One-Time Cal QB Davis Webb Lands a New NFL Coaching Assignment

Former Cal quarterback Davis Webb continues to make a rapid ascension in the NFL coaching ranks.

Webb, 31, has been named offensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos, a promotion after serving this season as the team’s offensive pass game coordinator/quarterbacks coach.

The unanswered question is whether head coach Sean Payton will hand playcalling duties to Webb. Payton has made no public remarks about the staff change but he has served as the playcaller through his 18 seasons as a head coach in Denver and New Orleans.

Cal quarterback Davis Webb delivers a pass in the Bears' win over Texas in 2016. | John Hefti-Imagn Images

Webb was exceptional in his one season playing for the Bears. On the heels of Jared Goff being selected the No. 1 pick in the 2016 NFL draft, Webb transferred to Cal from Texas Tech and passed for 4,295 yards with 37 touchdowns.

A third-round draft pick by the New York Giants in 2017, Webb saw no action his first four years, then played one game each for Buffalo in 2021 and the Giants in 2022.

His coaching career has been far more successful.

Payton hired him as the team’s quarterbacks coach in 2023 when he was just 28 years old, and Webb has continued to blossom.

He was interviewed this offseason for head-coaching vacancies with the Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills and Las Vegas Raiders, and also was considered for offensive coordinator jobs with the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants.

Webb has spent the past two seasons working with former Oregon Bo Nix, who became he first quarterback in NFL history to pass for at least 7,500 yards and 50 touchdowns while winning 20 games or more in his first two seasons.

The Broncos won the AFC West title this season, matching a franchise record with 14 victories.

"I think Davis is a tremendous coach," Nix said last week. ”He understands the role of being a coach. He understands the role of teaching. He really knows how to communicate with your players, with me. He's helped me in two years just consolidate, make things simple, and just keep the main thing the main thing. Taking a lot of information, a lot of knowledge, and been able to just roll right into it. I think highly of him. I know he's a really good football coach.”

The Broncos lost 10-7 to the Patriots in the AFC championship game, playing without Nix, who suffered an ankle injury the week before that required surgery.

Only Payton knows whether he will sign playcallng duties over to Webb.

Webb got a taste of that assignment last summer when he called plays in Denver’s 27-7 win over the Arizona Cardinals in a preseason game.

"It was his first time calling a game in an NFL game,” Payton said at the time. "I had thrown a couple call sheets or basically stat sheets from my first time and highlighted a few things. I said, ‘See if you can beat this.’ And he did.”

Whether that becomes a permanent part of Webb’s job description remains unclear for now.

NFL’s Network’s Ian Rapport reported that Nix had interest in hiring Bills’ offensive coordinator Joe Brady for the job, and would even consider giving him playcalling duties. But Brady was promoted head coach at Buffalo.

"The thing that I have to continue that changes as you get older is you still have to be quick," Payton, 62, told Rapport in January. "Play just ran, next play. I said this. When I was younger, we’d run a reverse on the eight-yard line, and I think nothing of it. As you get older, you think about all the ramifications. So, I have to also remove that.

"It was said, as you get older, maybe you don’t drive in the rain at night. You begin to… I can’t let that happen as a play caller. That’s something that I have to mentally make sure it’s quick. It’s quick and decisive, and it’s daring at the right time. Not reckless, but those are things that I find that are challenges compared to when I was 33 in New York or whatever.”

Stay tuned.

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