The Denver Broncos have a rich and storied history, but after many years of being one of the league's top competitors, the team went through a dry spell that lasted nearly a decade.
The hiring of head coach Sean Payton led to things heading in a more positive direction, but Broncos Country endured some dark days before that. The Broncos went through four head coaches after winning Super Bowl 50 before landing on Payton ahead of the 2023 season.
Cody Benjamin of CBS Sports recently made a list of the 25 worst head coaching hires of the century thus far, and two former Broncos coaches not only appear on the list, but they are near the top.
At No. 5 is Nathaniel Hackett and at No. 4 is Josh McDaniels. You could make a really strong argument that Vance Joseph belongs on this list as well. Though Joseph has redeemed himself as the team's defensive coordinator under Payton, his two-year stint as the team's head coach was nothing short of horrendous.
The only coaches that appear ahead of Hackett and McDaniels are Cam Cameron of the Miami Dolphins, Bobby Petrino of the Atlanta Falcons and Urban Meyer of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Looking at the Broncos' head coaches, McDaniels had an embarrassing run as the team's head man, going 11-17 before being relieved of his duties before the end of his second season after it was revealed that the team was illegally recording another team.
While he is easily the most disliked former coach in Broncos history, he wasn't the worst. That belongs to Hackett, who was just downright terrible in his lone season in Denver, which he didn't even finish. After a humiliating 51-14 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Christmas Day, Hackett was fired, becoming just the fifth coach in history to be fired during his first season with a team.
In fact, if you want to put Hackett in the No. 1 spot on this list, you will get no argument from me. He was hired because the Broncos felt it would give them a leg up in acquiring Aaron Rodgers down the road. That was a terrible plan and it got the team a terrible coach who was never ready for the position.
This video clip says it all, and this kind of thing happened more than once.
Hackett was a far worse head coach than McDaniels. The 2022 Broncos may have been the worst team in franchise history, and that is saying something. But two have two head coaches make the top five on a list like this, it shows you the challenges the Broncos have had to overcome and should help make fans much more satisfied with the direction the team is currently headed in.
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