Franklin critical of Broncos practice of traveling on Saturdays
Nov 30, 2018, 11:06 AM | Updated: 11:09 am
During Vance Joseph’s tenure with the Broncos, the team has taken six road trips east in which they play at 11 a.m. Denver time. The Broncos have lost each one of those games.
Among the theories to this losing streak is the team’s decision to travel on Saturdays for road games, a practice Orlando Franklin said he’d like to see changed.
“You haven’t won in the last six trips out to the East leaving on Saturday. You should want to change whatever you can,” Franklin said, filling in on “Schlereth and Evans” on Friday. “Just try it out. We need a change. We need a shakeup. Let’s see what happens.”
Franklin said he’s never been a fan of traveling on Saturday, that “everything’s too condensed.”
“There is way too much going on,” Franklin said.
“Stokley and Zach” co-host Brandon Stokley also criticized the idea of traveling on Saturdays, saying he enjoyed traveling on Fridays when he last played for the Broncos in 2012.
“I had never been involved with a football team that left on Friday consistently. And I really found it to be a huge, huge benefit for us,” Stokley said. “I did. I felt fresher. I think we played better when we left on Friday instead of the day before the game.”
Head coach Vance Joseph, however, brushed off on Thursday the notion that Saturday travel somehow affects how teams perform.
“I’ve worked in San Francisco where you traveled on Fridays for every East Coast road trip. When we played well we won, and when we didn’t play well, we lost,” Joseph said. “No magic to it.”
Ahead of the team’s trip to Baltimore in Week 3, Joseph said traveling to the east is all about a “mindset and not worrying.”
“Our attitude this year is, ‘We don’t care about where we go or who we play or when we travel or where we travel.’ We’re just going to go play,” Joseph said.
Follow digital content producer Johnny Hart on Twitter: @JohnnyHart7.