Greg Penner lauds Sean Payton, points toward Broncos hiring “right people”

Broncos CEO Greg Penner met with the media on Tuesday at the NFL’s annual meetings in Arizona.

And while he didn’t mention former head coach Nathaniel Hackett by name, there was definitely some praise of new head coach Sean Payton that could be interpreted as anti-Hackett.

Frankly, who would blame him? Hiring Hackett was a disastrous decision, one that Penner didn’t make. That falls on the shoulders of GM George Paton and the Pat Bowlen Trust, which was running the team before the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group purchased it last summer.

Penner rectified the situation quickly, firing Hackett after a disastrous 15 games. But for as frustrating as Hackett was to fans across Broncos Country, Payton’s impressed in his two months on the job. Something Penner, his boss, echoed when asked about him.

“He immediately set a different tone coming into the building. I think as a head coach probably the most important thing you do is the staff that you hire, and right away he came in and built a staff that’s diverse. And I mean diverse across multiple dimensions,” Penner said.

When elaborating on that point, Penner explained it was the best thing Payton’s done this far.

“It’s age, you’ve got everybody from (Mike) Westhoff and the type of experience he has, to Davis Webb. Diverse backgrounds from different coaching trees, perspectives, all that, and that’s probably been the most impressive thing,” Penner said.

Westhoff, who will oversee special teams is 75-years-old. Webb, the new QB coach, is just 28. He was playing for the New York Giants as recently as January. Clearly, that’s about as diverse of coaching experience as one could expect.

Penner was also asked by our senior Broncos writer Andrew Mason what he’s learned in his 7.5 months as owner / CEO, and he circled back to the problems of a season ago.

“At the end of the day, the biggest learning and we saw it this fall, we’ve got to have the right people in place. We need the right culture, we’ve got to set expectations, we need accountability. And I think with hiring Sean Payton we’re teed up to be a very different team next year,” Penner said.

Again, Penner didn’t say Hackett’s name, but its easy to figure out who he’s talking about. Hackett’s gone, and so is nearly everyone else who was on his staff. There’s a new group in town, one Penner seems to like much better thus far.

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