ENGLEWOOD, Colo. --What can be expected from the Broncos under new Head Coach Vance Joseph?
1. BRINGING THE "SWAGGER" ON OFFENSE
Although Joseph will hand off the play-calling responsibilities to his offensive coordinator, he made it clear that he wants an offense that attacks -- in large part because he knew that such offenses posed difficult questions to the defenses of which he was a part.
"When you play on offense that is attacking, it makes you be careful of your calls," Joseph said. "If an offense was conservative, I loved it because I can be the attacker, but if the offense was attacking, with multiple personnel groups and all types of formations, that is what I want them to look like."
"I want to score points. Points win. Obviously defense wins championships, but you have to score points."
do that, Joseph said he wants an "up-tempo" offense with "swagger," a word he used twice during his remarks. He believes he has the talent on hand to accomplish that.
"Obviously playing defense is important, but you have to score points hay to win. It comes with a confidence. It comes with a swagger of 'Hey, I'm going to score 28 points today.' That has to be the standard. That's what we expect to do.
"Obviously that's a work in progress. Again, building the staff to go score points, but we do have the players in place to do that. That's encouraging."
2. "OPEN COMPETITION" AT QUARTERBACK
Joseph praised both Trevor Siemian and Paxton Lynch, citing Siemian's intelligence and ability to have "little error with the football" and Lynch's size and arm strength.
But as then-head coach Gary Kubiak said after the regular-season finale, there will be a competition between the two young passers.
"That's going to make both guys better," Joseph said. "Whoever is the best for our team, [we'll] make sure that's who is going to play."
The first task is implementing a scheme that plays to the strengths of each -- which is a challenge, considering that the two quarterbacks "are so different," Joseph noted.
"Hopefully we can kind of build a system around both of those guys and have them compete, and whoever is better, plays," Joseph said. "That's fair."
**
- "I PREFER NOT TO CALL THE PLAYS"**
Although Joseph handled defensive play-calling in Miami as the Dolphins' defensive coordinator last year, he would like to delegate those responsibilities and focus on management of the team as a whole.
"I prefer not to call plays. I'm the head coach here, but if I have to, I will," he said. "That's something that I have in my back pocket. That's a work in progress moving forward."
4. MAINTAINING THE CLUB'S CULTURE
Executive Vice President/General Manager John Elway didn't really want to hurt the culture built over the past six seasons.
"This team is less than a year removed from a world championship," Elway said. "It has not been a year since we've won the Super Bowl, so it's very important to find somebody that can fit the culture that we had and also has a philosophy of the culture that we have in this building.
"Vance checks that box. He has that."
Joseph's three seasons of work with Kubiak in Houston -- as well as his 2016 campaign with former Broncos assistant Adam Gase in Miami -- gave him a head start on adapting to the organizational culture of high standards and a team-first mentality.
"Obviously building a culture of 'team,' team-first, it doesn't matter who gets the credit or who plays well that day. If the offense is playing well and the defense is not, then pick them up and that's the way that we win that day, [even] if it's blocking a punt to win a game.
"That has to be our culture and that's has to be our brotherhood as a team. The best teams win. How we win in all three phases. When one phase is down, the other phase picks it up. That's what we have to instill in our players going forward. That's going to be the culture."
**
Take a look at new Broncos Head Coach Vance Joseph's first day, including his introductory press conference, meeting players, and more.
- IT'S TIME TO GO TO WORK**
Seven players attended the press conference -- wide receivers Cody Latimer and Kalif Raymond, long snapper Casey Kreiter, OLs Connor McGovern and Michael Schofield, kicker Brandon McManus and FB/RB Juwan Thompson.
Before Joseph concluded his opening remarks, he turned to his new players and gave them his first message -- one of the hard work he expects from them.
"As far as the players in attendance, my philosophy is this: Just come to work," Joseph said. "Obviously our standard is to win championships, but we can't skip the work and we can't skip the season. No one is going to give you 10 wins, 12 wins and put you in the playoffs. It starts with work. We can't forget that.
"That's my goal, to come in and work, making every meeting, every practice and every rep a winning performance. If we do that, guys -- it's going to happen. If we don't, it won't happen. That's our first order of business: to come to work."
