The NFL is a tough business. Anyone who has been around it for a great deal of time is going to tell you that. But you can't help but wonder, as Sean Payton stood on the sidelines Sunday watching his team get beat by 50 points, how many times he wondered why he got himself into this situation.
The Broncos, somehow, have managed to get worse and worse before getting any better. And even the teams that have been down forever — such as the Detroit Lions — eventually get it going in the right direction like they are now.
So how did the Broncos get themselves here? Well, it wasn't just one blunder. It has been a handful of them. But you can pretty much trace it back to when the health of then-owner Pat Bowlen began to decline.
The Broncos were able to win the Super Bowl in the 2015 season, carrying Peyton Manning across the finish line in what was the final year of his career. But that was the culmination of the Manning era, the four-year period in which the Broncos were good — and other players wanted to play there.
Since then, it has been an abject failure. There are many reasons why.
The Elway era ends
John Elway gave the Broncos some incredible things as a player and he will always be the best player in the history of the team, but his role in the front office brought more bad than good, even if they did win a Super Bowl in that time.
Elway made some really poor decisions with free agents and he hired the likes of Vance Joseph and Vic Fangio as head coaches. It's hard to say which one was worse. He rightfully stepped down in 2020 and the team hired a new general manager, George Paton.
George Paton starts hot, but has fizzled out
George Paton came aboard and at first, seemed to have a great eye in building the team into the future. You also had to respect his aggressive approach with things like jumping into the trade market and moving players around.
An example of a great trade he made was when he moved wide receiver Trinity Benson, sending him to the Detroit Lions along with a sixth-round pick for a fifth and seventh-round selection. Paton eventually traded both of those picks as well, but he got value for a player that likely would have never done anything. He caught a total of 10 passes for the Lions.
Ahead of the 2021 NFL Draft, the rumors of the Broncos trading for quarterback Aaron Rodgers started. That seems to be the moment this slump seemed to take a spiral downward. The day before that draft, the Broncos acquired Teddy Bridgewater for a sixth-round pick.
They had Bridgewater on the roster but the pursuit of Rodgers was very real and became very public.
Going with Teddy Bridgewater over Drew Lock
This decision never has and never will make any sense. It always was a decision that felt like the "safe" move in order for Vic Fangio to save his job as the team's head coach. But it was a bad decision, and the results proved it.
Bridgewater might have been efficient, but he was never going to challenge a defense. He was just going to do enough to not lose the game. Playing not to lose will always get you beat. And that team, that year, got beat.
Lock was entering his third year and had a total of 18 starts in 2019 and 2020. You can say he was a bad quarterback, but there wasn't enough time to determine whether he was good or bad. Fangio just stunted any chance for growth with this decision and in the end, it didn't even save him his job as he was fired following the season.
Broncos hire Nathaniel Hackett, go under new ownership
Paton replaced Fangio with Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett. Though it will never be proven, it is a popular belief that Hackett was hired mainly due to his connection to Aaron Rodgers, who, one year later, the Broncos were still trying to pry away from Green Bay.
Hackett was an incredibly bad hire. In fact, he should be on a short list of worst coaching hires in league history. This called much of Paton's decision-making ability into question and rightfully so.
This hire began to erode the foundation of the organization at this point but before that could happen, the Broncos were sold to new owners. The Walton-Penner group paid a record price at the time to take over the Broncos from the Bowlen family.
They walked into a big mess.
Hackett didn't even make it out of his first season, being dismissed the day after Christmas with the Broncos looking like one of the worst teams in the league. But earlier in that year, Paton made another mistake.
Broncos trade for Russell Wilson
The Broncos could not trade for Rodgers, the Packers just weren't going to part with him, at least not at any reasonable rate. The same day that it was announced that Rodgers and the Packers had come to agreement on a contract extension, the Broncos instead traded for Russell Wilson.
It was a move that always reeked of desperation for a team that didn't need to be desperate. The same day that trade took place, I talked about how the Broncos gave up too much to get Wilson.
Though Broncos fans at the time gladly exclaimed that they had "fleeced" the Seahawks, that couldn't be further from the truth. The Broncos gave up building blocks to get an aging quarterback who was incredibly bad in 2022.
He has been better in 2023, but the move used to acquire him is never going to be a good one.
Broncos bring in Sean Payton
The Broncos not only traded two first-round picks and two second-round picks to get Wilson, they gave away a first and a second-round pick to get Payton and a third-round pick from the New Orleans Saints.
Payton had a cushy job working for FOX and could likely pick his destination. There are still rumors out there that he preferred the Los Angeles Chargers, though they decided not to fire Brandon Staley.
But your reputation in the past can only take you so far. To this point, Payton is 0-3 and looks nothing like a coach who gets all of the praise that he does. He won a Super Bowl, quite some time ago, with a Hall-of-Fame quarterback. Outside of that, he has been a good coach, not a great coach.
Now, he is in a situation he would likely get out of if he had it to do over. He has a mess on his hands, complete with what seems to be an inferior roster and for certain, some inferior coaching.
But Payton isn't free from criticism on that. In fact, it's just as much his fault. It was he who decided that Vance Joseph should come back to be the team's defensive coordinator. Fangio apparently wasn't interested in coming back (good for him) but the overwhelmingly better option, which was true at the time, was to give the job to Rey Ryan.
The idea that Joseph continues to get coaching gigs is one that boggles the mind. Not only is he a poor coach, there's an even more important reason why he shouldn't have been brought back to Denver, where he was a complete and utter failure.
Let's apply this logic to an every day job. Let's apply it to where you work. If someone is in a position of authority and they do such a bad job that they are fired for that performance, what sense would it make to bring them back a couple of years later in a much lesser position? Are they suddenly going to be more productive or do a better job? How often is that going to be a good business decision?
The company you work for wouldn't do that and the Broncos should have known better. Payton should have known better. He knows now, after watching Joseph's defense give up 70 points to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, the most any team has given up in an NFL game in 57 years.
So where do the Broncos go from here? How could this have been different?
Outlined here is how not to run an NFL team. It seems that, going back to the time when Elway was in charge, this team never wanted to admit it needed to rebuild. It seemed that Elway, and then Paton, thought they could find a quick fix to jump back into the race.
Earlier, I mentioned the Detroit Lions. One of the most downtrodden franchises in the history of the league. Not long ago, many people thought that they should fire their head coach, Dan Campbell. Many people also laughed at the thought of Jared Goff being their franchise quarterback. But the Lions exhibited something that any good organization or any good leader must have.
Patience.
The Broncos should have been patient. Whether it was with Fangio or Hackett, but certainly with Lock as the quarterback. If Lock faltered, the team had draft picks to fall back on and rebuild with. With those gone, all you now have is an older quarterback and a head coach that certainly should be considered, at least as of this moment, a bit overrated.
You need that foundation. A strong head coach and an equally strong quarterback. That's where it starts. Even if Payton and Wilson are that, the team doesn't have much else because so many assets were given away to get them.
So, how does the train get back on the tracks? Well, it's certainly not by doing the same things. Instead of trading away building blocks (draft picks), the team is going to have to consider giving away some of the players it already has to get more of those building blocks.
Then, Joseph must go. The sooner the better and he must be exiled from Denver for eternity.
The team will have to play out the string this season to see what, and who, it has in order to go into next season with a better direction in mind. That will start with free agency and then the 2024 NFL Draft, which is a great draft class.
Note to George Paton, if you're still around by that time: DO NOT trade away your first-round pick. As bad as this season is going to finish, that one is going to be in the top five.