Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton is back at his old stomping grounds in New Orleans, hanging out with old friends and making some rounds at Radio Row, including a sit-down interview with Kay Adams of the Up And Adams Show. And we know one thing for certain: When Payton sits down for an interview with Adams, she's going to get good answers out of him.
Adams knows how to break the ice and ask pertinent questions in a very non-threatening way to Payton, and he's more than willing to oblige. Just a few weeks ago at his end-of-season press conference, Payton made a hilarious comment when he was asked about his team's needs going into the 2025 offseason:
"Certainly we’ll have a chance to evaluate when we get to the offseason evaluation process where we feel like we are at with each position, certainly that’s an important position. I’m not ready to today give you our musts, needs, and wants. We’re two weeks away, and even two weeks from now, I’m still not going to give them to you. We’ll go through that process, and we’ll look closely at what we think we still need, what we have to have and then what we want to have. That only comes after evaluating our own roster. We’re just not there yet.”
- Broncos HC Sean Payton (via team PR)
Payton was asked virtually the same question by Adams at Radio Row, and he gave a vastly different answer to the question, including revealing what is apparently the team's top must-have of the 2025 offseason...
Sean Payton to Kay Adams: Broncos top must-have in 2025 is a "Joker"
"We do the evaluation of our team, and the purpose of that is then to establish what we call musts, needs, and wants. So who are our musts? I would say we need a "Joker". And a Joker, now, can be a tight end that has exceptional...they have to be elite receivers that play tight end or running back, and then you get the matchups."
- Broncos HC Sean Payton (via Up And Adams)
There was a great back-and-forth going on between Adams and Payton in this interview. Adams said she felt like the Broncos' top need or must-have -- as Payton put it -- was a veteran receiver. He said that fit more into the "need" category than "must-have". But he was emphatic about the Joker position.
The Joker, as we've discussed many times on this site, has been elusive for the Denver Broncos since Sean Payton arrived. The Broncos have not had that dynamic pass-catching threat out of the backfield or at tight end for two years under Payton and plenty of time before that. Finding these guys is seemingly more difficult than you would think, but Payton outlined in his interview here that they had so many of them with the Saints: Reggie Bush, Jeremy Shockey, Jimmy Graham, Darren Sproles, and Alvin Kamara.
The Jokers were growing on trees in New Orleans but the Broncos can't seem to figure it out.
That could all change in the 2025 offseason as the running back class in the 2025 NFL Draft is looking deep, as well as the tight end class overall.
When it comes to the "must haves" on this roster in 2025, I'm not sure anything trumps that Joker position. The Broncos know they desperately need someone to equalize those two-high safety looks, a playmaker in the passing game who can make teams pay for leaving the middle of the field open.
That will be the top priority for Sean Payton this offseason as the Broncos look to creep ever closer to contention in the AFC.