Sean Payton demonstrates he knows the forecast after AFC Title Game debacle

Two title game moments may haunt Sean Payton for life — a call that went against his team and a decision he made.

The pain of pass interference not being called in the 2018 NFC Championship game late in the fourth quarter may out-weigh what happened to the Denver Broncos in their AFC title loss last winter but it still raises a what-if.

Without Bo Nix and with a snowstorm barreling down on Denver, up 7-0 Payton made the call to go for it on fourth and short on the Patriots 14-yard line. Putting the ball in backup Jarrett Stidham’s hands for a quick pass to rookie RJ Harvey. We all know now that it didn’t get completed, leaving the Pats with the ball in a one-score game.

The Broncos never scored again and lost 10-7.

The decision to not add to the lead resulted in a New England punt, which set up the infamous Stidham turnover and ensuing Patriots score to tie the game seven minutes after that big decision from Payton. In the moment even, not giving Wil Lutz a chance felt like a huge momentum swing in the contest. That feeling was amplified when the second half began and a snowstorm made scoring feel impossible.

Lutz did get two kicks from 45 yards out or more but one was missed and the other was blocked. The weather had an impact on both kicks, as shared by the kicker after the game.

One of the first questions after the fiasco was would Payton have made that same fourth down call had he known the snowstorm was coming? Did he know the weather was about to change? Should he have known?

To his credit, Payton regretted the play call right after the game and into the offseason we found out more about the decision to go for it. Combined with him handing play-calling duties to Davis Webb there has been a feeling of remorse for the decision as well.

But again, did he know the forecast? It was pretty common knowledge that it was going to dump snow in Denver that afternoon.

Ahead of the Broncos first competitive game since that moment — the debut of the 2026 squad in Kansas City on Monday Night Football — the coach demonstrated that you won’t be wondering if he knows the forecast and how it will change through the game moving forward.

“High winds, 20 to 30 miles an hour gusts in the first half, and then diminishing a little bit by the second half,” Payton said on Saturday. “Then I think in the upper 80s with humidity. At the start of the week, there was a good chance of rain. That’s kind of dissipated, but I think the first half—I think two things, temperature, humidity and wind. I just finished going through it. The wind’s going to be coming. If that’s our tunnel, that means our sideline’s here to the left, the wind’s going to be coming out of the tunnel, which is south to the north end zone. That’s the direction, so from our left to right would be the wind direction.”

The National Weather Service says Monday’s high should be around 88 degrees with a slight chance over thunderstorms under sunny skies. As Payton noted, NWS says there could be wind gusts as high as 25 mph.

Weather won’t matter as much Monday as it did in January. But it’s good to see a former dome coach making sure he’ll never be caught off guard by the sky again.

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