1. Bronco trusts him to coach the DBs like he would. That is a big deal because that is the position that Bronco has coached over his career. How the secondary is coached is also a big deal because it is generally where we have the least amount of star talent on a defense that has had to and has in fact been the rock of the team for a lot of years now.

2. Bronco feels responsible for last year's debacle on D as he should. Asking Howell to take over as DC without reducing his role over all 4 of the DB positions was more than Howell could handle. Plus the timing wasn't good. Our defense is based on exceptional linebacker play and last year's team didn't have the playmakers it needed because of experience or talent to get the job done. Bronco's motives were good. He wanted to elevate Howell, take the grind of game prep out of his life, and become more like Lavell in being more involved at a personal level with the players during the season. It may never have worked out but it certainly didn't work with more responsibilities than Howell could handle and a low point in talent especially at linebacker--not to mention bad luck with injuries in the defensive backfield.

3. Bronco is loyal and he wants to protect his coaches and players as much as possible from the media because of how much he dislikes it. The problem here, of course, is that him talking Howell up too much has had the opposite affect. Would be good to say that Coach Howell is a valuable member of the staff and leave it at that.

The Salt Lake media is going to jump down Bronco's throat no matter what he says. Those on this board who want a change may also feel the need to parse and criticize Bronco's choice of words when it comes to Howell or anything else. But whatever the case is, there is a method to what Bronco does, he isn't crazy, he has found a way to make a lot of money in an incredibly difficult profession, and he gets to deal with a lot of challenging situations that are neither ideal nor have ideal solutions.