Round and round, this mad coaching carousel spiraled out of control for 35 days, with the Broncos chasing after them until CEO Greg Penner finally stepped out, came to his senses, and hired Sean Payton, the most qualified candidate, to teach quarterback Russell Wilson the craft of riding again .
I’ll stand up and cheer this Broncos move as soon as my head stops spinning.
As Penner found out the hard way, it’s far easier to sell £1.5 billion of bananas at Walmart in a year than it is to acquire a solid pro soccer coach in a month.
But once the dust settles and heads are clear, while DeMeco Ryans keeps his wife happy with a Houston gig and Jim Harbaugh continues his endless foot game with NFL worshipers, two things become apparent at the end of this bumpy, often circuitous route traveled to the insanely wealthy Waltons to hire a veteran coach with a Super Bowl ring to end seven long years of misery in Broncos country.
#1: It’s never too late to do the right thing.
#2: Payton was the best man for the job from the start.
So what took so damn long?
I blame Broncos general manager George Paton, the fool who foolishly granted Wilson a $245 million contract extension before the quarterback threw his first bad interception in a Denver uniform.
Had the price of acquiring Wilson from Seattle in a trade not been so high, with a treasure trove of future draft picks being shipped to the Seahawks, hiring Payton would have been a no-brainer. Instead, the Broncos dawdled and dawled, hesitated and hesitated when New Orleans suggested it would take not one, but two first-round draft picks to free Payton from his contractual obligations to the Saints.
So the Broncos pursued Harbaugh all the way to Michigan, courting a diva who’d rather be chased than caught. Let’s all breathe a sigh of relief that Harbaugh wasn’t saying yes-no-maybe to bums, because those kinds of bonding issues are the last wishy-washy thing a Broncos franchise that’s been hard to love lately needs.
Flirt with Ryans, whose star skyrocketed as this year’s hot young coordinator, was far more intriguing, but perhaps even riskier, than talking to Harbaugh. If the Broncos were willing to give a chance to a former linebacker with no head coaching experience, Ryans must have passed the Denver Brass interview like no candidate since Josh McDaniels. (How did that even end?)
So count me happy with how this twisted story ended. Ransoming two draft picks (a first-rounder and a second-rounder) to the Saints in exchange for Payton, a 59-year-old coach who has an NFL record of 161-97, is a reasonable price.
Essentially, the Broncos traded Bradley Chubb and a later-named player for Payton, who led a Saints team that finished 3-13 in 2005 to the playoffs in his freshman season. There isn’t a prospect Denver could have picked with the 29th pick in the first round of this year’s draft with a chance to lead that kind of turnaround.
Yes, I’ve heard the whining in some corners of Broncos country that Payton has only won the Super Bowl once in 15 seasons with New Orleans, despite the blessing of Drew Brees as his quarterback. For real?
Newsflash: Winning the Super Bowl is hard. Mike Tomlin has made it once in 16 seasons with the Steelers; Dan Reeves never lifted the Lombardi Trophy in Denver, despite being blessed with quarterback John Elway.
While Penner’s hiring process sometimes seemed to have little point and no reason, make no mistake that the new ownership group made a huge commitment in hiring Payton, who knows it takes more than hugs to create a winning culture build up.
Fed up with false hopes that Nathaniel Hackett could help lure quarterback Aaron Rodgers out of Green Bay, the Broncos hired a dope to coach the team a year ago. Payton is a serious football man, with skins on the wall, as our pal John Fox likes to say.
A quarterback is more important to the championship fight than the coach. The Broncos aren’t going anywhere if they can’t fix Wilson, and none of the eight contestants interviewed for the gig were as well suited to the challenge as Payton.
Unlike Hackett, Payton has the seriousness of demanding Wilson’s respect rather than serving as his wingman. Wilson has long admired Brees and is now blessed with a coach who can get his career back on track in Canton.
With the contractual commitment this coach receives from the owner, Payton has the power to take the franchise in a new direction should Denver decide that Wilson is truly done and needs to ditch him after another tough season.
Since 2017, the Broncos have wasted too many years of our lives hoping and praying that Vance Joseph, Vic Fangio or Hackett could lead the team back into the championship fight.
With Payton’s signing, the Broncos finally invested in a football coach who already knows the way to the top.
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