Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton has undeniably stamped his future place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The team's win over the Kansas City Chiefs on Christmas night may have stamped it.
In the win against Kansas City, the Broncos reached 13 wins on the season. For Payton, it's now the 5th time in his head coaching career that his team has reached 13 regular season wins. Only one other head coach in the history of the game has accomplished that: Bill Belichick.
Payton's track record in the NFL speaks for itself, and even though he's got a complicated history with the league, he's undoubtedly one of the best head coaches in the history of the league.
Broncos head coach Sean Payton may have stamped his future in the Hall of Fame
Sean Payton joins Bill Belichick as the only coaches in NFL history to win 13+ games in at least 5 seasons 👏@Broncos | #BroncosCountry pic.twitter.com/294Y6y5zMM
— NFL+ (@NFLPlus) December 26, 2025
There has been discourse all over the map regarding Payton as a head coach. Many revere him as one of the best offensive minds in the history of the game while others have diminished his accomplishments substantially. Some say he benefitted more from Drew Brees than vice verse, or even that they benefitted by working together in New Orleans.
Some folks out there, especially in the media, still dislike Sean Payton for what went down with "Bountygate". Some just flat-out don't like him because he can be a bit hard-nosed like his mentor, Bill Parcells, when it comes to dealing with the media.
But ultimately, Payton's achievements in the NFL cannot be denied. He's one of the winningest head coaches in the history of the game, and we have now seen him effectively revive two franchises that were -- let's be real about it -- dead when he got there.
The job he did early on with the New Orleans Saints, winning a Super Bowl early in his tenure there, and then building that team into a perennial powerhouse in the NFC...we all saw it.
Now, with the Denver Broncos, he's taken a team that was the laughingstock of the league (literally) following the 2022 season and has quickly turned them into a Super Bowl contender. People thought Payton was crazy for taking over a franchise in the same division as Patrick Mahomes in the middle of the Chiefs' dynasty, but Payton declared that dynasty over earlier this season.
The Broncos just completed their first season sweep of the Chiefs since 2014, and won their first game on the road against the Chiefs since 2015. They are on the cusp of winning the AFC West and earning the #1 overall seed in the AFC.
Payton has won with Drew Brees, Jameis Winston, Teddy Bridgewater, Taysom Hill, and now Bo Nix. He's proven he can take a wide variety of teams to the postseason and a ton of regular season success.
The evidence is all there for anyone willing to see it, but joining Belichick as the only other head coach in history with five seasons of 13-plus wins? That should seal the deal.