http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/fb/texansfront/7332936.html Mile High City fantasizes Possibility of Elway-Kubiak reunion has fans in Denver abuzz By JOHN McCLAIN Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle Dec. 9, 2010, 11:01PM No one knows what Denver owner Pat Bowlen is thinking, but if you turn an ear toward Colorado, you can hear media and fans talking about a possible dream team: John Elway and Gary Kubiak running the Broncos. Bowlen made a terrible mistake when he hired New England offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and gave him total control. Being a head coach in the NFL is difficult enough, but being all-powerful and having total control of everything was too much for McDaniels. And that's Bowlen's fault. He gave Mike Shanahan more power than any coach in the NFL and fired him after the 2008 season. Then, rather than hire a legitimate general manager and allow him to hire the head coach, for some reason Bowlen believed McDaniels was qualified to be given the keys to his house. The Broncos didn't quit on McDaniels like the Cowboys and Vikings quit on Wade Phillips and Brad Childress. In his last game as coach, McDaniels watched his team lose 10-6 to Kansas City, the AFC West leader. Then he received his pink slip. Blast from the past As soon as McDaniels was fired, there was a groundswell of support to bring back Elway, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, to run the personnel side of the organization. The Denver Post placed Kubiak at the top of its list of possible replacements for McDaniels. The newspaper pointed out that if Elway were to get the job, Kubiak might be his top candidate. Denver media reported that Elway met with Bowlen. Elway admitted he is interested in the job even though he has no experience other than running the Colorado Crush of the Arena Football League. Elway's name is magic in Colorado, of course, but that doesn't mean he knows anything about running an NFL personnel department. Would he be like Bill Parcells was in Miami and Mike Holmgren is in Cleveland? Parcells and Holmgren hired a general manager and a head coach. Parcells already has walked away from the Miami job but has made it clear he wants to do it again. Holmgren is trying to oversee a Browns resurrection. It's unclear what role Elway would play if he were to return to the Broncos. More than likely, he would be like a director of football operations, and he would hire a general manager and coach as Parcells and Holmgren did. Elway would have a long honeymoon, which he would need because McDaniels got rid of so many key players — quarterback Jay Cutler, receiver Brandon Marshall, running back Peyton Hillis and tight end Tony Scheffler, for instance. Plenty of X factors If Elway gets the job, what if he wants to hire Kubiak, who has two years left on his contract with the Texans? A lot of Texans fans would help Kubiak pack, but no one knows how Bob McNair would feel about it. McNair doesn't want to fire Kubiak, but he wants to win, too. Unless the Texans upset Baltimore on Monday night, they are guaranteed another non-winning season. Kubiak loves coaching the Texans. He loves working for McNair. Houston is his hometown. His three sons were born here. His family is here. Rhonda Kubiak's family is here. Both families are close. He has one son coaching at Texas A&M and another playing at Rice. And he is convinced the Texans can win. But the Texans haven't won enough to make the playoffs, and a loss against the Ravens will ruin what little hope they have left. Looking past the résumé Fans and media in Denver know this is Kubiak's fifth season, and he has had one winning record, but that doesn't make him any less popular in the Mile High City. Elway and Kubiak entered the NFL in 1983 - one as the golden boy from Stanford and the other as the hard-working, eighth-round pick from Texas A&M. They played together for nine years. Then, with Elway nearing the end of his illustrious career and Kubiak serving as his offensive coordinator, they won back-to-back Super Bowls. Could Elway and Kubiak be reunited in Denver after the season? Anything's possible in the NFL, of course. Right now, though, Elway doesn't have the job, and Kubiak still has a job to do.
WOW, might force Bob to HAVE to hire someone else. I think Kubes with a good GM might do some really good things. Smith is Kubes puppet, so in reality I see Kubes as the GM but what if McNair would have hired him a good GM/Personnel guy, then things might have turned out different.
First step is to see if the Broncos would give us compensation for Kubiak. You can trade coaches you know; see Jon Gruden going from Oakland to TB.
There was a campaign to help AJ pay his fine for the Finnegirl fight. Maybe a campaign should be started to buy Kubiak a plane ticket to Denver and even throw in a service to pack his bags.
I don't think Kubiak is the kind of guy that would just jump ship and take a job in Denver. He's far too loyal for that. The only way it would happen is if Bob encouraged him to go by passive-aggressively threatening his job here (ie "Gary, you should probably go ahead and take that job in Denver, if you know what I mean"). The thing that would scare me about this is doing it without a plan in place for a new coach/GM. I'd hate to not have a viable option out there, supposing Gruden, Cowher, or Dungy don't want to come here. I guess the next best plan would be to bring in a new GM, a defensive-minded head coach to rebuild the defense, and let Dennison stay on as OC so we don't end up blowing up the whole team with another first-time HC that is in over his head. As inconsistent as we've been, the offense has been putting up points (even if they haven't been showing up for halves at a time).
I think the Texans blowing them out in Mile High puts them over the edge. The new coach is their old RBs coach so theyll probably run Moreno more, which suits better to the Texans who've stopped both McCoy and CJ recently. Texans win by two or three scores and Denver is convinced who they want next year.
Always good to hear a person has options when he gets laid off. Finding employment is tough these days.
McClain is late with this story (as usual). This has been circulating around the Internet since Monday when McDaniels got fired.
