The Denver Broncos have a new playcaller in Davis Webb, and he'll have his hands full this season.
The Denver Broncos have a new offensive coordinator, and Davis Webb is facing some serious challenges. He’s working for coach Sean Payton, which is a challenge in itself, and he’s trying to raise the level of play of an offense that frequently struggled with consistency.
But Webb has faced plenty of adversity, according to his high school coach. Kent Scott worked with Webb in high school in Texas, and according to a column written by Sean Keeler of the Denver Post, he sees Webb as a good quarterback who happens to be a coaching prodigy.
“He was just a worker physically, a worker mentally,” Scott continued. “Davis is unbelievable. One of the best I’ve ever coached.”
Plenty of high school players get that kind of praise from their coaches, though, and the adversity started for real when Webb found himself on a Texas Tech roster that included quarterbacks Baker Mayfield, then Patrick Mahomes. Webb saw the writing on the wall, so he transferred to Cal and promptly threw 37 touchdown passes.
“He obviously experienced some failure,” Scott said. “His response to failure is to pick himself up, dust himself off and go back to work.
“(Webb) always struck me as a very emotionally mature, a very strong individual. And I think that he’s one of those guys that would be fueled by failure. Nobody wants to fail. But I can’t imagine him not taking something (as a playcaller) and learning lessons from it.”
The then-quarterback also kept a list of those who doubted him as a player. He hasn’t revealed whether he’s still keeping that list as a coach, but Payton had to give him a promotion to keep Webb from landing a job with another team, with multiple reports saying that that team was an AFC West rival.
The challenges get bigger now, though. Webb was promoted with the promise that he’ll be calling the plays, but no one knows how long Patyon will actually let him do that. It’s easy to imagine the tempestuous coach taking over again if the Broncos hit a rough patch, which they almost certainly will at some point during the season.
Add in the job of elevating the play of quarterback Bo Nix, who is often brilliant but occasionally struggle with and sprays throws when the Broncos running game goes stagnant. Webb also won’t know how mobile Nix will be until he sees him on the field in August, although presumably he’s got a much better idea than the rest of us how that’s going to go in training camp.
