Denver Broncos Head Coach Sean Payton on Bo Nix, Jalen Waddle and Why They Are Built for a Super Bowl Run

What this episode covers

Denver Broncos Head Coach Sean Payton — Full Interview Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com/go/WINGO #squarepod #sponsored Sean Payton has been here before. Super Bowl wins. Deep playoff runs. Heartbreaking losses. Championship windows that opened and closed. He knows exactly what it takes to get to the final game and he knows exactly how quickly it can slip away. After a season in which the Denver Broncos won fifteen games, dominated the line of scrimmage, and were one half away from the Super Bowl before the weather and a few key plays in Kansas City sent them home, Payton sat down with Trey for one of the most candid and wide-ranging conversations of the offseason. Bo Nix. Jalen Waddle. The one score game question. The NFL schedule. Dan Campbell. Patrick Mahomes. The 2017 draft. All of it. Here is everything Payton had to say. Bo Nix — The Recovery and the Ceiling Bo Nix had cleanup surgery approximately a month before this conversation. He is out at OTAs. He is rehabbing. Sean Payton is not worried. He expects Bo to be a full participant by the third week of minicamp and fully healthy before June ends. By the time training camp opens at the end of July there will be no hiccups. But Payton goes deeper than the injury update. He breaks down the analytical case for why Bo Nix was always the right pick — the most accurate passer in college football history, a negative play differential that was historically rare over the last twenty-five years of data, elite arm strength that is a genuine plus not a neutral, and the son of a coach who understood the workload and the preparation required at the professional level before he ever took an NFL snap. When the coaches graded him out at the end of the process — Joe Lombardi, Pete Carmichael, coaches Payton has worked with for years — it came back Nix, Nix, Nix. That alignment matters. And Payton makes the three-year argument directly. Do not evaluate Bo Nix the way people evaluated CJ Stroud and Bryce Young after year one. The maturity process at quarterback takes time. The repetitions Bo got in college — more starts than almost any quarterback in recent memory — gave him a foundation most rookies simply do not have. The ceiling has not been hit yet. Jalen Waddle — Why Denver Made the Move The Waddle trade has gotten somewhat lost in the noise of the AJ Brown trade to New England. Payton wants to talk about it. He is excited about it. He describes Waddle as competitive, gritty, loved by everyone who has been around him, with a bright smile and a football IQ that showed up every day he was around Pat Mahomes in college. Waddle was impressive at the first OTA practice and Payton says he wishes he had clips to show right now. The vision was clear. Denver was picking in a spot where they believed they could find a similar player in the draft. The trade made more sense. And when George Paton and Payton agreed the deal was right — they moved. The One Score Game Question Here is the stat that should make every Broncos fan think carefully. Payton did a twenty-year study of teams that won ten or more one score games in a playoff season. The follow-up rate — making the playoffs the next year — was approximately thirty-five percent. One in three. The Chiefs went from an NFL record seventeen straight one score wins including the postseason to winning zero of them the following season. Payton knows this. He has shown the team the data. He has been honest with them about it. The goal is not to keep winning one score games. The goal is to get better in the areas that kept Denver in those games in the first place — the two minute drill, the takeaway margin, the run game consistency in the second half of the season. Nothing is promised. That is the message inside the building. Dan Campbell — Three Times as a Player Payton coached Dan Campbell three times as a player — at the Giants when they drafted him, at the Cowboys in free agency, and at the Saints on the 2009 Super Bowl team. He always knew Campbell would be a coach. The story of Campbell storming into the training room after the Super Bowl — having missed the entire season with an injury — and looking at everyone and saying what a grind of a season with that signature sense of humor is pure Dan. Payton tried to hire him away from Miami but could not. Once Campbell joined his staff as an assistant the path to head coach was obvious. Payton thinks he does an outstanding job and loves watching it play out. The Minneapolis Miracle — Marcus Williams and the Laminated Call Sheet One of the most honest moments in the interview. Payton on the Minneapolis Miracle — the Stefon Diggs catch that ended the Saints' 2017 season in the divisional round. He talks about the series of plays that led to that moment, the third and one before the final field goal that was just as important, and the fact that he laminated his call sheet that day because of the forecast. He did not usually do that. If the forecast says chance of flurries near the Rocky Mountains — it could mean anything. And then Trey brings up what he remembered from that night. Payton at the post-game press conference, talking directly to Marcus Williams without saying his name. Letting the rookie cornerback know — in front of the entire media — that the organization had his back. Payton confirms it. He was absolutely talking to Marcus Williams. And he notes the worst part — they still had to send eleven players back out for the extra point. The Mahomes Moment Payton confirms it. In the 2017 draft the Saints had two players circled at that pick — Marshon Lattimore and Patrick Mahomes. When Kansas City traded up he knew immediately it was for Mahomes. Drew Brees was in the draft room that day — the first time he had ever been in one — taking a group on a tour and staying for the first round. Jordan Spieth and Ryan Palmer were also in the room with their caddies and their yardage books. They watched the whole thing happen. The Saints got Lattimore and Alvin Kamara and Trey Hendrickson and Alex Anzalone in that draft. By the time they hit the 2017 season the Super Bowl roster had been almost completely flipped from 2009. It was one of the great drafts in franchise history. But the Mahomes question will always be there. Opening Night — Kansas City The Broncos open the season against the Chiefs on Monday Night Football at Arrowhead. Payton is not worried about Mahomes being healthy. He expects him there. He respects him enormously. He also notes — with a slight smile implied in the transcript — that joining the AFC West was not the plan, it was just the best opportunity at the time. The NFL Schedule Payton is asked about the proliferation of games across every day of the week. His answer is pure Sean Payton — tell us who and where and we will be ready. He looks at travel first. Then the opponent the following week. He knows they have Friday games this year and a Christmas game. He is not concerned about what he cannot control. And then the line that tells you everything about how Payton thinks — Tuesdays are reserved for Toledo and Northern Illinois. The MAC owns Tuesdays. Let them have it.

Distinct summary based on available episode metadata or transcript content.