Broncos hire former Stanford HC David Shaw to front office position

This might be the best thing the Denver Broncos have done in a very, very long time. Mike Klis of 9NEWS reported that former Stanford Cardinal head coach David Shaw will be joining the team in a front-office role for this season. He will be a senior personnel executive, reporting to general manager George Paton. This is Paton's second big offseason hire after adding Cody Rager back in January.

Interestingly enough, Shaw actually interviewed for the head-coaching position two offseasons ago that ultimately went to Sean Payton. Shaw, who stepped down as the head coach of the Cardinal after the 2022 college football season, has worked in the NFL before. He had been an offensive assistant from 1997 to 2005 before linking up with Jim Harbaugh and following him to San Diego back in 2006.

While back at his alma mater, Shaw not only took over for Harbaugh in 2011, but became the winningest head coach in Cardinal history in the process. For academic reasons, Stanford is one of the hardest Power Four jobs in the country. Although Stanford took a turn for the worse once Mike Bloomgren took over at Rice, Shaw maintained respectability as one of the best coaches in college.

Although I am not one to praise the Broncos all that often, here is why I love the hiring of Shaw.

Denver Broncos hiring former Stanford HC David Shaw to front office

I will give Paton a lot of credit here. He is thinking outside the box to get a traditional college man into the building to help the Broncos evaluating talent better. Paton may very well be the worst general manager in the league, but hiring Shaw could play a part in saving his fleeting front-office career. Even in down years at Stanford, Shaw could recruit blue-chip prospects, ones that the NFL seems to love.

When you think of the best players to star at Stanford over the last 15-plus years, most of whom have a deep, personal connection with Shaw. From Richard Sherman, to Andrew Luck, to Zach Ertz, to Austin Hooper, to Christian McCaffrey, to Davis Mills, they became members of the Cardinal football team and developed into serious NFL players and prospects because of Shaw. He is phenomenal.

One of the many things the Broncos have gotten wrong as a franchise since Peyton Manning retired is they seem to be taking risky and miscalculated home-run cuts in the draft process. The high-risk/high-reward maneuevers have rarely worked out in their favor. Because Shaw had to be smarter about it at Stanford in order to sustain success, I think he can use some of that to his advantage here.

Shaw may be two years removed from coaching college football, and probably closer to five or six since Stanford was even the least bit good. However, there is a reason that when he was thriving back in Palo Alto that so many NFL teams had interest in him possibly returning, as well as drafting his players. For a while there, there was a standard of excellence he put forward while leading Stanford.

Overall, I think getting a guy who is pretty much universally beloved into a building that prominently features one of the most disliked head coaches in football in Payton speaks volumes. It kind of makes you wonder if Paton regrets hiring Payton. This kind of, in a way, feels like Jimmy Haslam immediately regretting promoting Freddie Kitchens from within instead of hiring Kevin Stefanski, who is brilliant.

Look at how much better the Browns are since they decided to do the right and most logical thing...