One day this summer, as Sean Payton recounted Wednesday, he played a round of golf with Bills quarterback Josh Allen as his partner. They won, Payton said, a not-so-subtle hint of pride firming his voice. It was far from the first time Payton has praised Allen publicly, a now-familiar foe who the Broncos head coach has previously called “one of the stars of our league.”
But Payton’s admiration for Allen, in hindsight, could’ve completely tanked the Broncos’ fortunes in their first playoff win since 2015.
On Wednesday, Payton — the 62-year-old offensive wizard who occasionally fires a spell in the wrong direction — confirmed to reporters he did call a fake punt from the Broncos’ own 38-yard-line on 4th-and-11 on the first drive of overtime against Buffalo in January. That outlandish plan, as , was born from Payton’s sheer reluctance to give the ball back in any circumstance to four-time Pro Bowler Allen.
“This is a great sign of respect for, I think, one of the better, elite quarterbacks in our league,” Payton said Wednesday.
Of course, that fake punt never saw the light of day. On that 4th-and-11, Broncos punter Jeremy Crawshaw lofted a 55-yard beauty to pin Allen and the Bills at their own 7-yard-line. Nine plays later, Ja’Quan McMillian grappled with Brandin Cooks for . Denver mounted a game-winning field-goal drive. Ballgame.
Except Payton didn’t actually call off the fake punt. His . Payton revealed Wednesday he’d entered that Buffalo matchup determined to call a late-game fake punt rather than put the ball in Allen’s hands for a potential game-winning field-goal drive — and initially shrugged off an audible in that overtime moment.
“The front, six-man front, seven-man front, eight-man-front, was a little nebulous between six and eight,” Payton recalled, describing Buffalo’s defensive line as the Broncos lined up. “And totally saw the ‘can-it’ call. But, I felt real good about getting (11) yards … now, we canned it and punted it out at the (7), and it worked out.”
If it didn’t — if the Broncos gambled on a monumentally risky trick play and lost — the entire tenor of Denver’s 2026 training camp could look monumentally different, coming off two straight theoretical playoff one-and-dones.
Instead, Denver can chalk up its 2025 season as a Bo Nix broken ankle away from a Super Bowl.
Nix back and rolling
After months of strange messaging and public consternation around a pair of offseason ankle surgeries, Broncos quarterback Bo Nix was a full participant on Denver’s first day of camp Wednesday. The third-year signal-caller took standard first-team reps in a seven-on-seven red-zone period and subsequent 11-on-11 team drills.
“I’m pleased with the shape he’s in,” Payton said Wednesday. “And the timeline, relative to everything we’ve discussed injury-wise, is falling into place.”
Payton and Denver’s staff played it conservatively with Nix throughout the summer offseason program, even as Nix asserted in June that he could be “full-go right now.” Nix’s trainer Ben Neill, though, told The Post that a follow-up procedure to remove bone spurs didn’t heavily impact Nix’s July offseason work, and the club now appears to have fully removed any reins.
Tight end Caleb Lohner was still absent Wednesday after missing Broncos OTAs and June minicamp with lower-body surgery. Undrafted-rookie cornerback Blake Cotton walked off alongside trainers late in Wednesday’s practice with an undisclosed injury.
Payton welcomes back Wilhoite
A day after news that the Broncos had rehired formerly fired assistant Michael Wilhoite to their defensive staff, Wilhoite was seen working with the team’s outside linebackers and defensive line on Wednesday.
Wilhoite’s official title in Denver is a “front seven coach,” a source told The Denver Post. Wilhoite previously served as the team’s outside linebackers coach in 2023 and 2024 before being fired in March 2025, after he allegedly punched a police officer in the face in the drop-off line at Denver International Airport.
After initially facing a felony assault charge, Wilhoite’s case was downgraded and charges were later fully dropped altogether, although he still faces a civil suit from the officer involved in the incident.
“I’m a huge fan, and he, too, went through a long and lengthy process,” Broncos head coach Sean Payton said Wednesday. “He was cleared and met with all of us. We felt real good. And I’m excited to have him back.”
