In first game as Denver Broncos head coach, Jerry Rosburg ‘was where I belonged’

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — There was just one moment where interim head coach Jerry Rosburg had trouble with his duties. And it had little to do with football.

It was about communication. And not communicating with players on the sideline.

You see, each head coach has the ability to switch between different communication channels into the headset. So, with a turn of the dial, the coach can go from offense to defense to special teams.

At times Sunday, Rosburg could be seen on the sideline fiddling with the knob.

“I want to thank all the coaches that put up with me on the headset yesterday,” he said. “I guess the best way to put it, I made a number of switching errors, let’s call them on my microphone, and I would find myself in different places at different times and I would be have to be slapped back to my appropriate place.”

But the truth was, Rosburg was in the right place. With some “great help” from staffers Brad Miller, Derek Haithcock and Mark Thewes, Rosburg settled in.

He looked to be a man in control, He stalked the sideline with confidence. His decision-making was crisp, clear and poised. The Broncos didn’t win, but it wasn’t because of leadership and procedural issues.

Not bad for a first time against a Kansas City side guided by a Hall-of-Fame-bound head coach in his 24th season.

Me: “Jerry, being a head coach in a game for the first time, how much did the experience mesh with maybe your preconceived expectations, and how much — and what — was different than you might have expected?”

Jerry Rosburg: “That's a really good question, because I've been …” pic.twitter.com/Z6GISQa3fF

— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) January 2, 2023

“You never really know until you get there, right? That’s true with anything, any new endeavor,” Rosburg said.

The first difference as a head coach came prior to the kickoff, during pre-game warmups. The special-teams coordinator typically joins the long snapper, placekicker and punter on the field over an hour before kickoff as their warmups begin.

“Usually as a special teams coach, I’m an early guy,” Rosburg said. “I go out on the field early and I watch all the specialists and I keep an eye on the other team and and so forth. But now that I have these other responsibilities, I couldn’t get out there until late.”

When he finally got there — taking the field with his son, he marinated in the moment.

“It was like, ‘Wow, there it is.’ But it was it was a great feeling,” he said. “It was a humbling moment. Great gratitude that I could walk out there and experience what that was like.”

But then, kickoff arrived. Fans roared. Pads thumped. And despite having a new role, Rosburg quickly settled into the flow of things. He strode along the sideline and managed the operation with a clear sense of purpose and direction.

“II’ll say this: During the game, I felt like it was coaching football,” he said. “… And during the game I felt completely into the game and relaxed.

“Somebody asked me here — last week, I think — ‘Are you nervous?’ During the game, I was coaching just like I was coaching before. I just had more on my plate.”

That didn’t mean it was perfect. The result, obviously, wasn’t what Rosburg wanted. Furthermore …

“I thought overall, I made some decisions that I would reconsider,” he said.

One was that he wished that he waited one play before using the second timeout in the first half. The Broncos took it after an 8-yard pass from Russell Wilson to Courtland Sutton with 36 seconds left in the first half.

Instead, Rosburg wished he’d signaled for timeout after the subsequent play — an 11-yard pass to Sutton. Because immediately after that came the strip-sack fumble that was the first of two Broncos giveaways.

“As you probably saw what happened on the next play, they were grabbing guys and holding guys up like most NFL defenses are wise to do,” Rosburg said. “We didn’t get on the ball as quickly as I would have liked, and it resulted in that play.”

But regrets were few. And as Frank Sinatra sang, “too few to mention.”

Rosburg’s first game as a head coach saw him doing the job his way. And it looked like he’d been doing it for decades.

“But overall, to your point, I felt like it was where I belonged, real frankly,” Rosburg said.

And when many Broncos look back on this frustrating season, they’ll do so with wistfulness. Because as it turned out, the coach who was the most in-command was the one who didn’t get the big chair with the breathtaking office view until the season’s fate was sealed.

Indeed, Rosburg showed that he should have gotten a head-coaching opportunity many moons ago.

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