It’s time to give the Sean Payton the respect he’s earned in Denver

After a decade in the football wilderness, the Broncos are back among the AFC's elite; the morning show wants the fan base to remember who deserves the credit

BY JOEY FREEBURG

Jun 25, 2026, 12:02 PM

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The Denver Broncos have one of the proudest histories in professional football. Three Super Bowl titles. A lineage of Hall of Fame quarterbacks. A reputation as a destination franchise that, for decades, didn’t have to apologize for anything.

And then came the long, dark stretch. Nearly ten years of irrelevance, bad quarterbacks, failed coaches and offseasons that gave way to even more disappointing seasons.

That era is finally over. And on a recent edition of “Stokley and Evans, with Mark Schlereth” on 104.3 The Fan, Schlereth made clear that the man most responsible for ending it deserves a great deal more credit than he is currently being given.

The former Broncos offensive lineman opened with the historical context that has gotten lost amid the criticism.

“This franchise, this crown jewel, was in a barren wasteland for over a decade. A decade! Until Sean Payton came back and took control, and did things people didn’t think he could possibly do,” he said.

The barren wasteland was real. The Broncos cycled through quarterbacks, coaches and roster philosophies for nearly 10 years without finding a workable answer. By the time Payton arrived in 2023, the franchise was viewed across the league as a cautionary tale. A once-elite organization unable to dig itself out of a hole of its own making.

Schlereth recalled what the national and local conversation actually sounded like at the time.

“I remember people on this station saying, ‘We’ll never recover from the Russell Wilson contract! We’ll never be able to form a team! We’ll never be able to win!'” he said.

That’s the part of the story that gets conveniently forgotten now that the wins are coming. The Wilson contract had been treated as a franchise-altering disaster. The roster construction was considered a multi-year repair job. The playoff drought felt permanent.

And then Payton walked in, made the difficult decisions on Wilson, oversaw the drafting of Bo Nix and dragged the franchise back to relevance faster than almost anyone thought possible. The Broncos made the playoffs in his second year. They went 14-3 and to the AFC Championship Game in his third.

That is not slow progress. That is one of the more remarkable franchise turnarounds in recent NFL history.

And yet, the criticism persists. Some of it is fair; every head coach deserves scrutiny. And Payton’s playcalling and media relationships have given the conversation legitimate fuel. But Schlereth made clear that those critiques have to be weighed against the larger picture.

“It’s our job as a media outlet, it’s your job, it’s Broncos Country’s job to talk about this stuff. But inside the walls of the Broncos, Sean Payton is the guy that is most responsible for taking this franchise out of the abyss. And making them again, what they once were, a crown jewel,” Schlereth said.

That’s the framing the fan base needs to internalize. Constructive criticism is healthy. Constant negativity, directed at the man most responsible for the resurgence, is something else entirely. Sean Payton didn’t just stabilize the Broncos. He restored them to a place among the AFC’s elite, the kind of place this franchise hadn’t occupied in a decade.

The wins speak for themselves. Schlereth just wants to make sure the credit follows.