Bubby Brister sat out the 1996 NFL season after a decade-long career as a longtime backup quarterback for three different franchises. He had played for five different offensive coordinators, but never got to play in a West Coast style-offense, specifically a system like coach Mike Shanahan’s.
“I always sort of wished I was in an offense like that. Seems like it’s very quarterback-friendly,” Brister said.
A year later, Brister’s former teammate in Philadelphia, linebacker Bill Romanowski, suggested to Shanahan that the Broncos check out Brister. Shanahan apparently liked what he saw, because Brister signed with Denver that offseason to become the team’s third-string quarterback.
The amount of verbiage in Shanahan’s offense shocked Brister, he said. Play calls in Shanahan’s system can contain up to 15 words, former Broncos fullback Howard Griffith told The Post. Players were asked to turn in tests on Saturday about that week’s call sheet or game plan, Griffith said.
“The player can never get bored or content with the system because plays are constantly changing,” Griffith told The Denver Post.
Shanahan’s system has evolved through his mentees. More than half of the NFL runs an iteration of the Shanahan system — including Mike Shanahan’s son, Kyle, former Broncos’ ball boy Mike McDaniel and former offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak’s son, Klint Kubiak. It’s the NFL’s dominant scheme, and it doesn’t look like it’ll fade into irrelevance anytime soon.
Mike McDaniel, then the head coach of the Miami Dolphins, left, shakes hands with San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan after an NFL football game in Santa Clara, Calif., Sunday, Dec. 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
“The Mike Shanahan offense is one that’s been studied for many, many, many years and has brought success to many, many coaches,” former Broncos wide receiver Ed McCaffrey said.
Each system has different variations. Sean McVay and the Los Angeles Rams design their offense differently than Matt LaFleur and the Green Bay Packers. A team’s offense depends a lot on the talent it has at various positions.
But the principles of the Shanahan offense remain the same. Running the football at an efficient level is a requirement; motions and different deceptions are designed to trick defenders and skill position players are expected to be versatile in their assignments. And it tends to be successful, which is why NFL owners and general managers keep hiring coaches from the Shanahan tree, Broncos offensive tackle Mike McGlinchey said.
“You never know as a defense what play it’s going to be because you’re putting all your personnel in every position across the board to run concepts,” former Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer said to The Post. “And I loved it.”
McGlinchey, who played under Kyle Shanahan from 2018 to 2022, said the offense is designed around putting defenders in conflict. Horizontal routes, motions before the snap, and putting different players in different positions all make the offense difficult to defend, he said. McGlinchey pointed to when the 49ers revolutionized the fly motion to create a lead blocker for run plays, or when they motioned offensive tackle Trent Williams before the snap to pave the way for a running back.
Kyle Shanahan is the “master” of all of that, he said.
“It’s all about creating leverage. Kyle understands as much as anyone the predicament to put on defenders,” McGlinchey told The Post.
The 49ers’ run game is among the best in football, much like the great Mike Shanahan offenses in Denver. Several people told The Post that the Shanahans have a particular taste for how to run the football, setting up the play-action passing game and making it easier for whoever the signal-caller is.
“There are so many things he does well.” Broncos coach Sean Payton said of Kyle Shanahan. “He, like his father, it started with an elite run-game plan. That hasn’t changed.”
McCaffrey played for Mike Shanahan with the Broncos. He now watches his son, Christian McCaffrey, play running back for Kyle Shanahan. The four don’t get together often, Ed McCaffrey told The Post, but he remains close with Mike and when the quartet does have conversations, there’s a “wealth of information there.”
If any Broncos fans turn on their television Sunday and feel like they’re watching a repeat of the back-to-back Super Bowl teams of the 1990s in the 49ers’ red and gold uniforms, it’s because, in many ways, they are.
“There’s a ton of these offenses in the league because of Mike,” Brister said.
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