Gary Kubiak’s preferred spot is between the hash marks on the 50-yard line of the Broncos’ east practice field at their Englewood training facility. Sometimes he stands with a coordinator at his side as they watch the quarterbacks throw and the running backs run. Oftentimes he stands alone, quietly observing in garb typically fit for 20 degrees cooler.

This is the spot where Kubiak processes and teaches, where he listens and delegates. It’s a routine born of habit and success since 1983, when he was a backup to John Elway, a role he had for nine seasons, and later evolved with his various stops as an NFL coach.

Over the past 23 years, Kubiak has earned a reputation as a quarterback whisperer of sorts with his ability to develop young talent such as Trevor Siemian, Brian Griese and Brock Osweiler, get the best out of veterans such as Jake Plummer, Matt Schaub and Joe Flacco, and win the trust of (and Super Bowl rings with) late-career legends such as Steve Young, Elway and Peyton Manning.

Monday night against the Houston Texans, Kubiak will add a new page to his long quarterbacking resume as he faces the team that gave him his head-coaching start and a quarterback, Osweiler, whose career as a starter he launched a year ago. Related Articles October 21, 2016 Broncos running back C.J. Anderson on recent pressure: “I’ve got nothing to lose”

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With a young player in Siemian, whom he scouted and drafted as a relative unknown, Kubiak continues his tradition of quarterback development. To know how that tradition started and unfolded requires a deeper understanding of those who influenced Kubiak and a system built on transparency.

“At the very basic level of who Gary Kubiak is as a man, you trust him almost immediately when you get lucky enough to play for him,” said quarterback Sage Rosenfels, who played for Kubiak in Houston from 2005-08. “I think you’d have a hard time going back in his 20-plus years of NFL coaching to find a quarterback, whether it’s the starter or fourth-string guy, who didn’t enjoy playing for him.”

The Student

It’s been 27 years, but Mark Schlereth still remembers one loss in particular during his rookie season with the Washington Redskins. A loss that, perhaps, shouldn’t have been a loss, given the circumstances. It was Nov. 20, 1989, and the Redskins were set to host Elway and the Broncos in a Monday night game. Hours before kickoff, however, Elway lay sick in the Broncos’ training room after eating chipped beef on toast at the White House that morning. So his backup, Kubiak, got the starting nod. He threw for 123 yards and a pair of touchdowns to carry the Broncos to victory.

What Schlereth remembers most, however, is not so much the loss but the obvious bond on the opposing sideline.

“You talk about the sacrifices you have to make, especially as a backup player, to have that relationship where a guy is helping you prep or taking your reps when you’re injured,” he said. “You could have a recipe for absolute animosity and there was never that. And I think that’s a big part of Kubiak and Elway’s relationship.”

That relationship began when they were players, when Kubiak backed up Elway. But the trust was developed with shared philosophies and years of preparation and observation.

“I watched John at the end of the week say, ‘Give me these plays and I’ll go win the game.’ I watched his confidence, I watched him sit down with the coach — whether it was (Mike) Shanahan or coach (Dan) Reeves — and relay how he wants things in a game,” Kubiak said. “I learned to deal with quarterbacks that way. It doesn’t matter how much I know or how much I want to do. What matters is what they feel best about doing. You’re not the one playing. Even though you may think that’s a great play, well, if he doesn’t like it, it doesn’t matter. I learned that through John, really. Watching John prepare.”

Kubiak used the same approach when he got his start on an NFL sideline, working with future Hall of Famer Steve Young in San Francisco. It was 1994 and Shanahan, then the 49ers’ offensive coordinator, was directed to find his successor. Shanahan was on the verge of landing a head coaching job, and his bosses knew it, so they wanted to be prepared. They wanted a transition plan, a seamless one founded on similar beliefs and a proven system. So Shanahan turned to his former player whom he has long described as a “student of the game” to be his quarterbacks coach and heir apparent.

Young won his third Super Bowl title and the game’s MVP award that season. Shanahan found his future Broncos coordinator that season.

“Gary influenced me a lot as a coach,” Shanahan said. “You get a chance to learn how people prepare, how they eliminate mistakes by their daily preparation and their work ethic — all the things that decide the outcome of games. It’s having those intangibles that you look for, and as you go with different people as head coaches and coordinators, I think you learn from everybody. I probably learned as much from Gary as I did from anyone.”

Team-first instincts

The defining moment of the Broncos’ 2015 season was not when they stood on the podium at Levi’s Stadium the night of Feb. 7, 2016, and raised the Lombardi Trophy in triumph. It wasn’t when they celebrated their third world championship with a no-expenses-spared private ring party in June.

No, the defining moment came on Nov. 15, 2015, when Kubiak benched a future Hall of Famer.

“Hey, this is on me. I got you,” Kubiak told an injured Manning in the third quarter of a loss to Kansas City that day. “I can’t send you out there and get you hurt. You understand that? I had no business putting you out here today anyway. We’ll get through it.”

The decision is one Elway still believes is underrated for the significance it had on the Broncos’ season, on the future of Osweiler, on the end of Manning’s storied career and on the legacy of Kubiak.

In the regular-season finale, Kubiak brought Manning back to rally the Broncos against San Diego and subsequently lead the team’s playoff push. Many believed the move led to Osweiler’s defection to Houston in free agency, though he denied it was a factor.

For Kubiak, it was simply a gut feeling — a challenging one, sure — but drawn from instincts. So many of his decisions are.

“I think they have to be,” Kubiak said. “You’re always listening to coaches, but really it does get down to your gut. It doesn’t mean you’re always right; but you really have to have instincts and just feeling players’ personalities, feeling players’ energy, those type of things. Make decisions to let you know you trust them and let them go.”

Rarely does a conversation about Kubiak go far without mentions of two words, trust and transparency. Trust in his decisions, on the field and off. Appreciation of his candor, brutal as it may be at times.

“There’s an honesty there that isn’t across the league,” Plummer said. “The good head coaches, yeah, it’s there. But some of those good head coaches, there’s also a lot of fear there. They coach on fear. Players fear messing up. That’s not Kubes. He treats you like a man so long as you act like a man and do your job.”

For the quarterbacks, that trust is multi-pronged, developed in meeting rooms and conversations away from the field, but honed on game days.

“He doesn’t put the entire responsibility on the quarterback as far as what play is run and those types of things,” explained Rosenfels, who had his most successful seasons under Kubiak’s watch. “He runs sort of high-quality plays that are good versus multiple coverages and blitzes and he gives you answers without having to be like a Peyton Manning or an Eli (Manning) or a Tom Brady, where you’re audibling a lot and having to make a lot of changes at the line of scrimmage. So you can just go up there and play and not overanalyze the game.”

The finer details require even more trust. Kubiak tries to tailor his offensive scheme to his players, pushing them to expand their repertoire but not to the point of discomfort. For Plummer, this meant turning to a lot of quick-hitting plays that relied on a rhythmic drop and footwork. The seven-step drops and reads downfield were used, but the staples of the offense were the play-action pass and a sound running game.

“There’s a lot of trust in that offense,” Plummer said. “A lot of trust in the run game affecting the defense, being able to get back up and then, now, have the vision as a quarterback to look through everything and make sure what you were trying to do with the play fake was accomplished.”

The Broncos’ newest quarterback, Austin Davis, joined the ranks of Kubiak disciples last week, when the coach returned from another health scare amid a two-game slide.

“You get the sense when he speaks, especially with the last two weeks, that we’re all in this together,” Davis said. “It’s not him versus us. He’s not speaking down to us. We’re a unit, and he’s speaking like we have to get this fixed together.

“You just respect that, and when you have someone like that, you want to play for him.”

Notable quarterbacks coached by Gary Kubiak

Steve Young, 1994, 49ers

Kubiak’s first NFL coaching job was with the 49ers, as their quarterbacks coach. That season, Young was selected to his third Pro Bowl and earned his third first-team all-pro selection. He won a Super Bowl title (XXIX) and the game’s MVP award, and led the league in completion percentage (70.3), passing touchdowns (35) and passer rating (112.8).

John Elway, 1995-98, Broncos

After nine seasons as Elway’s backup, Kubiak returned to Denver as his offensive coordinator and QBs coach to help him earn three more Pro Bowl selections and back-to-back Super Bowl wins. Elway had a career-high 27 TDs in 1997 and a career-high 93.0 passer rating in 1998. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004 and sits atop the Broncos’ record books in career passing yards (51,475) and TD passes (300), among other categories.

Brian Griese, 1998-2002, Broncos

Griese passed for 3,032 yards in his first season as the starter, following Elway’s retirement in 1999. He was selected to his first and only Pro Bowl in 2000, when he threw only four interceptions and posted a league-best 102.9 passer rating. Griese never topped 2,632 passing yards in a season after his release from the Broncos in 2003.

Jake Plummer, 2003-05, Broncos

Signed as a free agent in 2003, Plummer reached career highs with Kubiak as his coordinator and position coach in Denver. His 62.6 completion percentage in 2003 and 4,089 passing yards in 2004 were both career bests. He was named to his first and only Pro Bowl in 2005 and ranks second all time among Broncos starting QBs with a .722 (39-15) winning percentage.

Matt Schaub, 2007-13, Texans

With Kubiak as his head coach, Schaub earned two Pro Bowl selections (2009, ’12). He led the league in completions (396), attempts (583) and passing yards (4,770) in 2009, while recording career highs in touchdowns (29) and passer rating (98.6) that year.

Joe Flacco, 2014, Ravens

In his lone season with Kubiak as his offensive coordinator, Flacco set career highs with 27 passing touchdowns and 3,986 passing yards, and posted a 91.0 passer rating. He led the Ravens to a 10-6 record and was named a Pro Bowl alternate but did not play in the game.

Peyton Manning, 2015, Broncos

In his most trying season since his rookie year, Manning missed seven starts to recuperate from a foot injury but returned in the regular-season finale to lead the Broncos to their third Super Bowl title (his second). He retired in March 2016 with a pair of rings and a slew of Broncos and NFL records, including his 71,940 career passing yards and 539 passing touchdowns.