Jerry Rosburg gets his head coaching chance after 40 years

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Jerry Rosburg was more than three years into his retirement following a 40-year career as an assistant coach when a phone call in mid-September interrupted his morning coffee as he sat on his lakeside deck in Florida.

It was his old friend George Paton, who needed a favor: Would Rosburg come to Denver to handle game management duties for Nathaniel Hackett, who had stumbled through his first two games as the Broncos' coach?

Rosburg accepted the offer and the challenge, setting in motion an unimaginable journey that led to an even bigger request from Paton this week.

Several years after giving up his dream of ever becoming a head coach, the 67-year-old special teams sage was asked to lead the Broncos over the final two weeks of the season following Hackett's dismissal Monday when defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero passed on the opportunity so he could continue running the defense.

Again, Rosburg said yes.

After all those gigs as an assistant, starting at Shanley High School in Fargo, North Dakota, and continuing in college at Northern Michigan, Western Michigan, Cincinnati, Minnesota, Boston College and Notre Dame and then in the NFL with the Browns, Falcons, Ravens and Broncos, Rosburg is finally the one calling all the shots.

The theme of his first meeting with his players Wednesday was based on his philosophy that combining humility with confidence can produce greatness.

“I’m humbled by this opportunity,” Rosburg said. “At the same time I’m confident I can do this job.”

And what's up first for Rosburg?

A visit to Kansas City, where come kickoff Sunday, the Chiefs (12-3) will have gone 2,664 days since last losing to Denver (4-11).

“Who would sign up for this?" Rosburg asked.

He raised his right hand.

“Here I am.”

And he didn't wait until game day to start calling his shots.

Shortly after accepting the interim title, Rosburg fired special teams coordinator Dwayne Stukes and offensive line coach Butch Barry, whose units have proven to be major weaknesses this season.

Rosburg said he always aspired to become a head coach but he demurred when asked if he wants the job full time, saying he's only focused on beating the Chiefs on Sunday and the Chargers at home next week.

“I'm not trying to build a resume,” Rosburg said. “I haven’t had a resume for 15, 17 years. I haven’t needed one. So I’m not trying to enhance any kind of reputation that I may or may not have.”

Rosburg served as the Ravens' special teams coordinator from 2008-18, and Baltimore coach John Harbaugh said he was thrilled Rosburg was finally getting this opportunity.

“I always believed Jerry Rosburg would’ve been, could’ve been, can be a great head coach,” Harbaugh said. “He and I, we were shoulder-to-shoulder really in everything we did here all those years. Just a great football man, great leader, has every quality, every trait for it.”

In addition to shaking up his staff, Rosburg met with two players whose actions off the field exacerbated the embarrassment of the team's 51-14 loss to the Rams on Christmas that prompted team CEO Greg Penner to fire Hackett.

Left guard Dalton Risner shoved backup QB Brett Rypien when he misunderstood Rypien's plea for the O-line to help quarterback Russell Wilson to his feet following sacks. The two later hugged it out.

Then, in the postgame handshake line, linebacker Randy Gregory punched a Rams offensive lineman in the helmet, drawing a one-game suspension that was overturned upon appeal and replaced with a $50,000 fine.

Rosburg said he met individually with Gregory and Risner and collectively as a team, declaring there will be no similar shenanigans under his watch.

Both met with reporters after practice.

“I just took the frustration a little bit too far,” said Gregory, who also apologized on social media and said he wanted to be a “part of the solution and not the problem going forward."

Risner also stepped to the podium for a mea culpa, although he took shots at reporters for focusing on his shove and heated taunting of Rypien and not the pair reconciling their spat shortly afterward.

“Brett's my boy,” Risner said. “One thing that's not been covered is me and Brett making up a minute later, and that's just how the media goes, which is fine. But on Sunday there's a lot of frustration losing 51-14 and we're both very competitive guys.”

Rosburg said he plans to play Gregory if he can Sunday. Gregory was held out of practice Wednesday to lighten the load on his surgically repaired knee that sidelined him for two months.

Rosburg also said he won't sit Wilson, whose season-long struggles were a major factor in Hackett joining Urban Meyer as the only first-time head coaches since 1978 to get fired before they completed their first seasons.

Wilson, who has thrown for just 12 touchdown passes and been sacked 49 times in the worst season of his 11-year career, said he was devastated over Hackett's dismissal.

“I wish I could have played better for him," Wilson said. “I wish I could have played at the standard and the level that I've always played at.”

Evero passes on Broncos' interim job, has head coach desire

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Broncos defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero had a shot at a two-game tryout.

A chance to get a feel for the job of head coach, even if it was on an interim basis.

He turned it down. He will wait for another opportunity. Maybe with Denver through its hiring process. Maybe with another team.

Just not this time, following the dismissal of Evero's good friend and first-time head coach Nathaniel Hackett. Evero will remain in charge of one of the league's top defenses. It's how he feels he can best help the team as interim coach Jerry Rosburg — hired in September to help Hackett with game-management duties — runs the show for the rest of the season.

“I don’t want to get into too much of the details,” Evero said when asked why he passed on the opportunity. “We just all agreed that the best thing for this team moving forward was for me to continue to work with the defense. I'm fully invested there. I think that’s where I could have the best value for this team.”

He and the Broncos have their hands full trying to stop Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs (12-3) on Sunday. The Chiefs have won 14 straight over the Broncos (4-11).

“He’s a hell of a player," Evero said of Mahomes, who threw three touchdown passes and three interceptions in Kansas City's 34-28 win at Denver in Week 14.

Evero described the aftermath of Hackett's firing on Monday as “hard.” They've long been good friends and were teammates in college at UC Davis. Hackett's tenure with Denver lasted 15 games as the offense sputtered under quarterback Russell Wilson.

“I hold him in high regard," Evero said of Hackett. “I thought he did a great job here. There's a lot of adverse situations and things that didn’t work our way. But at the end of the day, this is what we signed up for, and we have to live with these consequences when we have these type of results. But there are very few people — aside from my wife — in this world that I respect more.”

Rosburg respected Evero's decision.

“My feeling is if that had happened to me with another close friend of mine in my career, I hope I would have done the same thing,” Rosburg said. "But it’s not an easy thing to do. I think he should be recognized for the magnanimous act that he did. Frankly, there are a lot of people who want to be standing up here. He’s highly qualified and he deserved the opportunity to say, ‘Yes.’ He chose to say, ‘No.’”

Should Evero ever need a glowing reference, just find safety Justin Simmons. He believes Evero will be a strong head coaching candidate.

“One of the brightest minds I’ve been around and one of the best leaders," Simmons said. "I think he would be at the top of the list for that.”

Evero's defense has been a bright spot even though the Broncos will miss the playoffs for a seventh straight time. It wasn't pretty last week, though, when Baker Mayfield and the Los Angeles Rams carved it up for 388 yards on their way to a 51-14 win.

“That’s not what any of us expected,” said Evero, who was the secondary/pass game coordinator for the Rams last season when they won the Super Bowl. “We can’t take it back now."

NOTES: The Broncos practiced Thursday in pads and on a field that had been cleared of about a foot of snow. “I used to work road construction — this is better," Rosburg said of being a coach. ... Rosburg didn't disclose who would be calling the offensive plays. “Maybe I'll call a play or two, to enhance my resume,” Rosburg cracked. ... Among those who didn't practice Thursday were TE Greg Dulcich (hamstring) and OLB Randy Gregory (knee). WR Jerry Jeudy (ankle) was limited. ... Jeudy defended Wilson having an office in a post on social media. “I’m just tired of reading things about my boy and making it seem like, ‘Oh, he’s not a good teammate,’” Jeudy explained after practice.

Stable Chiefs face reeling Broncos in midst of playoff push

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Chiefs are perhaps the most stable franchise in the NFL these days, led by a coach in Andy Reid who commands league-wide respect and a quarterback in Patrick Mahomes who is in the mix for a second MVP award.

So it's no surprise they have clinched the AFC West and are tied with Buffalo for the conference's best record.

Then there's the Denver Broncos (4-11), the Chiefs' opponent Sunday, who mortgaged much of their future to acquire struggling Russell Wilson from the Seahawks and just fired coach Nathaniel Hackett with two games left in his first year.

So it's also not surprising they'll be sitting out the playoffs for the seventh straight season.

“They played us tough this last one. They gave us everything that we could ask for,” said Mahomes, who nevertheless led the Chiefs (12-3) to a 34-28 victory in Denver three weeks ago. “We have to go out and play our best ball. If you look at the tape, you see the talent that they have and how hard they play.”

It will be up to 67-year-old Jerry Rosburg to finally get that talent playing at a high level.

The Broncos turned to the career assistant, who has 18 years of NFL coaching experience, to bridge the gap from Hackett's firing into next season. He was special teams coordinator in Baltimore for a decade with stops in Atlanta and Cleveland, and was hired by the Broncos in September to hire in-game management when Hackett struggled in his first two games.

“He actually worked for (Ravens coach) John Harbaugh for a number of years,” Reid said. “One of the top special teams coaches in the NFL and a good football coach, period. But a tremendous special teams coach. Good guy.”

Turns out the affection goes both ways.

“He’s a fine man. He’s been so gracious with my family over the years,” Rosburg said of Reid, who was Harbaugh's mentor in Philadelphia. “He’s a model for all coaches. We should all aspire to be like Andy Reid.”

While Wilson is suffering through the worst season of his career, Mahomes is on another tear for the Chiefs, putting himself in position to break the NFL record for yards passing in a season — albeit in a 17-game schedule rather than 16. And Rosburg has seen enough of Mahomes over the years that he's plenty impressed by him.

He's just not so excited about facing Mahomes in his first game running the show for Denver.

“I could list them, and you all know them,” Rosburg said of the Chiefs' playmakers. “Who would sign up for this? You get to coach in the National Football League? OK, here are the Kansas City Chiefs. Here I am, choose me.”

PLAYOFF POSITION

While the Chiefs are tied with the Bills for the AFC's best record, Buffalo would get the No. 1 seed and lone first-round bye because of its head-to-head win in October in Kansas City. So not only do the Chiefs need to beat Denver, and probably Las Vegas next week, they also need the Bengals or Patriots to beat the Bills down the stretch.

DOMINANCE OF DENVER

The Chiefs have won 14 straight against their longtime division rival, a franchise record for any opponent. It's the fifth-longest streak by any team against an opponent in NFL history, and one more would tie for the third longest. The last time the Broncos beat the Chiefs was a 31-24 victory on Sept. 17, 2015, in Kansas City.

FIXING WILSON

The priority for the Broncos is fixing Wilson, who was brought in at a high cost (three players, four prime draft picks to Seattle) and signed to a five-year extension with about $165 million in guarantees. But this version of Wilson has been head-scratching: He’s on pace for career worsts in touchdowns, completion percentage and sacks.

“I believe in myself at the highest level,” Wilson said. “It’s not going to happen this year, but the mission is still the same and that’s to help bring Super Bowls to Denver. That’s the goal.”

COACHING CAROUSEL

Rosburg makes five different Broncos coaches for safety Justin Simmons since he was taken in the third-round of the 2016 draft. If owner and CEO Greg Penner wanted his opinion on, say, defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero getting a shot at the head coaching job, Simmons would gladly give it. Denver’s defense has been one of the best in the league until a clunker last weekend in a 51-14 loss to Baker Mayfield and the Los Angeles Rams.

“I just want to win,” Simmons said. “When stuff like this happens like with Coach Hackett, I think about what I could’ve done better to help keep his job stable. Whatever it is, whoever it is, I just want to win.”

WEAPON RETURNING

The Chiefs expect to have wide receiver Mecole Hardman back for the first time since an abdominal injury in Week 9 put him on injured reserve. He practiced the last couple of weeks, but has not been inactive for games. He was on a tear before getting hurt, too, scoring five touchdowns in his last three games.