Fresh off a 32-point victory over the Philadelphia Eagles that has their team at 4-0 and considered an overwhelming Super Bowl favorite, the Denver Broncos have fired their head coach John Fox and replaced him with Lane Kiffin.
Kiffin, the embattled former USC coach, was fired this past Saturday after his team was dismantled at Arizona State, 62-41, in one of the worst losses ever in the program’s history. Kiffin is considered somewhat of an anomaly in the coaching world.
He has been criticized for getting some of the most high profile jobs in the NFL and in college football all the while never really winning enough games to justify his position. In fact, many people have said that he has simply failed up the ladder, whether he was at the University of Tennessee, USC or when he was named a head coach in the NFL for the Oakland Raiders at the young age of 31.
Broncos Team President John Elway summed up the situation.
“Sure, we’re winning games left and right by millions of points, and yes we’ve got the amazing Peyton Manning at quarterback, but I still felt that change was necessary,” said Elway. “Especially before a big game against Jacksonville where we’re only favored by 28½ points.”
For Kiffin, the timing of the hiring could not have been more fortuitous. He was literally left at the airport in Los Angeles Saturday night after his firing and told not to travel with the USC team back to campus. Instead, he had been seen walking through the terminals in a daze, stopping only to get some strawberry ice cream with snow cones from the Pinkberry stand.
As the Denver Broncos’ private plane showed up to greet a man perceived by many to be arrogant and condescending, Kiffin was already envisioning gameplans to improve the Denver Broncos and make them “even more awesome like me.”
An unapologetic Kiffin addressed team media by stating, “Now that I’m here and we can finally start to be really good at throwing good and running the football good, I see us maybe running a little wishbone or the option. Also, I am not ready to name a starter before our next game. Manning has been impressive so far, but let’s not count out Zac Dysert. He did some big things at the University of Miami of Ohio and I know so much about football that I see him as the player who can finally make our team super great like my dad says I am.”
