Sean Payton brings old school style to Denver upon his return

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Sean Payton brings an old-school style seeded by his mentor Bill Parcells and infused with discipline and accountability as he takes over as the Denver Broncos’ new head coach.

This notably means that Russell Wilson will no longer have his own entourage at the team headquarters as he did last season.

Payton was introduced as the franchise’s 20th head coach on Monday and he was later asked in an informal meeting with reporters about Wilson’s personal QB coach being at the scene in 2022 when Wilson suffered the worst statistical season of his career.

“Yeah, that’s foreign to me,” Payton said. “That won’t happen here. I mean, I’m not familiar with that. But our staff will be there, our players will be there and that will be it.

Members of Wilson’s support team having access to the building was one of many perks given to the quarterback last season by general manager George Payton and rookie head coach Nathaniel Hackett, who was fired on December 26.

Given Payton’s stance on the matter, Wilson may also have to give up his extra parking spots and private upstairs office.

We might also see less of his social media globe-trotting escapades and perhaps his teammates will have to make do without the air hockey and gaming chairs that were part of Hackett’s conversion of the journalists’ workroom into a splashy gamer arcade a year ago.

The new head coach is fully professional, concerned not with creature comforts, but with changing a losing culture that has permeated the franchise.

The Broncos traded their first-round pick, No. 29 overall, in the upcoming draft to the New Orleans Saints to sign Payton to a five-year deal worth about $18 million a year. .

Payton has unfinished business in his former broadcast job before embarking on the task of turning around a failed franchise under first-time head coaches Vance Joseph, Vic Fangio and Hackett during a seven-year playoff drought playoffs.

Payton said he will be working the Super Bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs in his final week as an analyst on Fox NFL Kickoff.

“I pick the Eagles,” Payton said. “We never want anyone in our division to win anything, do we?”

Payton was keen not to encroach on the old regime, but he said this when asked about his game management skills: ‘I don’t anticipate the crowd having to count down the 30 seconds’ as was the case in Hackett’s. home debut.

Fans mocking the seconds countdown led Paton to lure longtime assistant Jerry Rosburg out of retirement to take on those duties for Hackett, who also gave up call-to-play duties later. in the season.

Rosburg coached the last two games after Hackett was fired when Wilson finally played like the nine-time Pro Bowler he is, something Payton mentioned Monday when asked about helping Wilson bounce back in 2023.

“I think the No. 1 job for us as coaches in evaluating our players is to find out what are the things that they do really well and then try to put them in those positions. It’s at the less of a starting point, and I think it’s important to highlight their strengths and downplay their weaknesses,” Payton said.

“None of us want to be in a karaoke bar with a song we don’t know the lyrics to,” Payton said. “So how do we put them at ease and highlight their strengths? And that’s the process that will begin now as I get to know each of these players, not just Russell.

Payton invoked Parcells’ “law and order” mantra when speaking about his coaching philosophies.

“You come with your standards but you’re not going to accuse anybody else,” Payton said. “…You really knock off the rearview mirror of the automobile. We’re just looking forward to it.

Payton went 161-97, including the playoffs, in 15 seasons at New Orleans before stepping down last year when Drew Brees retired. He took over a moribund Saints team that went 3-13 in 2005 and led them to a 10-6 record and an appearance in the NFC Championship Game in his first season with the Saints.

On whether a similar turnaround can be expected in Denver, Payton said, “I think it’s realistic for our fan base to expect a completely different kind of culture. And I think it’s realistic for them to expect us to win.

To what degree, who knows?

“I know this: Labor has begun,” Payton said. “I kind of use that term, you know, a little more anonymous donors this season. Just know that we are working. But a little less visibility on social media and all that other stuff. We will get to work. And finally, that’s how we do in the fall.

CEO and co-owner Greg Penner, who led the Broncos’ head coaching search that included eight candidates, said when asking the league about Payton, attention to detail was a returning attribute. non-stop.

To that end, Payton, who also interviewed for openings with the Texans, Panthers and Cardinals, acknowledged that his recent wearing of an orange tie on television was intentional.

“Like this pocket square that I’m wearing right now has an angle that goes up if you can see it,” Payton said. “And so this morning when I put it on, it’s kind of symbolic of the direction we’re headed in.”

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