Nathaniel Hackett Forecasts his First Team Meeting as Broncos Head Coach

On Tuesday, the Denver Broncos will officially kick off their 2022 offseason training program. Coaches and players alike will descend on UCHealth Training Center for the first team activities of this new-look team helmed by first-time head coach Nathaniel Hackett.

There won't be any practices out on the grass — it'll be more about team meetings, player conditioning, and rehab. But it's Hackett's first chance to get hands on his collective roster (minus the imminent 2022 NFL draft class).

What will Hackett do and say in his first-ever team meeting as the boss of the Broncos? In a great conversation with The MMQB's Albert Breer, Hackett forecasted the meeting with his typical charm.

“So when people say, ‘What are you going to do in that first meeting?’ It’s like, ‘I don’t know, s---, I’m going to have a PowerPoint and I’m going to be me.’ And half the time, I never know what’s going to happen up there. Because you gotta feel the room. You can’t say it’s going to be like this, you can’t say it’s going to be that. It’s them understanding who I am and understanding this is how it’s going to be now," Hackett told Breer.

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Hackett will be prepared with the items on the agenda, but from there, it's about reading the room and letting that raw enthusiasm and excitement lead him to where the Broncos' players need to go.

“There are people that get nervous going in front of a group,” Hackett told Breer. “I think my [emotion] has always been excitement.”

As Breer writes, Hackett's enthusiasm has a strategy to it, but don't take that to mean that it's contrived or fake.

And he projects that excitement, because what he’s seen fail, fails because “they couldn’t keep the attention of the audience.”

“Even when I went back to the teachers I had growing up with, through college and high school, it was the class you loved the most where the teachers were the most exciting and the most fun,” he said. “I just wanted to bring that once I got my opportunity in 2010 [at Syracuse], and I think that was a big part of how all the places I’ve been are; we’ve kind of unified people together. The ability to get up and just talk and communicate and be strong and exciting and fun is, that’s just something I’ve always had," Hackett told Breer.

Although Hackett has spent time with new quarterback Russell Wilson, he's been very limited in terms of what interactions are sanctioned by the NFL. Tuesday is the first day Hackett can really kick the door open on his new relationship with Wilson, and begin the process of sketching out what the Broncos' offense is ultimately going to look like.

“I haven’t been with the players at all. I don’t know the players,” Hackett told Breer. “I don’t know Russell. I don’t know what Russell likes. And truly, you don’t know. You try your hardest [to project] but even Russell is probably going to like different stuff. We don’t have DK Metcalf now, so he’s gotta find stuff for Cortland [Sutton] and Tim [Patrick] and [Jerry] Jeudy and Javonte [Williams] and all these guys. That’s a process."

It's going to be fun to see how it all takes shape. Hackett's coaching philosophy, and his innovative approach to teaching, could have a quantum-level effect on the Broncos.

If the players want to be in the building, and if they understand the 'why' of a given play or assignment, they'll buy in. From there, armed with a visionary head coach and nine-time Pro Bowl franchise quarterback, there's no telling what the limits could be for the Broncos.

Be sure to read Breer's entire piece on his conversation with Hackett. It's an edifying read.

Follow Chad on Twitter @ChadNJensen.

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