Vic Fangio Addresses Whether Shurmur's Availability Influenced Decision to Fire Scangarello

Vic Fangio has a new experience under his belt as a head coach. He now knows what it's like to fire someone.

Specifically, the Denver Broncos' head coach fired offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello back in January after just one season on the job. Less than a week later, Fangio fired QBs Coach T.C. McCartney.

At the time, many outside the building surmised that Fangio only fired Scangarello because he had somebody else in mind who had recently hit the job market. The theory made sense, as Pat Shurmur had just been fired by the New York Giants, but he'd been on the job market for a couple weeks when Fangio fired Scangarello. Shurmur was dispatched by the Giants the Monday after the regular season ended.

However, the brutally honest Fangio claims one month later that Shurmur's availability on the job market had nothing to do with his decision to jettison Scangarello.

“Those two decisions were independent of each other," Fangio said on Thursday following Shurmur's introductory presser at Broncos HQ.

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Perhaps Fangio simply needed to see that there were a few offensive coordinator options out there in order to work up the courage to fire Scangarello. According to Fangio, though, that's not how it happened.

Despite Fangio stating from the podium during his end-of-season presser alongside GM John Elway that no changes were imminent to his coaching staff, he risked the perception of looking like a flip-flopper to the media and fans by cutting bait with Scangarello two weeks later. The question is, why?

Because Fangio believed that's what was best for the Broncos.

Fangio did so because after taking a couple of weeks off, upon returning to the building to study the different phases of the team, he was extremely dissatisfied with Scangarello's offense.

Some allowance or margin for error should be acceptable for a first-year coordinator who had to roll with the punches of three different starting quarterbacks, two of whom he had to get ready to start their first-ever NFL game. The conditions for Scangarello weren't ideal but they rarely ever are in the NFL. And yet, the truly impactful coaches find ways to make lemonade.

Fangio believes the Broncos are extremely fortunate to have landed Shurmur as OC, a coach with 21 years of NFL experience compared to the five Scangarello brought to the table when Denver hired him a year ago. Shurmur has either been a head coach or offensive coordinator for his last 11 years in the league.

To get Mike Shula on top of Shurmur to coach Drew Lock and the quarterbacks can only be viewed as a massive coup for the club. It feels like once again, competency has returned to the Broncos' offensive coaching staff. Outside of Scangarello and McCartney, Fangio chose to keep all other offensive coaches in their current positions, so there will be a modicum of continuity for the Broncos' players.

“T.C. and Rich kind of came in together," Fangio said. "It was nothing against T.C. at all. I knew and T.C. knew too [that] if I didn’t do that change that he would part of that. The other guys are all guys that I think do a good job, do a great job.”

Follow Chad on Twitter @ChadNJensen and @MileHighHuddle.