Nearly all offensive coordinators will claim a “balanced attack” as their preferred method of moving the ball. Pat Shurmur, the Broncos’ new offensive coordinator, has a similar approach but it wasn’t always that way.
Before he worked with Andy Reid (with the Eagles from 1999-2008), Shurmur was a run-first coach. He has since become more balanced.
“I know the importance of running the football and how that affects not only your offense but your full team,” Shurmur said during his introductory press conference on Feb. 6. “Then I worked recently with Andy Reid and really that’s where I got my start and my appreciation for the importance of throwing the ball and how you score points and doing it in a way that’s efficient and explosive.
“We’re just going to do what’s best for our offense and hopefully we’ll put together and offense that can help us win games.”
We would describe Shurmur’s offense as “balanced” but as coach Vic Fangio pointed out, that doesn’t necessarily mean an even split between running and passing. An offense can also have balance in the type of runs and passes it uses.
“He has a good mix of run and pass,” Fangio said of Shurmur’s offense. “Balance is a big word. Most everybody thinks of it as runs versus pass. I look at balance in a different way also in the types of runs and types of passes. Where he’s been, he’s had a good variety in both areas to where it’s not just one or two run styles or same style passing game.
“You can mix it up. There are a lot of ways to throw the ball — short, intermediate and deep, off play action, dropback, empty. You need to be able to utilize all of that. I’ve seen where he’s been able to do that in his past.”
With Shurmur serving as their coach, the Giants’ offense averaged 105.3 rushing yards per game and 233.2 passing yards per contest in 2019. Those figures are a little higher than Denver’s numbers (103.9; 194.7) and Shurmur will look to achieve even better totals in 2020.
