Sean Payton says the Broncos can’t “flatline” after tasting success

Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton knows his team played really well against the Atlanta Falcons this past Sunday.

Whenever you win 38-6 in the NFL, that’s a huge day. Doing it against a first-place team in their division is even more impressive.

But Payton isn’t going to let the Broncos get content after improving their record to 6-5. In fact, he’s preaching to his guys to stay the course.

“We try to have a grounded nature,” Payton said on Wednesday. “We had a good win, and then you go back and watch the tape and you realize ‘gosh there’s some’… and so that was good enough last week, but we’re going to play in a game where we have to get those things cleaned up.”

Payton didn’t quite spit out the sentence, but essentially he was saying even in a 32-point drubbing there was things he didn’t like against the Falcons. He knows every week is about building on past success.

“There’s no flatline. You’re moving forward up or you’re moving backward down. And I do think it gets to the leadership and the culture that you’re trying to build,” Payton said.

Denver has a legitimate path toward the playoffs for the first time since 2015. They currently hold the No. 7 seed in the AFC, while trying to hold off the Colts, Dolphins and Bengals.

With the big victory over Atlanta behind them, the Broncos have a good chance to get to 8-5 before their bye with the 2-8 Raiders up next followed by the 2-8 Browns.

“Each step, it builds confidence. We can’t allow it to build complacency though. When we went back and looked closely at the game, there’s still a number of things we have to clean up,” Payton said.

The head coach went on to mention “the clock is ticking to improve” and he knows his team still has to get better.

That’s the right approach from Sean Payton, and one that should hopefully let the Broncos handle business on Sunday in Las Vegas and beyond.

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