singleton was returning the pick, a melee ensued around where Love was positioned. ...
With kickoff at 6 p.m. the parking lots at Empower Field will open for tailgating at 1:30 p.m. The stadium gates will open at 4 p.m.
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