The Denver Broncos have a simple scenario in Week 18 of the 2024-25 season: Win, you're in. Lose, you're out.
The Broncos are playing in an extremely high stakes game for the third straight week, but unlike the previous couple of weeks, the Broncos don't have "next week" to lean on. There may not be a next week for the Denver Broncos if they can't take care of business at home against the B-team of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Head coach Sean Payton has been around the block a time or two, and in a situation like this with the third-youngest roster in the league, fans in Broncos Country can only hope that he has his guys ultra-focused and ready to take care of business in a game they are expected to win. This is a game they absolutely should win. The Broncos are 10.5-point favorites at home on the betting line.
So what it Sean Payton's message to the team with so much on the line? Although many of the players on this tremendously young roster haven't been around for the last nine years, there is nearly a decade of playoff drought on the line. Payton told this team -- which has been tight-knit all year -- to make sure this is a team they don't forget.
Sean Payton's message to Broncos will have you running through a wall
Sean Payton gonna have me sprinting through a brick wall pic.twitter.com/eguKFcmgCR
— Sayre Bedinger (@SayreBedinger) January 3, 2025
"Every year you take a team photo, and today they handed them out. I’ve been places where you never knew where the team photo went. I asked ‘PK’ (Assistant to the Head Coach Paul Kelly), I said, ‘Paul, my first year of playing, I was eight years old. Tell me how many team photos I’m in.’ He comes back [and says], ‘This is your 52nd.’ Just part of a football team. I would say my mom kept scrapbooks, but I know where about five are.
I told these guys today, ‘Make sure this is one we know where this photo is.’ It’s been a tight-knit team. We’ve hit adversity like every team during the stretch of the season. We’ve had success. We’ve had—here it is. Let’s make sure this is a photo that we look back on and we know where that’s at.”
- Broncos HC Sean Payton (via team PR)
Make sure you know where this team photo is at. Among all your team photos from when you were growing up, make sure this is one you want to look back at and remember. Make sure this isn't a team photo you want to "throw away" for lack of a better term.
You can't help but love this kind of message from Payton and how inspiring it is, even just as a fan of the team from the outside. Think about the players on this team, who have been galvanized in unique ways all season.
The quarterback room (and their wives) have formed a strong bond. The Broncos had an experience out on the East coast earlier this season due to a hurricane that caused them to have a Remember The Titans-like practice experience at a college facility and even inside at a tennis court.
Alex Singleton tore his ACL and made a rare road trip with the team shortly thereafter.
There are plenty of examples you can look to throughout the course of the year, but this team has had each other's backs. They have done the hard work to this point to put themselves in a great position with just one game left to play. It's time for them to make sure they want to keep this team photo on the mantle for the foreseeable future on Sunday afternoon.