Michael Robinson and Brian Billick welcome Super Bowl 50-winning head coach Gary Kubiak to the podcast. Coach Kubiak starts things off with a locker room story from his days backing up John Elway (1:53) -- Mike Shanahan didn't think it was that funny, but you will -- how Kubiak went from player to coach and who convinced him to make the jump (3:30) and why making the move back to Texas A&M put him on track to excel as an NFL head coach. He also talks about what it was like to land in Denver as a head coach working with Elway again (7:15), and then what it was like to walk away… that is until Mike Zimmer pulled him back into the Vikings locker room (9:25). MRob gets Kubiak to dive into the evolution of the wide zone run scheme (10:20), and Coach Billick follows up asking how he found the right backs to run the scheme (12:26).
Kubiak treasures teaching and one of his students was just named NFL Coach of the Year, Kubiak talks about the time he spent with Kevin Stefanski in Minnesota (13:45). Head coaching can take its toll, Billick asks how he addressed work life balance following health concerns (15:58), and the coaching legacy he's passed on to his sons (17:20). MRob asks how we can get more opportunities for minority head coaches (19:50). Coach Billick brings up the "I got the job, what do I do now?" moment every head coach faces (21:36), leading Coach Kubiak to tell a very cool story of when he first met Robert Saleh as well as some coaching advice that's followed him ever since. Kubiak weighs in on the state of offenses during the time of COVID and tells us what we can expect when the fans return (23:27). Finally, we couldn't let Coach go without asking about Peyton Manning (24:54), what it was like to coach the future Hall of Famer.
NFL Total Access: The Locker Room is part of the NFL Podcasts Network.
