Hall-of-Fame coach on Sean Payton: ‘He’s got his work cut out for him’

PHOENIX — What Sean Payton wants to do, Hall of Famer Jimmy Johnson once tried.

Nearly three decades ago, the current FOX NFL Sunday analyst came back to coaching after a brief time away following a championship stint in his first NFL head-coaching stop. Johnson guided the Dallas Cowboys to consecutive Super Bowl wins, then sat out two years after a notorious falling-out with Jerry Jones.

When Johnson went to the Miami Dolphins for his second act, he did well. Miami made the playoffs in three of his four seasons on the job. The Dolphins never had a losing season on his watch — and had four consecutive winning seasons after he left, a testament to the foundation Johnson laid.

But they never advanced beyond the divisional round — either with Johnson and Marino together or in the four subsequent full seasons under Johnson’s hand-picked successor, Dave Wannstedt. The Super Bowl remained out of reach.

Johnson’s tenure has similarities to that of some other Super Bowl-winning coaches who tried to repeat the feat with another team. He’s part of a range of coaches from Vince Lombardi to Bill Parcells to Mike Holmgren who were successful in their second acts — but couldn’t scale their earlier heights.

(But regarding Lombardi, his attempt was tragically cut short when he died of cancer in 1970 after a single season as Washington’s head coach. That single season saw him guide Washington to its first winning season in 14 years.)

If Payton does it in Denver, he’ll be the first.

“He wants to win a Super Bowl with another team — and that’s a great goal,” Johnson said. “But it’s not that easy. So, he’s got his work cut out for him.”

That said, Johnson arguably inherited a better situation than Payton has in Denver. Those Dolphins had seven consecutive years without a losing season before Johnson took the helm in 1996. Payton’s Broncos carry the anvil of six consecutive losing seasons into his stewardship.

What the coaches share is a veteran quarterback looking for a Lombardi Trophy to cement a career legacy. For Marino, that remained the one thing beyond his grasp. Wilson has a 2013 title in his back pocket, but craves another to place himself among the pantheon of all-time creates.

“I was expecting a little bit more talent,” Johnson remembered. “We had Dan Marino, but Dan was really on an injury-type of career at that time. So, we struggled a little bit. But we went to the playoffs three straight years, won a couple of playoff games. But couldn’t win the Super Bowl. And that was a disappointment for me.”

Whether it’s a disappointment for Payton will likely depend on what he extracts from Wilson.

Sean Payton wants to do what Jimmy Johnson tried and failed to do — win a Super Bowl in his second NFL stop. Johnson talks about that and what he expects Payton to do to help Russell Wilson: pic.twitter.com/sp3EfsGjMq

— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) February 9, 2023

“Sean’s a great coach, and he’ll get back the running game that will help Russell Wilson,” Johnson said. “Now, Russell Wilson is going to have to make some adjustments, as well. It’s not going to be the same style of play that he had in Seattle. But I think as long as the two of them work together, they’ll be successful.”

But successful to the point of winning it all? That’s a tougher call. And the tenures of Johnson in Miami, Holmgren in Seattle and Parcells with the Patriots, Jets and finally the Cowboys offer evidence that Super Bowl-winning coaches can have terrific second acts … but still fall short of the ultimate goal.

And that’s something to consider regarding the perception of Payton’s tenure. It’s entirely possible the Broncos become a consistent winner on his watch but don’t win it all.

Would that outcome make his Broncos tenure a failure? Only the unreasonable could say that it would. Because if Payton improves the team, snaps it out of its post-Super Bowl 50 funk and restores it to the status of perennial relevance, that is a successful run by any logical measure.

And that could be the most likely outcome. After all, as Johnson learned in Miami, even with a good team blessed with talent, taking another team back to the summit is difficult indeed.

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