Over the course of his introductory news conference as the Broncos new head coach, Sean Payton told stories about his days in New Orleans, about a car trip through Denver gone awry decades ago and about what it takes, in his mind, to build a championship team.
Flanked by general manager George Paton and CEO Greg Penner, he expressed confidence in the top level of Denver’s franchise but also said change is coming for a team that hasn’t made the playoffs the past seven years.
He likened driving home every Sunday night after his work as a FOX analyst as akin to being able to see the lights of the racetrack and smell the fuel without actually having his own race car.
“There’s nothing that replaces that feeling of winning,” he said. “There’s just not.”
Here are other observations from an hour with Payton, Paton and Penner at the UC Health Training Center.
Payton has a clear idea of what he wants and expects
Penner lauded Payton’s experience in the NFL — he jumps back into coaching sixth among active head coaches with 152 regular season wins — and Payton is a dramatic departure from the three consecutive first-time head coaches hired to Denver in the past seven years.
He talked extensively about details and organization and overall has a clear picture in his mind for what he wants from his team.
“You have to be authentic. I can’t try to be Bill (Parcells) or someone else,” Payton said. “I have to be who I think I am. I can laugh at myself, I can be wrong, I can be humble, I can be confident, but I know what it looks like and I know what it doesn’t look like. Sometimes we’re not asking. Sometimes it’s not negotiable and then sometimes we are (asking).”
The trade with New Orleans slowed Denver’s process
Penner called the extra layer of having to trade New Orleans for the right to hire Payton “complex” and said that is part of the reason Denver’s hiring process lasted longer than he initially expected it to.
“At the end of the day we wanted to run a comprehensive process, we wanted to be open-minded,” Penner said. “We met with eight great candidates and we learned something from each of those meetings. We came away from it feeling really great about the process, but the most important thing is where we ended up.
“And where we ended up was with the perfect coach for the Denver Broncos.”
The Payton-Paton dynamic will be interesting to watch evolve
The general manager and the head coach are each set to report directly to Penner and both Paton and Payton said their working relationship was off to a good start.
“I think there’s this myth that I’m, like, this tyrant that comes into the building and has to control everything,” Payton said. … “I really enjoy his company and I think it works really well so far.”
Paton and Payton hadn’t met in person until their Jan. 17 interview in Los Angeles, but the NFL circle is a small one.
“There’s a demeanor with (Paton) that reminds me of (Saints general manager) Mickey (Loomis) in a good way. Very steady,” Payton said. “I’ve always respected the teams he’s been a part of. … It’s a small industry but particularly in our case. We hit it off kind of right away.”
Payton has confidence in Russell Wilson
Payton was asked several questions about the Broncos’ veteran quarterback and how he can play better in his second season with the franchise. Payton didn’t get into what his early plans offensively are in particular, but laid out what he thinks of Wilson and in general what his approach is with players.
“Obviously it wasn’t the type of season he wanted to have. I do feel like the last couple weeks we saw a little bit more of what we were expecting or accustomed to,” Payton said. “I think the No. 1 job for us as coaches when we’re evaluating our players is, ‘What does he do really well?’ And then let’s try to put him in those positions. At least, that’s the starting point is to highlight their strengths and then minimize what might be the weaknesses.
“Here’s what I know: I know he’s a worker. An extremely hard worker. that’s important. And I think you take that, you understand the skillset … and then you go from there. That’s the same case, although it’s a much more visible position, for every player on this roster. It’s easy to point out what players don’t do well and there’s certain coaches that look at it that way, but I was kind of taught early on that, ‘What is it that they do well and let’s have him do those things.’
“I don’t like singing period, but none of us want to be at a karaoke bar with a song we don’t know the words to.”
Changes are coming, though
Payton said he wasn’t familiar with the way Wilson’s performance team had operated over the past year, but when asked a question about whether some of the quarterback’s private employees would continue to have access to the building, the coach had a straightforward answer.
“That’s foreign to me. That’s not going to take place here,” he said. “I’m not familiar with it, but our staff will be here, our players will be here and that’ll be it.”
One of a few one-liners from Payton
“Wayne Gretzky used to say ‘the view never changes at the top,’ and that’s where we’re going,” he said.
It didn’t take long for competitive juices
Payton was leaving Denver to fly to Los Angeles to be part of FOX’s Super Bowl week programming. But make no mistake about it, he’s no longer an impartial observer when it comes to the NFL, let alone a game featuring Philadelphia and Kansas City.
“I’m picking the Eagles,” he said. “We don’t want anyone in our division to win anything.”
The orange tie
Two days before the Broncos finalized a trade with the Saints for Payton, he wore an orange tie on the FOX pregame show.
Did that mean anything?
“It did,” Payton said with a smile.
