For 20 full minutes Thursday, Sean Payton lost himself in the sands of time.
It is common, on summer and fall afternoons in Dove Valley, for the Broncos’ head coach to walk to a podium and dip into the past to discuss the present. The 62-year-old Payton’s mind rarely works linearly, his thoughts , interspersed with flashbacks. And Thursday brought memories of New Orleans rushing into Denver, as Payton’s old New Orleans Saints announced a day earlier that Drew Brees had asked Payton to present him at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony Aug. 8.
“For 68 plays a game, he would get the call, turn early, queue the tips in the huddle, call the play — countless times, he just brought everyone to a space like the great ones have,” Payton said on Brees. “And you guys have seen it here (in Denver). And they’re hard to find.”
Present subtext dripped from his words of the past, as the city of Denver hopes Payton has found a next great one, two decades later. The coach has truly handpicked only two quarterbacks over his 19-year head-coaching career. The first was Brees, who meant so much to his life that the non-fuzzy Payton to ask for his hand for the Hall of Fame presentation. The second is Bo Nix, who has worlds to conquer before Payton could ever speak of him in the same breath.
And yet Payton wouldn’t have drafted Nix in 2024, of course, if he didn’t see a similar path to Canton one day.
“Their personalities are different, of course,” Payton said, part of an answer when asked about Nix’s similarities to Brees. “But their accuracy and their positioning of the ball is certainly noticed.”
As Payton aims to continue pushing Nix to Brees-level heights in his third training camp in Denver, the Broncos’ head coach will step away next week — for just a day — to revel in the past. Payton told reporters he’ll fly out with a “group” of former Saints associates from Denver to Canton next Friday night, and miss the Broncos’ Aug. 8 practice for Brees’ HOF induction.
Payton will be back for the start of the third week of Denver’s camp Aug. 10, and indicated defensive coordinator and head-coach hopeful Vance Joseph will “probably” run the practice he’ll miss Aug. 8.
“It was just a lot, being 15 years together,” Payton said, on Brees asking him to give a HOF speech in June. “And honestly, the thing I remember talking to him later — a lot of times, for a number of reasons, those quarterback-head coach relationships, you kinda always take for granted. And yet oftentimes, they don’t end like you’d want them to end. And I was really proud it ended the way he wanted it to.”
Indeed, in a previous life, Brees was an 11-time Pro Bowler and two-time Offensive Player of the Year who shattered league passing records while playing for Payton with the Saints. Through shifting supporting casts and strange circumstances — Payton’s “Bountygate” suspension in 2012 — the two brought a Super Bowl in 2009 and rebuilt New Orleans’ franchise in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
In June, a video team from Canton arrived at the Broncos minicamp to interview Payton and record a 10-minute-long pre-induction tribute for Brees. And Payton, a compulsive perfectionist who will light candles and pound caffeine to watch tape in unhealthy hours of the morning, found himself unable to properly and succinctly describe his former future Hall of Famer.
They finished, that day this summer. And Payton asked the team if they were planning to stay after the Broncos’ practice, and told them he’d come back and re-don his suit and tie. They asked why. Payton told them he wanted to do the whole thing over, to capture a different variety of responses.
They were there, interviewing Payton, for another three hours.
“Your fear,” Payton said, “is itap not going to be good enough, or complete enough.”
On Thursday, in a more relaxed setting, Payton became a bard, rattling off tales that will no doubt have a place in next week’s tribute for Brees. There was the initial courtship of Brees back in 2006’s free agency, when Payton got lost trying to show the quarterback around a hurricane-torn New Orleans and convinced himself Brees would sign with Miami instead. There was one game where a New Orleans punter, Payton recalled, had reserved 42 tickets for family, and Brees came out so hot that the Saints simply never punted.
There was reverence enough, certainly, to justify missing a Saturday day of camp.
“It was like a pitcher having a no-hitter,” Payton said, recalling Brees’ precision. “I think he’s one of the only players, when he played, it almost looked like Madden.”
Of course, when Payton returns, he’ll have work to resume with Nix, who misfired several times during a red-zone team period Thursday but has looked perfectly healthy in his first two full Broncos practices since two offseason ankle surgeries. And Payton, of course, acknowledged that any Brees-to-Nix comparison was “tough.”
But he drew one just the same.
“I would say just, the immediate analytical, statistical number would be, the accuracy numbers,” Payton said Thursday. “From an NFL perspective, (Brees) will go down as the most accurate passer in the history of the league. And collegiately, he was at Purdue.
“And I think historically speaking, Bo was the most accurate college passer, when you look at a lot of numbers.”
Nix, indeed, still holds the single-season FBS record for completion percentage (77.4%), set at Oregon in 2023. He finished 24th of 33 qualified quarterbacks, though, in that metric in his second season in the NFL (63.4%) in 2025.
And Payton’s Brees testimonial on Thursday ultimately provided both a heap of nostalgia and a reminder of the heights Nix can — and may be expected to — reach.
“He had that rare trait of bringing out the best in everyone,” Payton recalled of Brees. “And that was a gift.”
