Broncos Game Management Coach Adds Unique Value On Field

Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton has been known to crack jokes about the number of coaches he has, but there’s a method to the madness here. Every NFL team comes with an armada of coaches these days, but some bring more to the table than others. 

Consider the value of Broncos game-management coach Evan Rothstein, and Luca Evans of the Denver Post did just that in a recent piece. He has the ultimate ephermeral title that might look meaningless from afar, but Rothstein is a sort of master of the tape for a coach who tends to devour tape and panics when he doesn’t have enough to serve his purposes. 

Rothstein was doing deep dives into DVSport, which Evans called a “next-gen” software package/system for football film analysis that Rothstein learned back when he was a student assistant at SUNY. 

Not exactly a football powerhouse, but according to Evans the coach is a key figure in how the Broncos put their tape together and subsequently break it down. He refused to be interviewed for Evans’ story, and he has no official title on the team website. 

Ask receiver Pat Bryant about Rothstein’s value in close games, though, and you’ll get a very different story. 

“Very, bro,” Bryant said when he was asked how imporant Rothstein is. “When we do two-minute drills, situational, Sean (Payton) kinda steps to the side and lets Evan go to work. He’ll turn around, ask Evan questions. We come in here, we watch film on it, (Evan) will tell us what we did wrong.

“So, he’s basically like another offensive coordinator, for our situational football.”

It’s a remarkable role since there are only three coaches on Denver’s staff who speak to the team consistently. One is Payton, obviously, and the other is senior defensive assistant Joe Vitt, who addresses the team on Saturday night before games, per Evans. Then there’s Rothstein, who “goes in-depth each week on situational and late-game mechanics,” according to the writer. 

“He’s been a tremendous asset, and almost like an air traffic controller on gameday where — his mind, it’s racing with timeouts, and clock and situation,” Payton said in late July.

Rothstein is part of a growing armada of analytics coaches who have different titles across the league, and their task is to process algorithmic data into a usable form for coaches. It’s easy to make fun of what they do, but the results on the field often speak to the value of what they provide. 

Evans also spoke to another game-management “coach” who would only talk off the record on the condition of anonymity. 

“I don’t want to speak for Evan, but guys who – I’m assuming like, Evan and myself, and some of these guys that are more on the coaching side, we’d all love to get to that point where we’re calling plays one day,” he said. “I think it’s trending that way. I think we’re getting more and more coaching responsibilities every year. I think it’s either going to take a special head coach to give that opportunity, or a special ownership.”

“I think one of us just has to find a way to prove it, and get that first job.”