Sean Payton was headlong into preparing for a home divisional-round playoff game against Buffalo back in January when he said something telling.
It might have been just a throwaway phrase in the middle of a longer answer, but it perked the ears nonetheless.
The Broncos head coach was asked Jan. 15 — a Thursday, Denver’s final full day on the practice field before hosting the Bills on Saturday afternoon — if the preparation process and the hunt for an ‘ah-ha’ moment or a slight advantage ramp up even further during the postseason.
Of course, he acknowledged it did. There is only so much time in a day and so much caffeine one can consume, he said.
Then a quick aside.
“I might have been a pain last night in the red-zone meeting,” he said, “And it might have went later. Thatap just part of the deal.”
It sounded at the time like an understatement. Probably a vast one.
That quote stuck around in my brain long after the Broncos bowed out in the AFC Championship Game, four points short of the Super Bowl without quarterback Bo Nix.
It popped up when Payton fired offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi and receivers coach Keary Colbert. Again, when Payton made Davis Webb his offensive coordinator and play-caller.
And again earlier this week while reading after being embedded with Payton and the Broncos for their postseason run.
The story is filled with all manner of details, from game planning notes to personnel decisions to a so-aggressive-as-to-be-reckless fourth-and-11 fake punt call against the Bills that Broncos players waved off on the field to Payton’s inner struggles and far beyond.
One of the overarching themes that stuck out: Working in the same building as Payton, let alone holding a place on his coaching staff, is not for the faint of heart.
That sentiment in and of itself isn’t new information.
Payton is notoriously intense. He calls himself “borderline maniacal” about details, and he means every detail about everything. Receiver splits, quarterback footwork, yeah, but also room temperatures, rental bus companies, gum flavors and hotel bedsheet thread counts.
Offensive lineman Terron Armstead said on his podcast last year that Payton reached out to him about coaching in Denver when he retires. Armstead’s reaction: “I said, Sean, I appreciate you, but no. I’m not doing it. Especially not with him because his hours is… no. Not for me.”
Still, there was something striking about Wickersham describing Broncos offensive assistants preparing their in-office cots before heading to hours-long meetings with Payton that stretch into the wee hours of the morning. About Payton barking to coaches turning away to yawn and rub their eyes at 1 a.m., “”If you want to leave, go ahead! It’s only the championship game!” and then carrying on until 2:30 a.m.
At one point during the postseason, I asked a Broncos offensive assistant casually how much sleep he’d gotten the night before. The answer: “90 minutes.”
In conversations with almost every offensive assistant who has coached for Payton in Denver and then left — some on their own volition for better postings, some fired — nearly all express some form of two seemingly competing feelings that they can easily justify as coexistent: A genuine admiration for the way Payton runs a franchise and gratitude for the impact he has on careers and also a sense of relief to not be working for him anymore.
In Baltimore alone, there are four former Broncos offensive assistants — Ravens OC Declan Doyle and tight ends coach Zack Grossi left Denver on their own, while Colbert (WR coach) and Lombardi (senior offensive assistant) were fired after this past season. Imagine the stories that come up when they’re together in the office or kicking around before practice.
Not everybody in the NFL operates this way. Just this week, Super Bowl champion Seattle coach Mike Macdonald told Dan Patrick, “If I’m making decisions after 9 p.m., we’re in trouble.” Even within the Broncos building, Vance Joseph’s defensive staff meetings certainly don’t typically carry on well after midnight.
"If I'm making decisions after 9pm, we're in trouble."
– HC Mike Macdonald on his work/life balance.
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow)
So why does Payton — a staunch believer in and practitioner of sleep science as it pertains to his players, particularly regarding travel, rest, recovery, and rehab — push his offensive coaches in this way?
“I don’t know any other way to operate,” he told Wickersham.
It’s worked so far in Denver, just as Macdonald’s approach has worked in Seattle. A common denominator: Both men believe in their ways and are likely rigorous about them.
When Nathaniel Hackett was hired in Denver in 2022, he talked about work-life balance and the sacrosanctity of family night on Friday evenings. By October, when the season started to go off the rails, his assistants talked about not having started their cars for a week and sleeping in the office. That’s flailing.
Still, it’s worth wondering whether Payton’s mode will change at all this season with Webb taking over as the primary playcaller. A 31-year-old steeped in three years of Payton but also having played much closer to the new-school era, itap hard to imagine Webb’s ideal meeting end time is 2 a.m. But while play-calling duties may be his, the team is Payton’s. The staff, ultimately, is Payton’s. The head coach may not be on the headset to quarterback Bo Nix every play, but it’d be a shock if he wasn’t burning candles and midnight oil looking for last-minute ways to crack his old secondary coach Jim Leonhard’s coverage schemes in the nights leading up to a Christmas Day tilt against Buffalo this winter.
The entire Wickersham story is promoted as an inside look at the Broncos’ quest for a Super Bowl, and it is thoroughly that. Even more pointed, though, itap a Payton character study done in a way that would be impossible but for the access Wickersham was granted. Itap well worth the considerable time it’ll take to read for Broncos fans and anybody else.
Except for Denver’s offensive assistants. They already lived it once and they should instead get some sleep. Training camp starts in a couple of weeks.
