Broncos' head coach Gary Kubiak has already become the first head coach since Jim Caldwell in 2009 with the Colts to reach the Super Bowl in his first year with a team. But Kubiak will become the sole owner of a piece of NFL history as soon as Super Bowl 50 kicks off in Santa Clara on Feb. 7th.
Gary Kubiak will become the first person in NFL history to ever reach the Super Bowl as both a player and a coach for the same team, according to Dan Schneier of Fox Sports.
Kubiak, who was drafted in the eighth round of the 1983 NFL Draft out of Texas A&M, spent his entire nine-year career as a quarterback for the Denver Broncos. In those nine seasons, he stared five games, going 3-2. Overall in his career, Kubiak passed for 178 completions and 14 touchdowns, according to Pro-Football-Reference. Why only five games, you might ask?
Well, a guy named John Elway was drafted number one overall out of Stanford by the Baltimore Colts in that same draft, and was then traded to the Denver Broncos. Kubiak became Elway's backup, and did so for his entire playing career. During that tenure, the Broncos went to three Super Bowls, but lost all three.
After retiring from playing, Kubiak became the running backs coach at his alma mater. He then made a return to the NFL, spending eleven years as the offensive coordinator for the Broncos, during which he coached a prolific Denver offense, still led by Elway, to back-to-back Super Bowl titles (Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII). Kubiak was also the head coach of the Houston Texans from 2006-2013, and the offensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens in 2014.
When the Broncos won their last two Super Bowls, those were Mike Shanahan's teams. But the offensive coordinator from those teams now takes ownership over this 2015-2016 incarnation. He coached a master in Elway, leading Denver to two titles; now he leads another aging superstar in Peyton Manning, as he searches for his elusive second ring. For the city of Denver, there may not be anyone who understands what another title would mean more than Gary Kubiak.
