Sean Payton Gives Classic Response to Media's 'Low Expectations' for Broncos

This is the epitome of a Sean Payton response.

Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton holds court as 2024 training camp opens. / Denver Broncos

Denver Broncos fans who've been paying attention through this year's painfully slow offseason are well aware of the low expectations surrounding this team nationally. From a 5.5-win over/under via the oddsmakers to pitiful predictions and woefully low roster rankings, nobody nationally expects the Broncos to be competitive this season.

Broncos head coach Sean Payton hasn't had time to read these musings across the NFL blogosphere, and upon hearing of them at the podium on Tuesday, he dismissed them with a classic response.

“If I spent time on that in 2006, we would have never gone to the NFC Championship Game—and I mean that seriously—back in my first year in New Orleans," Payton said. "I don’t have time to spend time on that, nor do I wish to spend time on that. I understand they have a job to do and where we're selected. None of that means anything. It’s stuff to talk about when the media cycle is quiet. We will get ready to play. We expect to compete and expect to win.”

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Between coaching in the NFL for a quarter-century, and winning a Super Bowl with the New Orleans Saints in 2009, and spending a year in the business at FOX Sports, Payton understands how the sports media sausage gets made. It's true, brutally so, at times, that sports writers have to dig deep for topics and stories to write about in the depths of the offseason.

For the NFL, that's really only a challenge from mid-June through the end of July when training camp starts. That six-week summer vacation for the coaches and players can be difficult for the untrained and inexperienced writer or publication.

However, most of the shade the Broncos have received this offseason came well before the June-July NFL desert. Nobody around the NFL was impressed with Payton's free-agent decisions, or veteran releases, and trades, and the Broncos certainly didn't receive many plaudits for their 2024 draft haul.

The Bo Nix pick, for example, was immediately panned as being a "reach." The Broncos' draft class, overall, received poor grades from the "experts" around the national perspective. So be it.

Payton's right. None of that stuff means anything. The silver lining is that the low expectations means that the NFL is likely sleeping on the Broncos.

And that's A-ok for Payton. He'll have a little something dialed up for the somnambulants on the Broncos' schedule each week. Believe that.

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