Hackett says he “didn’t know what to do” now that he’s not calling plays

At the start of the season, Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett was calling plays and managing the clock on his own.

Now, he’s not doing either of those things.

After the Week 1 and 2 debacles, Denver hired game-management help for Hackett. Former special teams coach Jerry Rosburg sits in a box and tells Hackett what to do with timeouts and challenges.

Before Sunday’s game against the Raiders, it was revealed Hackett had given up play-calling duties to passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach Klint Kubiak. He had Denver’s offense looking more efficient early, before once again stalling late. They scored just 16 points in a frustrating 22-16 OT loss to Las Vegas.

On Monday, Hackett was asked what it was like to not have that responsibility any longer. For being the head coach, it sounds like he wasn’t sure how to help at first.

“A lot of the time, I didn’t know what to do,” Hackett said. “I thought I should call a play, I actually hit the button on the side a couple times to try to talk to Russell (Wilson) and didn’t have a button there. But no, I really liked it,” Hackett said.

While there was a bit of a smile on Hackett’s face while he was delivering the response, it’s still a bit wild. The man paid millions and tasked with fixing this mess, didn’t know what to do initially. Hackett went on to explain how he spent his time throughout the game.

“I thought it was fun to be a little bit more integral with the defense, right there for Ejiro (Evero) if we needed timeouts, penalties, all that stuff. Special teams, offense, just being around the guys more. Trying to get the crowd pumped up, they were amazing last night. They brought a lot of juice and I thought that was critical. It was different, something I’ll have to get used to, get used to not touching the button. But I thought it was really good,” Hackett said.

So, no button to press, helping the other coaches and motivating the crowd? Sounds like a fun little Sunday at the stadium.

We’ll see how much longer Hackett gets to enjoy those gameday activities.

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