When the Denver Broncos traded for Sean Payton to become their new head coach in 2023, more people in the NFL world felt like Payton wouldn't last the duration of his first contract with the team, much less make it to a second.
The Broncos and Payton have officially silenced those doubters by giving Payton a new 5-year extension, and they've done it even faster than anyone could have possibly anticipated.
Despite having to deal with the biggest individual dead cap hit in NFL history (at the time) after cutting Russell Wilson, the Broncos have assembled one of the best all-around rosters in the NFL, and Sean Payton has effectively transformed the culture of the team from one of the worst eras in franchise history (2017-2022) to a brand-new Super Bowl window.
A window nobody in the NFL world saw coming.
Sean Payton's contract with Denver Broncos is latest proof of the team's contender status
Payton's 184 career regular season wins as a head coach are the 2nd-most among active head coaches in the NFL right now, trailing only Kansas City's Andy Reid.
Here is what Broncos owner/CEO Greg Penner had to say about the extension via team PR:
"Sean Payton has led an impressive turnaround over the past three seasons, instilling a winning culture with high expectations. I appreciate the close partnership he shares with George Paton, along with the alignment and stability across our football operations.
We’re thrilled for Sean to continue leading our team as head coach, building on our progress during such an exciting time for the Broncos.”
- Greg Penner (via Broncos PR)
Building on the progress can only mean one thing -- Super Bowl.
When Payton was hired by the Broncos, he inherited a team that was the butt of every joke around the league, especially after the lone year Nathaniel Hackett spent with the team. The Broncos and Russell Wilson already wore a target on their backs after Wilson demanded a trade out of Seattle, and bringing Payton into the mix only amplified that noise.
Payton benched Wilson late in the 2023 season, and committed to a plan and process of adding a quarterback in the 2024 NFL Draft. The only problem was that the Broncos had the 12th overall pick. Even with a loaded class coming out, most pundits felt like the Broncos were going to have to punt the QB situation another year, because few people in the NFL Draft media world thought much of Bo Nix as a prospect.
The Broncos thought different.
They took Nix 12th overall, and immediately started taking even more heat. This is who Sean Payton was replacing Russell Wilson with? This is the quarterback the Broncos were going to use to climb out from the depths of the AFC West? With all that dead cap?
Again, most in the NFL world felt like Payton wouldn't see the end of his 1st contract with the team, and that the Bo Nix selection was more of an act of hubris than a good eye for talent.
Not only did Nix help lead the Broncos back to the playoffs in 2024, but he put the team on his back in the Divisional Round of the playoffs this past season and led the team to the AFC Championship Game in just his second season.
Payton might have known what he was doing.
The Broncos have proven to be more than simply "ahead of schedule" with Payton. As Penner stated, it's been an impressive turnaround, faster than anyone could have imagined, especially with the dead cap being such a hindrance to team building.
Those "high expectations" Penner talked about are exactly what you would assume: Super Bowl expectations. This team understands that winning in the NFL is difficult, but they've set a new standard under Payton, who has helped the Broncos defy almost every predictor and prognosticator in the NFL world that thought every move they made was simply the latest bad idea.
Add us as a preferred source on Google