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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Barry Werner

Sean Payton says comments were a ‘mistake,’ has regrets

Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton came out firing the other day. And Friday he took a step back from the sizzling comments he made to USA Today’s Jarrett Bell.

Payton remains accountable for everything he told Bell, saying he had on his FOX hat, where he worked last year as a studio analyst.

Some of the quotes:

  • “It doesn’t happen often where an NFL team or organization gets embarrassed,” Payton said. “And that happened here. Part of it was their own fault, relative to spending so much (expletive) time trying to win the offseason – the PR, the pomp and circumstance, marching people around and all this stuff.
  • “… There’s 20 dirty hands, for what was allowed, tolerated in the fricking training rooms, the meeting rooms. The offense. I don’t know (Nathaniel) Hackett. A lot of people had dirt on their hands. It wasn’t just Russell. He didn’t just flip. He still has it. This B.S. that he hit a wall? Shoot, they couldn’t get a play in. They were 29th in the league in pre-snap penalties on both sides of the ball.”
  • “That wasn’t his fault,” Payton said of Russell Wilson. “That was the parents who allowed it. That’s not an incrimination on him, but an incrimination on the head coach, the GM (Geroge Paton), the president (Damani Leech) and everybody else who watched it all happen.
  • “Now, a quarterback having an office and a place to watch film is normal. But all those things get magnified when you’re losing. And that other stuff, I’ve never heard of it. We’re not doing that.”
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