Deep in the wings of the Broncos’ facility this winter, Sean Payton offered center stage to Denver’s scruffy-bearded mad scientist.
Head-coaching buzz around 31-year-old quarterbacks coach Davis Webb had risen from sneaky whispers to verbal conversations in late January, and Denver had no obvious other options than to promote a hot commodity or risk him walking out of the building. So Payton — around the time Webb had interviews with Buffalo, Baltimore and Las Vegas for head coach vacancies — a source told The Post — floated the concept of play-calling duties to him. Webb had separate conversations with general manager George Paton and owner Greg Penner, too.
And once that concept became real, there was no other decision to be made, as Webb told reporters Thursday.
“I didn’t really know what the situation was going to be for me,” Webb said. “But, I mean, I pretty much signed immediately whenever they offered that.”
The question, as Webb himself outlined there: What, exactly, did he sign up for?
Even as he’s publicly inherited play-calling duties from Payton, Webb made clear to reporters Thursday that Denver is still operating under Payton’s offensive philosophy. Through OTAs, Webb has run the unit through practice similar to how previous offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi did in previous years. And Denver’s offensive style hasn’t looked markedly different through OTAs than it did in 2025, when the Broncos ran sizeable doses of screen and mesh concepts.
In his first offseason media availability Thursday, though, Webb offered a few glints as to how the Broncos’ attack will eventually function differently — and made clear he feels ready for the pressure of becoming the new face of Payton’s offense in Denver.
“Yeah, I think so,” Webb said, when asked if he feels he has thick enough skin to handle play-calling duties. “My dad was a coach for a long time, so I heard that. I was a backup QB for a while. Everybody likes the backup. It just, it is what it is. That kinda comes with it.
“Our whole deal is, ‘Letap score some points, letap have some fun, letap have a different attitude on offense. Letap get up with some excitement, celebrate with your teammates, no dumb penalties. And letap just play clean football.'”
Between the lines, those comments clearly pointed to a fatal flaw in Denver’s offense last season: operational speed. Webb largely played the wait-and-see card when asked how his own offensive ideals would fit into Payton’s scheme, noting that the Los Angeles Rams — as an example — decided to move to heavier personnel groupings midway through last season. But Payton himself acknowledged in February that a reason for passing off play-calling was “being quicker,” as the Broncos’ 14th-ranked offense alternated between pockets of up-tempo flow and sluggish starts amid constantly rotating personnel groupings.
On multiple occasions in 2025, quarterback Bo Nix became visibly frustrated with Payton for not getting play calls from the sideline fast enough. That’s been an early emphasis of Webb’s planning in Denver, through OTAs.
“Right now, we’re just teaching the installations and making sure we get the bad football out of our system,” Webb said Thursday. “Break the huddle efficiently, get to the ball fast, and allow the QB to see the game.”
That can play to the benefit of the Broncos’ franchise quarterback, on simple precedent. Nix’s efficiency took a leap in both yards-per-attempt and quarterback rating in no-huddle looks in 2025, a situational comfort that’s played out since he began his collegiate days at Auburn.
In perhaps the worst year of Nix’s football life — a disjointed 2021 season at Auburn — Nix simply didn’t respect then-head coach Bryan Harsin and his offensive system “at all,” as former Auburn offensive analyst Kendall Simmons recounted to The Post. The saving grace in a 6-7 season came when Nix could simply see the defense and react without a play call in late-clock situations.
“You (could) just see the frustration on a normal play-call of, ‘OK, why are we calling this? Because the defense keeps presenting X to us, and we’re going all the way back to A, and itap not working,'” Simmons recalled. “And so when we went up-tempo and Bo could go with himself, you can see the confidence. And I almost felt like we should’ve done more of it, instead of calling plays — we should’ve done more up-tempo, and letting him get the feel and call things out.”
The same realization appears set to play out in Denver in 2026, in a much more stable situation. And Webb, now, will have a new toy to play with in receiver Jaylen Waddle, who has the physical tools to win matchups faster than any receiver Nix has had in two seasons in Denver.
“He’s good,” Webb deadpanned when asked about utilizing Waddle.
In 2020, Webb was a backup quarterback with Buffalo when the Bills traded for Stefon Diggs as a new weapon for a rising Josh Allen. Allen, in his subsequent third NFL season, promptly earned an All-Pro nod and a second-place MVP finish. And Webb drew a connection between the Allen-Diggs pairing and Nix’s partnership with Waddle in Denver’s offense — as Nix readies for his third season, himself.
“There’s some similarities of whatap starting to happen here,” Webb said. “Doesn’t mean itap going to. We got a long way to go. But man, he’s good. And I’ve just enjoyed the person, and just watching him work. He is a blessing to be around. He is a multiplier. He is a thermostat.”
The heat, with Denver swinging on Waddle amid Super Bowl aspirations, has been turned up on Webb. He is no longer an idea, a hotshot offensive mind hidden behind a play-sheet; he is a reality, one of the most important figures in this Broncos offseason. And he’ll be directing traffic that’s still operating on Payton’s grid system, as the 62-year-old head coach just signed a new five-year contract Thursday and can yank back play-calling duties with one fell swoop.
But Webb said Thursday the “most attractive thing” about staying in Denver, ultimately, was leaning on Payton.
“I trust him, he trusts me, we think very similar,” Webb said. “I know how he wants the game to be played. Itap the same offense for the most part. There’s some little tweaks here and there.
“But this is a Sean Payton-coached football team.”
