In-Depth Interview with Mike Shanahan

ESPN recently interviewed our coach Mike Shanahan. It’s a great interview, and you should definitely check it out. Here are some of the parts that really caught my attention:

Shanahan, on last season…

Any time you don’t make the playoffs, you are pretty disappointed. In the offseason, you do whatever you can to get back to and possibly win a Super Bowl. It’s not just about getting to the playoffs, but doing something once you get there.

On the quarterback change last year…

I do what I think is best for the team. This past year, we were averaging about 17 points per game. We weren’t going to do anything once we got to the playoffs unless we started scoring more points. When Jay [Cutler] came in, the last five games, we started scoring about 24 points per game. We made some improvement there and Jay has worked extremely hard in our offseason program to get better. Time will tell.

On what makes a leader…

There are all different types of leaders. Some guys are very quiet leaders and some are very emotional. You have to separate yourself from the rest of the class by the way you handle yourself and the way you react under pressure. Those guys usually become leaders. … [After being asked if all quarterbacks are leaders] … No. Not at all. Some are natural leaders, others have to work at it, but not all are leaders. You’d like for your quarterback to be a leader.

On Travis Henry…

Well, if he stays healthy, I’m hoping he can get 1,500 yards.

On the tragic deaths of Darrent Williams and Damien Nash…

Oh, I’ve been doing really good. It’s very tough to go through a tragic situation like we did — the death of two players. Any time you lose two quality guys that the team and I care a lot for, at the age of 24, there are no words you can come up with [to describe the situation]. The only way I look at it is that those guys are both up there in heaven with God. They just went there a little earlier than they were supposed to go. … [On his role in these situations] … I’m the head coach of the football team. Those are my players. I wanted the families to know how special the players were to our organization. I wanted to offer as much support as I possibly could because of the tragedy. Then, I wanted to be sure they are financially taken care of, or at least somewhat taken care of, for the rest of their lives. That their kids can get a college education and that they have a nice place to live. It’s the same thing that you would want from your employer if you were doing a good job for them and happened to pass away at a young age.

On what makes this upcoming season a success…

Win a Super Bowl. That’s our goal. … If I don’t believe it, then the players won’t believe it. In my third year in Denver, we didn’t have anybody pick us to be a playoff team and we won the Super Bowl. The mind-set has to be right, guys have to believe in each other, and you have to be lucky with injuries. It starts in the offseason with free agents and the draft. There are a number of teams that are talented, but I feel like we have a legitimate chance.

Asked, “If you don’t win the Super Bowl, can you still consider the season successful?”…

You can look at it and say we did some good things that we can build on, but there’s only one team that’s happy and that’s the team that wins it.

Man, talk about getting pumped! Just hearing Shanahan speak gets me going. It’s great having stability at head coach, and knowing that nothing but a third title can be considered a successful season in anyone’s mind. Without that win-it-all or lose-it-all attitude, it separates us from the rest of our division in attitude, year in and year out.

There’s a ton more of great stuff in that interview, including some tidbits on training camp, John Elway, and the Denver Broncos historically great running game.