Mile High Sports
The Denver Broncos and head coach Sean Payton are going to lose one of their key pieces on the coaching staff for the remainder of the season after assistant head coach and special teams assistant Mike Westhoff resigned due to medical reasons.
The Denver Broncos special teams unit has been one of the NFL’s best over the course of the last two seasons since Mike Westhoff and special teams coordinator Ben Kotwica have been able to work their magic. Going forward, the Broncos are going to rely on Kotwica and assistant Chris Banjo a lot more after Westhoff resigned on Tuesday due to ongoing medical issues.
As first reported by Mike Klis of 9News, Westhoff began experiencing vision and eye issues last week, and according to Klis, the symptoms returned on the team’s plane ride home from Kansas City.
Westhoff underwent an MRI on Monday, which led to him ultimately resigning from his position as the team’s assistant head coach. He’s had an extensive coaching career, and his fingerprints are all over the special team’s blueprint of how the game is played today, having coached for 46 years, beginning in 1976 in Indiana as a graduate assistant.
From that point forward, Westhoff coached for Dayton (1976), Indiana State (1977), Northwestern (1978-1980), and Texas Christian in 1981 before taking his first NFL gig with the Indianapolis Colts in 1982, where he’d go on to coach in the NFL for 33 years.
Westhoff came out of retirement in 2023 after Sean Payton was hired as the team’s head coach. Payton convinced him to come out of retirement, and Westhoff’s impact was felt immediately, and players gravitated toward him. His overall knowledge of the sport and the game helped younger Broncos’ players understand the importance of their roles on special teams, and in return, it’s helped turn Denver into one of the NFL’s top-ranked special teams units for the past two seasons.
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