Former Stanford coach David Shaw is returning to the NFL.
The Denver Broncos announced Thursday that Shaw, 51, would become the team’s senior personnel executive. It will be Shaw’s first NFL job in nearly two decades after parting ways with the Cardinal following the 2022 season.
Shaw worked with Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton when both coached for the Philadelphia Eagles in 1997. Payton was the team’s quarterbacks coach that season, while Shaw was a quality control coach.
After serving as the Ravens’ wide receivers coach in 2005, Shaw moved to college in 2006 when he joined Jim Harbaugh’s staff in San Diego. Shaw spent one season at USD before transferring to Stanford with Harbaugh and serving as the Cardinal’s offensive coordinator for four seasons.
Shaw took over as Stanford’s head coach when Harbaugh went to the San Francisco 49ers and quickly continued the success Stanford had under Harbaugh. The Cardinal went 34-7 in Shaw’s first three seasons with the team as Andrew Luck was the No. 1 pick in the 2012 NFL draft.
Overall, Stanford posted winning seasons in each of Shaw’s first eight years at the school and that success made him a coach often mentioned as a candidate for head coaching jobs in the NFL. However, Shaw never made the jump from Stanford to the NFL and the team’s success quickly declined towards the end of his tenure.
Stanford collapsed during Shaw’s final four seasons with the team. The Cardinal went 4-8 in 2019 and were 3-9 in both 2021 and 2022 after posting a 4-2 record in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. The lack of success in Shaw’s final two seasons with the team led to his firing shortly after the 2022 season ended with a loss to BYU.
