Broncos coach Sean Payton didn’t sugarcoat anything when addressing the performance of last year’s team in an interview this week.
Addressing the franchise’s 5-12 season in an , Payton saved his most unkind assessment for former head coach Nathaniel Hackett.
“Everybody’s got a little stink on their hands,” Payton told USA Today. “Itap not just (quarterback) Russell (Wilson). It was a (poor) offensive line. It might have been one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL. Thatap how bad it was.”
Under Hackett, who was fired after 15 games, Denver had one of the worst offenses in the NFL, finishing last in points per game (16.9). From pre-snap issues to Wilson posting career-low numbers, Payton said the Broncos were an embarrassment in 2022.
“It doesn’t happen often where an NFL team or organization gets embarrassed,” Payton said. “And that happened here. Part of it was their own fault, relative to spending so much (expletive) time trying to win the offseason — the PR, the pomp and circumstance, marching people around and all this stuff.”
If Denver’s Week 5 matchup against the New York Jets at home didn’t already have an abundance of storylines, Payton added more fuel to the fire.
He criticized the Jets, whom Hackett is now coaching for as an offensive coordinator, for being featured on HBO’s Hard Knocks, going against his philosophy of limiting the outside noise.
“We’re not doing any of that,” He said. “The Jets did that this year. You watch. ‘Hard Knocks,’ all of it. I can see it coming. Remember when (former Washington owner) Dan Snyder put that Dream Team together? I was at the Giants (in 2000). I was a young coach. I thought, ‘How are we going to compete with them? Deion (Sanders) is there now.’ That team won eight games or whatever. So, listen…just put the work in.”
Payton’s interview with USA Today showed he is still a believer in Wilson. He said the veteran quarterback still has some juice in the tank. He was just a victim of poor coaching.
“There’s so much dirt around that,” he said. “There’s 20 dirty hands, for what was allowed, tolerated in the fricking training rooms, the meeting rooms. The offense. I don’t know Hackett. A lot of people had dirt on their hands. It wasn’t just Russell. He didn’t just flip. He still has it. This B.S. that he hit a wall? Shoot, they couldn’t get a play in. They were 29th in the league in pre-snap penalties on both sides of the ball.”
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