Why Sean Payton knows this is a Broncos season to remember

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Sean Payton already believes this Denver Broncos season will be one worth savoring … even though there is no guarantee it ends with the club’s return to the postseason after a dreadful eight-year absence.

For him, it’s bigger than wins and losses. And when he looks at the 2024 Broncos team photo, he already knows he’ll see something special.

“Every year you take a team photo, you go in, and today they handed them out,” Payton said. “And I’ve been places where you never knew where the team photo went. I asked PK [assistant to the head coach ] Paul Kelly], I said, ‘Paul, my first year of playing I was 8 years old; tell me how many team photos I’m in.’ So he comes back, ‘This is your 52nd.’

“And I would say my mom kept scrapbooks, but I know where about five [team photos] are.”

Five out of 52. Now, Payton has a sixth to treasure. And he wanted to make sure his players understood that, too.

“I told these guys today, ‘Make sure this is one we know where this photo is,'” Payton said.

“It’s been a tight- knit team. … We’ve hit adversity like every team during the stretch of the season. We’ve had success.

“And here it is. Let’s make sure this is a photo that we look back on and we know where that’s at.”

WHEN SEAN PAYTON KNEW THIS TEAM WAS UNIQUE

That moment came in September, during a 10-day, 3-city jaunt up and down the Eastern Seaboard that saw the Broncos turn an 0-2 start into a 2-2 ledger that provided them momentum and tangible evidence that their process could yield results.

“I think when that happens — especially this generation — you get a little closer,” Payton said.

But it also was a fork in the road.

“You never use the term, ‘This is gonna be a make or break.’ It’s not that,” Payton recalled. “I said, ‘This will tell us a lot.'”

Specifically, on Sep. 27, the Broncos concluded their five-day, four-night stay at the tony Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va. The remnants of Hurricane Helene were rampaging their way up the eastern third of the nation, taking direct aim at the Appalachians.

While West Virginia was spared the worst of the damage, heavy rain and gusty winds lashed the Broncos as they prepared to depart the Blue Ridge Mountains for their game two days later against the New York Jets.

Practicing outside in the mess was quickly ruled out, and the Greenbrier’s custom-built facility designed for NFL-team use has everything a club would want for a week’s worth of work — except an indoor facility. So, the Broncos diverted to the Greenbrier’s indoor tennis and pickleball courts.

“Something different. Let’s go,” Payton said. “It was bigger than I expected. I’d never seen it before. It was just what we needed.

Then, when they departed, the Broncos had a winding bus ride through gnarly weather along Interstate 64 down through the hills toward Roanoke, Va., where their plane awaited.

“Then we went to MetLife. We actually worked out,” Payton said. “All of that stuff. That process is what these guys and all of us will miss most, that’s unique and different to any job that you normally would have.”

Payton spoke of other seasons with similar trips. Of excursions to London or out of New Orleans when hurricanes threatened. This Broncos campaign lacked the imminent danger of what the Crescent City faced in some of those years.

But this Broncos campaign is special.

In the locker room, you see it; it is a team with a greater commonality of purpose and esprit de corps than most. It is a team that is greater than the sum of its parts, one that welcomed a rookie quarterback, absorbed the second-highest single-season dead-money cap figure in NFL history and overcame an 0-2 start and a midseason regression to have a postseason bid within their grasp.

There is still more to do, but no matter what transpires against Kansas City, the Broncos’ coach provided a healthy reminder that there is much about which these Broncos can be proud.

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