This is finally year one of a rebuild that should have honestly been done 8 years ago.
I’m thinking 3-5 wins, hopefully we get some glimpses of promise for the future.
2016 was a strange year. We essentially had the same exact team minus Peyton. Every year afterwords should've been a rebuild.
If we drafted Dak (big IF) we probably would've contended. We finished that year 9-7 with Trevor and Paxton as QBs.
If we didn't sign Von to an extension, I guess we could've used the money to get a good QB.
Probably would have been a playoff team that year honestly. He fit Kubiak's system perfectly and there's no reason to believe we couldn't have won a couple more games that year had he started for us.
He said he liked the system in Houston better but he had been in the Denver system for 3 years and knew it perfectly. Plus he had the Denver Defense. Was foolish to leave
And how much more in his career could he have made if he didn’t blow after signing? I know it’s all “what ifs” but he was offered 13mil a year in Denver and 18mil a year in Houston. Surprising Denver didn’t counter
And how much could he have lost if he sucked and was a one year "semi-wonder"?
Let's face it. Brock Osweiler probably had faith in himself that he was a legitimate starter and would be able to be a good piece, but he knew he wasn't Brees. He knew he wasn't Brady. He knew he wasn't Rodgers.
It's senseless to risk a bad year when you have a contract that feeds your family for life when you know you're not a superstar
I was telling everyone and their mother the Broncos needed to draft Dak. Seeing the pick for Paxton Lynch hurt, and I didn’t even know he was gonna be that bad.
I don’t know how Dak’s career plays out if that had happened, but it couldn’t have been worse than Paxton’s.
I mean, I get he needed a change and a fresh start… but he also said (I believe he said it, anyway) that he didn’t want to go through a rebuild. I get that people tell lies or excuses to get what they truly want (for him, a change of scenery). But damn dude, if you had just stayed and started our rebuild 3 years ago, we’d probably be good again *now*. And we wouldn’t have Dickless Dennis as our head coach, which would be a nice plus.
you guys have 278 million in cap liabilities in 2024, 360 million 2025, and 260 million in 2026.
you're basically over the cap for the next 3 straight years, It was worse a couple years ago.
I don't honestly think you could really rebuild 3 years ago, you had no way to eat the cap. You could just keep getting rookies but you have no way of acquiring vets without just pushing that cap further into the future.
You can still be semi-competitive sure, but that's not what a full rebuild is in my mind. You would have to cut/trade basically every good player you had to do a full rebuild, and it still would have taken more than one year.
I think by this year you'd be "out of debt" and have cap to spend down the road, allowing you to draft your new rookie QB and have the cap space for some vets to put around him and depth pieces. I don't think it would be a ton different from the broncos current situation honestly.
Also, it's very possible your GM/owner just didn't want to do that, it's not really the HCs responsibility anyway.
Depends on how your team is run... I don't think the Packers ever went into a "rebuild", yet the 2024 team feels pretty different from the Super Bowl contending 2021 team, and is a lot younger while still being viable competitors for the championship.
We definitely went through a rebuild, we shed basically all our vets including the HOF franchise QB. We just kind of lucked out and a lot of the young replacement talent has been performing well super early
Out of curiosity, why 3-5?
You had 8 last year, has the roster changed that dramatically? I understand you certainly won't be improving at all, but 8 wins to 3-5 is a pretty big drop.
The defense lost 4 starters and the offense lost 3 starters. Its a decent amount of turnover.
Simmons to Brandon will be a drop off for sure. And who replaced Jewell?
For the last 8 seasons, I have always found some sort of silver-lining or delusional coping on how we would start to turn things around. And each year came and went with disastrous and embarrassing results.
For the first time, I literally have zero expectations of being good and fully expect to embrace the suck. So anything over 4-5 wins is the fucking icing on the cake and a bonus from there.
Honestly this is the first year in a while where my expectations are so low that it’s almost exciting. It’s bizarre but with no pressure I am kind of looking forward to see what happens with the season. If we suck, who cares, we are pretty talented deficient as is.
You say that, but then you’re stuck in football hell where even the wins feel like losses. I was expecting the Texans to be awful after we traded Hopkins, yet it still made watching every game painful even the blowout losses.
Eventually, you start hoping your team loses more so you can land a good draft pick…there’s nothing sadder as a football fan imo.
I mean what the Broncos have been in football purgatory the last 8 or so years, whuch has been just as hellish honestly. The Hackett year is probably the worst season of football I’ve ever endured because we couldn’t even root for them to lose since we had no picks to tank with. It was just weekly embarrassment with no reward at the end. At least this season if we lose there’s some solace in knowing we get a better pick and know what players to shed moving forward
That was the Bears for most of my life. They'd teeter around mediocrity and distance themselves from a top-10 draft pick. The Lovie Smith era netted a Superbowl berth, but for the most part it was maddening because the team was consistently around 7-9 and 9-7 and always too far to draft a real difference maker.
Poles at least came in and embraced the tank in his first season. He ripped off the band-aid, ate a bunch of dead cap, and traded away any good players. There wasn't this veiled notion of the Bears trying to compete - they were going to be shit and everyone knew it.
It might all still be for nothing, but at least it's the first time I can remember a Bears' GM aggressively tearing things down to the studs and rebuilding.
After the shit show with Hackett, and Russ returning my expectations were rock fucken bottom last season. But we beat the Chiefs, so that was pretty funny.
This year they're still rock bottom, but if we sweep the Chargers again and finally pick up a win against the Raiders I'll be sooooo happy.
As a life time Bucs fan, this has been my mindset for a lot of seasons. If we can get 4 - 5 wins and beat the Saints, that's a decent season. I kind of love it, lots of chaos and it makes the highs feel even better when we do build a good team.
I think because the Saints are the only othwr team that has been successful in our garbage fire of a division besides the Bucs. The Falcons and the Panthers are still division opponents, so I never want to see them win anything but the Saints have just always been "that team" for me.
Beautiful city, amazing food with lovely people, but the team can go fuck right off.
This was me last season with GB and it was the most fun I've had watching them in years.
I hope Broncos show the same flashes, because I live in CO and I like it when my neighbors are stoked about football
As a Cardinals fan, enjoy! It is kind of refreshing to have zero expectations for an entire season. Last season was one of the easiest ones to watch. Even close games feel good.
Nah I understand this. You ripped the bandaid of the Russ contract off. That's terrible for this year, but it's liberating in the long term and it implies the existence of a path out even if we don't know what that path is yet.
And because that's all so clear and obvious, it makes it easier to watch the team to see what pieces you _do_ have, and figure out what you can build around. Basically I mean... If you learn anything this year, it should be positive.
That’s how I have felt about the Texans since the Deshaun mess. Not hopeful of winning but excited about what the chaos will bring. Now we have CJ Stroud and I could never be happier.
I think it's because a lot of Broncos fans were clinging to the Bowlen years, and had a certain expectation that the trust was just not capable of delivering. And now it's a whole new team, and the fans have seemingly accepted that fact, so there is no knowing what it'll be. I'm kind of the opposite. This is the first year since Peyton retired and Osweiler went to Houston, that feels like it's the beginning of something real. Everything under the trust just felt shakey and half-assed from the get go, like the whole team was being held together with duct tape and Elmer's glue. This is the first year where it's like, okay, I can see the professionalism of the new owners, I trust coach Payton and see him as a legit NFL coach, and the young players have an energy to them. It's like we were used to hitting homers, then we struck out, struck out, and now it feels like a good hit again. I don't think the playoffs are a realistic expectation, but I think they'll get there next season. Give this young team a year, and I think they'll be ready. That said, having no expectations is probably the best way to go into anything, that way you can't be disappointed. Go Broncos.
I think you guys should have some hope. A Super Bowl winning HC and a first round rookie QB seems like a breath of fresh air compared to the past few seasons.
The beauty is, you have the right coach. You ate your vegetables, and seem to be on the right track. If sucking comes from THAT, it’s worth it.
I believe in Peyton, because he’s the one who made Dan Campbell - who I would die for. I’m rooting for you guys. And things can turn in a hurry when you do it the right way.
Man you guys are so hard on yourselves. Coming into week 17, you and the raiders were both still in the running for the afc west. it wasnt a horrible season
Ah, you're at the browns/lions fan stage of life. Honestly being a shit team for an extended period isn't that bad as a fan. Once you don't have the expectations to do well, you just enjoy the games you have, and laugh at the terrible losses.
It's almost worse to be a decent team with high expectations you never meet. My friend is a delusional cowboys fan who kept expecting playoff success, and has been way less happy with his team the last decade than I have.
I mean now we're obviously doing well which is great, but I'm mostly referring to the lsat decade or two.
I really find it hard to believe we will be any worse than last year. Nix at least fits Payton’s system. Wilson wasn’t just fitting a square peg into a round hole; he was like trying to fit Lincoln Logs on legos.
I think 7 or 8 wins is very realistic.
You still had 7 wins in a tough conference, and multiple of those came against bum ass teams like the bears and Vikings. It can for sure get worse lol.
We had games where we won the turnover battle 5-0 and won the game by 1 point if Russ plays well the broncos beat the patriots and he doesn’t get benched. I expect Russ to look like he did with Hackett in Pittsburgh and like everyone else no expectations for Nix just pray he comes out like Stroud
Yeah oddly enough we picked up wins because our defense was so clutch in the second half of the season and they bailed out Russ and the offense on numerous occasions. Russ put up better numbers, yeah...but it would have been hard not to after that disaster season with Hackett.
Russ at least knows HOW to play football at the NFL level. Nix is this year's QB6 going to a coach that has shown to not have much patience for literally anything
> coach that has shown to not have much patience for literally anything
Based on what? A few headlines taken out of context of him being mildly critical of russ last year?
What other example can you provide?
The only QB he's ever had for more than one season was Drew Brees. He's never had to actually develop a QB in his career, and is just openly a dick to literally everyone; not a great environment to develop a young QB. I swear every year Broncos fans scapegoat one person and say that they were the entire problem. "Finally, now that the problem is gone, ~~Lock~~ ~~Hackett~~ ~~Russ~~ Payton can lead us to a bright future!"
> The only QB he's ever had for more than one season was Drew Brees.
No shit. He had brees for all but 2 seasons he's coached so far. That stat isn't a reflection on his patience, it's a reflection on brees skill and paytons confidence in it
Payton is credited with developing Romo also. And a large part of the reason he never had to develop other rookies is again because he had a solid franchise guy that he worked well with. Do you think reid is eyeing other rookies every year while he has mahomes? That's part of what alienated belichik and Brady.
> I swear every year Broncos fans scapegoat one person and say that they were the entire problem.
Bro I've seen way more vikings fans blame your failures on kirk than I ever saw broncos fans blame on lock. Shitty sports fans exist in every franchise but acting like that was a big narrative is just wrong.
Yes, we absolutely blamed hackett and russ for our failures. Do I think we're a playoff team in 2022 without hackett? No. Does that mean he wasn't a wildly incompetent head coach? Also no. If you disagree with that, that's fine that's up to you. But I really hope the vikings are the next ones to hire him then 🙏
Have you watched Bo Nix play QB? Sure he was good at Oregon, but that was with two years of starter experience in a QB friendly system. When he was asked to actually make reads and play like a pocket QB at Auburn he was garbage.
Honestly as a prospect his ceiling is basically a bigger Russ. Good scrambler and instincts to make big plays down field, but not as good in a structured offense. He's certainly never going to develop into the elite processor that Brees was.
"Good scrambler and instincts to make big plays down field, but not as good in a structured offense. He's certainly never going to develop into the elite processor that Brees was" Bruh what QB did you watch? Nix was known for presnap reads and checking into the right play. He the opposite of russ who constantly looks to scramble and bomb down field. Payton hates Russ playing QB so much denver is paying him 38 mil to play elsewhere and you think he drafted a bigger russ?
>Honestly as a prospect his ceiling is basically a bigger Russ. Good scrambler and instincts to make big plays down field, but not as good in a structured offense
This is literally the exact opposite of Bo Nix's scouting profile. You actually could not try harder to make a more wrong statement. He is proficient in structure and pre snap reads, good at improvising when needed, but sometimes gives up on the big play a bit too early and has inconsistent deep ball accuracy. No wonder there are so many bo nix haters, literally none of them actually watched him at all....
Well they probably just watched his auburn tape and then just assumed he went off to play football in Latvia or whatever Oregon is located and ignored him afterwards.
Auburn straight up wasn't a good fit. I'm a Ducks fan and I was extremely pissed at the time that he automatically got the starting job when he transferred. But he shut me the fuck up real quick. Oregon runs a lot of similar concepts to Payton's offense, which is probably why Payton was high on Nix in the first place, he's already had time in an offense that generates easy completions and relies heavily on YAC and RBs being receivers.
I don't think Nix is going to light up any defense this year, but I'd be surprised if he looks like a complete bust.
7 or 8 wins seems like a ceiling of what they can accomplish. Obviously, the nfl is unpredictable, but the broncos don’t have a very good roster and the most important position is the biggest concern.
Our roster just sucks from 5 years of bandaids and giving away draft picks. I see a way to 7 wins with our easy schedule, but we're gonna suck for a few years unless Nix is somehow incredible immediately
This season is kind of a write off from a team goal perspective I would think exclusively due to the dead cap they're working with. It's a transition and development year for young players, wins are just a bonus.
Yep, we’re going to basically be talent evaluating every position to see which vets to move on from and which positions have young players worth investing in. Outside of that, winning a few games is all that’s expected realistically. Next year we have all our picks and more cap space to start building on
They actually have the same at 4
And those 4 7-9 seasons were Paytons worst. Jeff Fisher has 6 seasons with a worse record.
Im not sure the point of this comment at all
What’s Fisher’s career win percentage?
How many Super Bowls did Fisher win?
How many playoff wins does Fisher have?
Are you gonna actually take the stance that Jeff Fisher is in the same tier of coach as Sean Payton?
Not sure why you’re getting killed. Do people really think a coach who couldn’t consistently win the NFC South with *checks notes* Drew Brees is a great coach?
We're 31st in active roster spend and 1st in dead cap. Payton is a good coach and I don't think our floor is as atrocious as this article makes it out to be, but the roster *is* pretty dire, especially when you start looking at depth, particularly on the defensive side. I don't hate starting with OL and QB for long-term development, and I don't think we'll be particularly unwatchable or anything, but there is a real lack of both playmakers and depth on defense. In a modern NFL predicated on hunting for mismatches and weak spots, that's likely to be glaringly obvious again this year.
And with using a 1st on a QB and having no second rounder, we weren't able to address those holes or build depth as thoroughly as many other teams would be (not saying the QB was a bad choice! Just that it means we didn't address defense as thoroughly as would be preferred if we had a QB figured out). I don't know if I'd say the roster is really that much better than people make it out to be.
Gotta be honest the d-line has a few solid pieces, nothing special but the DB room on the other hand doesn’t look too bad imo. Wallace and PS2 as outside corners with McMillan in the slot. Add Riley Moss and KAD to that and that definitely at least league average if not higher
Let's be realistic; Sean Payton was an offensive genius when he had a Hall of Fame QB whose skillset was completely perfect for the offense he was running. Payton/Brees is up there with Walsh/Montana as a coach/QB combo that could not have been better matched, and Brees' had the ability to read the field and get the ball to the right guy with ridiculously great ball placement, and that's exactly what the proverbial Gulf Coast Offense needed.
And, yeah, without an HOF QB, everybody suffers, but I'm not exactly convinced Sean Payton, Offensive Super-Genius is a thing until we can see some consistency in a post-Brees offense. Is anyone confident Bo Nix is going to do that at this point?
I'm seeing this take more and more and think people are letting Sean Payton as a human being cloud their view of Payton as a head coach. Like the other commenter said, he did a lot with multiple subpar QBs and is a creative playcaller and schemer. I'm no expert but when you hear analysts in NFL media talk about Payton and his reputation it sure seems like he's an offensive genius.
I mean, there is no "HoF QB" Drew Brees without Sean Payton (and also Pete Carmichael, but thats a different topic).
Payton made Teddy Bridgewater, Jameis Winston, Trevor Siemian etc look like solid QBs. Shit he was 7-2 with Taysom.
The transition from gunslinger Brees to late career Brees was handled very well offensively
I watched him get us to 9-8 in a year we broke a record for most starters used in a season thanks to all the covid shit and salvage a game with the Semen Demon coming off the bench
Just the way he had the team so ready to roll in that Packers game - where they were missing a shit ton of players and had to move the game out of the dome from the hurricane - was really damn impressive. I thought we were gonna get blown out and instead absolutely crushed them.
He's a huge asshole but he was *our* asshole, the man knows how to coach football.
I do wonder how the addition of Carmichael to the Broncos staff this season will impact things as well. Clearly Pete was a poor play caller, but if reports are to be believed he never wanted to be a play caller anyways and he won't be relied upon for that in Denver. He should be a good person to have around Bo Nix and the rest of the QBs.
Yeah, he's not a good playcaller, like at all (though also not the worst I've ever seen. Just frustrating), but by all accounts, he is a brilliant QB coach/offensive mind.
I like to make it a video game analogy: Carmichael is really good at turn-based strategy games, but not great at real-time strategy. Payton is pretty good at RTS, so they work really well together.
So many people seem to forget Brees had a lot of struggles with the Chargers, so much so that the Chargers took Eli Manning 1st overall in 2004 when Eli blatantly stated he had no intentions of playing for the Chargers and then traded him for Philip Rivers. Brees looked better in 2004 and 2005, but not at a HoF-level. His career really didn't take off until he went to the Saints
Agreed on all fronts. Dude seems like a dick but the team was miles ahead of where they’ve been the past 10 years. They also have a long way to go but the lack of talent on the roster is something he inherited and not something he can instantly fix. He’s a good coach, I think it remains to be seen if he’s a great coach. If he does get them even back to playoff contention he will solidify his legacy in my mind
People hate sean payton the person and they let that skew their evaluation of sean payton the football coach.
The man helped brees, and has done well with many different qbs... even helped wilson get some of his stats back up to decent.
he's one of the most dangerous offensive-minded coachs and if you don't see that, you probably don't know a lot about the intricacies of play design.
Peyton hasn’t done shit since Brees. And he was blatantly cheating during his lone championship season.
Yes I’m salty and yes I cheer for Payton’s failure. (Sorry broncos bros)
I mean he had some absurd record with bridgewater winston and hill, like 17-4 or something like that... it tells you he can win with a wide array of qbs.
Even brees was not brees before he was with payton.
Bruh Jameis Winston had his most efficient season ever in 2021 under Payton until his knee exploded. If you can make Jameis fucken Winston look like a legit starting QB, you're just a good goddamn coach.
most of the people that dislike sean are just petty, usually vikings fans. hes a great coach, who made Jameis look like a starter along with Bridgewater. he knows tape and is a winning coach.
people that rag on his butthole lookin mouth arent wrong tho, but shitting on him for that isnt gonna make him a worse coach lol.
I think the dislike is more from the whole violent cheating thing vs just a few petty Vikings fans. He’s a good coach but also an absolutely horrible person.
I mean I don't like him because of the bountygate stuff and just how rude he is sometimes, but I still respect his effectiveness as a coach. Just like I don't like people like tyreek hill, but im not gonna pretend he isn't fast.
That headlines kind of funny considering we’ve been abject mess since Gary Kubiak left the team. This is the first year in awhile where we seem to have something resembling a direction moving forward. Sure we’ll probably be bad this year but I will gladly take a rebuild over the shitty band aids we’ve already struck out on
Because he was a scapegoat for the horrible practices going on around the league and no one wants to believe their team was doing the same thing as the Saints at the time.
Everyone was doing it. Payton was made an example of.
> Everyone was doing it. Payton was made an example of.
Kind of like Martha Stewart with inside trading twenty years ago. Everyone was doing it. She just got caught and was made an example of.
Cause he’s a scumbag who oversaw and was a proponent of a bounty system on his team where his players would intentionally try to injure their opponents
Lots of bitter Vikings/NFCS fans out there. And it's also hilarious watching fans of teams talk shit that were desperate to hire him before the Broncos got him.
Who was the last head coach to receive a year suspension for football related actions? That isn't bitterness, that's not wanting a shit head in your organization. Are NFL fans bitter that Deshaun Watson isn't on their team too?
That NFCCG was a total embarrassment for the sport and you guys have every right to be mad at Gregg Williams.
You can't seriously think that Sean Payton actually operated Bountygate or that the Saints were the only team doing it. They obviously had their karma come back and get them already anyway.
Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the Broncos suddenly made a leap forward. Sean Payton sucks ass as a person, but there's zero reason to think he can't turn around a Broncos team that is now fully his with the QB that he wanted.
Yup, that's where I'm at. Rookie QB, coach, and decent OL is a great spot to start rebuilding. Rookie QB and atrocious defense and lots of cap tied up in players not on the team makes it hard to imagine we have a winning record this season though.
Why does everyone think Payton sucks as a person? Because he is a hard coach? Don’t tell me because of Bountygate. It was a long time ago and borderline not really his doing. He is a very good football coach.
Sounds like Nix was his QB3.
Nix's strengths are his accuracy and quick processing. Sounds like an ideal fit for what Payton likes to do, idk why people think it was such a reach
"QB he wanted that still might be available around where they pick" is a more accurate statement.
Caleb/Jayden/Maye were never on the table, so it was Nix/Penix/JJ basically
Last years Giants won 6 games. They were probably the saddest team I‘ve ever seen in the first half of the season. They won 8 games last year with Russ playing in a highschool level offense because he couldn’t run a wider scheme under Payton. I think more than 4 wins are definitely possible
Yeah probably. I‘m relatively new to football because I‘m not from the US but I just had that memory of being super hyped because that was the one time I had the time to match a MNF game in the middle of the night just to see NY get blown out by a defense that turned out to be one of the worst in the league in the latter half of the year
Something to remember about football as well, is random weird games happen that aren't really reflective of the teams quality. Bad teams will beat good teams, or a bad team will blow out another bad team.
Each game is a weird roll of the dice, and especially prime time games will lead to strong community opinions being formed about teams that really need more than one game to properly confirm.
Broncos aren't a mess, and will be much higher up than 30th. I don't think a lot of people outside of Denver realize all that has happened over the last some years, and how it has basically blocked them from returning to competitiveness. They've gone through one of the strangest series of events in NFL history, which did derail the whole franchise for a while, losing both owner and QB, and backup QB, all the same year, then bizarre trust managed for years, where the trustees wouldn't spend a dime more than they had to, then Drew Lock getting benched almost immediately because Fangio didn't like him, never developing a QB and just rotating them in and out, Elway stepping down as GM and Paton coming in, getting Hackett to make Aaron Rodgers happy, until he went weird and didn't come to Denver, leaving Russ, a decision everyone in the media praised at the time, then finally getting top notch management to begin the clean up. A good coach in SP, dumping the dead weight of Russ, and finally getting this team back on track. So the team's mess years are done. Now is the beginning of a new Broncos, one that in all likeliness could eventually surpass even the Bowlen Broncos in terms of winning. I truly believe management for the Broncos is one of the best in the entire NFL. They aren't going to be satisfied unless they are winning big, and they have the ability to make it a reality. I don't know if they'll get to the playoffs this season, but I'd bet they are better than last season, and next season will be real contenders.
>Payton didn't even last two months into one regular season with Wilson (which, statistically, wasn't all that bad for Wilson), which indicates he was never all that into making it work.
1. Payton easified his playbook for Russ.
2. Russ' QB record last season was 7-8. Which I convert to three months and two weeks.
Payton has four 7-9 seasons and one 8-8 season with a HoF quarterback. I'm curious to see what happens but I will definitely be rooting against him thanks to Bountygate and the fact that it is the Broncos.
It’s important to remember that we got 8 wins last year, when Coach didn’t even have the QB he desired. He’s not the greatest human being in the world, but he can coach some pretty darn good football. Also, he has never gone below 7 wins as head coach, so don’t count him out in that regard either (which is why I think we go 7-10 realistically)
This is finally year one of a rebuild that should have honestly been done 8 years ago. I’m thinking 3-5 wins, hopefully we get some glimpses of promise for the future.
2016 was a strange year. We essentially had the same exact team minus Peyton. Every year afterwords should've been a rebuild. If we drafted Dak (big IF) we probably would've contended. We finished that year 9-7 with Trevor and Paxton as QBs. If we didn't sign Von to an extension, I guess we could've used the money to get a good QB.
Also in 2016 Brock got signed to that big ol contract with Houston. Who knows what would have happened had he stayed
Probably would have been a playoff team that year honestly. He fit Kubiak's system perfectly and there's no reason to believe we couldn't have won a couple more games that year had he started for us.
I thought he played pretty well for Denver. I was surprised he busted so hard in Houston.
He said he liked the system in Houston better but he had been in the Denver system for 3 years and knew it perfectly. Plus he had the Denver Defense. Was foolish to leave
I can give you 72 million reasons why it wasn't foolish of him to leave.
Bingo
And how much more in his career could he have made if he didn’t blow after signing? I know it’s all “what ifs” but he was offered 13mil a year in Denver and 18mil a year in Houston. Surprising Denver didn’t counter
And how much could he have lost if he sucked and was a one year "semi-wonder"? Let's face it. Brock Osweiler probably had faith in himself that he was a legitimate starter and would be able to be a good piece, but he knew he wasn't Brees. He knew he wasn't Brady. He knew he wasn't Rodgers. It's senseless to risk a bad year when you have a contract that feeds your family for life when you know you're not a superstar
I thought Siemian would actually be good the first half of the year but then he fell off
I was telling everyone and their mother the Broncos needed to draft Dak. Seeing the pick for Paxton Lynch hurt, and I didn’t even know he was gonna be that bad. I don’t know how Dak’s career plays out if that had happened, but it couldn’t have been worse than Paxton’s.
As a Dallas fan, thanks for that.
I mean, I get he needed a change and a fresh start… but he also said (I believe he said it, anyway) that he didn’t want to go through a rebuild. I get that people tell lies or excuses to get what they truly want (for him, a change of scenery). But damn dude, if you had just stayed and started our rebuild 3 years ago, we’d probably be good again *now*. And we wouldn’t have Dickless Dennis as our head coach, which would be a nice plus.
I mean if Joe Ellis had hired Kyle Shanahan almost a decade ago we’d both be on different paths
you guys have 278 million in cap liabilities in 2024, 360 million 2025, and 260 million in 2026. you're basically over the cap for the next 3 straight years, It was worse a couple years ago. I don't honestly think you could really rebuild 3 years ago, you had no way to eat the cap. You could just keep getting rookies but you have no way of acquiring vets without just pushing that cap further into the future. You can still be semi-competitive sure, but that's not what a full rebuild is in my mind. You would have to cut/trade basically every good player you had to do a full rebuild, and it still would have taken more than one year. I think by this year you'd be "out of debt" and have cap to spend down the road, allowing you to draft your new rookie QB and have the cap space for some vets to put around him and depth pieces. I don't think it would be a ton different from the broncos current situation honestly. Also, it's very possible your GM/owner just didn't want to do that, it's not really the HCs responsibility anyway.
Depends on how your team is run... I don't think the Packers ever went into a "rebuild", yet the 2024 team feels pretty different from the Super Bowl contending 2021 team, and is a lot younger while still being viable competitors for the championship.
We definitely went through a rebuild, we shed basically all our vets including the HOF franchise QB. We just kind of lucked out and a lot of the young replacement talent has been performing well super early
Idk if the insider leaks about the simplified offense they made for Russ are true but I think I‘d be surprised if they’d have just 3 wins
Wether it was that, or his intro complete a pass over the middle, it was bad news
Out of curiosity, why 3-5? You had 8 last year, has the roster changed that dramatically? I understand you certainly won't be improving at all, but 8 wins to 3-5 is a pretty big drop.
There’s definitely been turnover on the roster especially on D. Who knows what’ll happen this year but I’m tempering my expectations
The roster is almost identical to last year. They replaced Simmons (still unsigned) with a good player. Jewel was replaced. Drafted nix
The defense lost 4 starters and the offense lost 3 starters. Its a decent amount of turnover. Simmons to Brandon will be a drop off for sure. And who replaced Jewell?
I try and pick the worst/hardest team to rebuild in Madden franchise every year.. definitely going with the broncos
Should be a fun one! There are definitely (hopefully) pieces to build around
Broncos and Panthers gonna breakout at the same time, which would be wild, since both teams have done nothing since 2015.
LMAO that would be hilarious. Two franchises bonded in success and failure... Two franchises with basically nothing else in common at all
8-9 win team.
I’d be pleased as punch if we manage 8-9 wins.
For the last 8 seasons, I have always found some sort of silver-lining or delusional coping on how we would start to turn things around. And each year came and went with disastrous and embarrassing results. For the first time, I literally have zero expectations of being good and fully expect to embrace the suck. So anything over 4-5 wins is the fucking icing on the cake and a bonus from there.
Honestly this is the first year in a while where my expectations are so low that it’s almost exciting. It’s bizarre but with no pressure I am kind of looking forward to see what happens with the season. If we suck, who cares, we are pretty talented deficient as is.
You say that, but then you’re stuck in football hell where even the wins feel like losses. I was expecting the Texans to be awful after we traded Hopkins, yet it still made watching every game painful even the blowout losses. Eventually, you start hoping your team loses more so you can land a good draft pick…there’s nothing sadder as a football fan imo.
I mean what the Broncos have been in football purgatory the last 8 or so years, whuch has been just as hellish honestly. The Hackett year is probably the worst season of football I’ve ever endured because we couldn’t even root for them to lose since we had no picks to tank with. It was just weekly embarrassment with no reward at the end. At least this season if we lose there’s some solace in knowing we get a better pick and know what players to shed moving forward
That was the Bears for most of my life. They'd teeter around mediocrity and distance themselves from a top-10 draft pick. The Lovie Smith era netted a Superbowl berth, but for the most part it was maddening because the team was consistently around 7-9 and 9-7 and always too far to draft a real difference maker. Poles at least came in and embraced the tank in his first season. He ripped off the band-aid, ate a bunch of dead cap, and traded away any good players. There wasn't this veiled notion of the Bears trying to compete - they were going to be shit and everyone knew it. It might all still be for nothing, but at least it's the first time I can remember a Bears' GM aggressively tearing things down to the studs and rebuilding.
Bring on the chaos
After the shit show with Hackett, and Russ returning my expectations were rock fucken bottom last season. But we beat the Chiefs, so that was pretty funny. This year they're still rock bottom, but if we sweep the Chargers again and finally pick up a win against the Raiders I'll be sooooo happy.
As a life time Bucs fan, this has been my mindset for a lot of seasons. If we can get 4 - 5 wins and beat the Saints, that's a decent season. I kind of love it, lots of chaos and it makes the highs feel even better when we do build a good team.
And every 19 or so years, you whip out a Super Bowl run. Fair deal for sure
Why the saints? I mean I hate yall too but yall aren’t the falcons
I think because the Saints are the only othwr team that has been successful in our garbage fire of a division besides the Bucs. The Falcons and the Panthers are still division opponents, so I never want to see them win anything but the Saints have just always been "that team" for me. Beautiful city, amazing food with lovely people, but the team can go fuck right off.
This was me last season with GB and it was the most fun I've had watching them in years. I hope Broncos show the same flashes, because I live in CO and I like it when my neighbors are stoked about football
That was me the last two years. It’s fun and kind of liberating.
Now we truly feel how browns fans feel
As a Cardinals fan, enjoy! It is kind of refreshing to have zero expectations for an entire season. Last season was one of the easiest ones to watch. Even close games feel good.
Last season was my favorite in a long time. Being pleasantly surprised is a good time
That’s how I felt going into the 2005 season for the niners. After 2-14 in 2004 I had no expectations.
Nah I understand this. You ripped the bandaid of the Russ contract off. That's terrible for this year, but it's liberating in the long term and it implies the existence of a path out even if we don't know what that path is yet. And because that's all so clear and obvious, it makes it easier to watch the team to see what pieces you _do_ have, and figure out what you can build around. Basically I mean... If you learn anything this year, it should be positive.
That’s how I have felt about the Texans since the Deshaun mess. Not hopeful of winning but excited about what the chaos will bring. Now we have CJ Stroud and I could never be happier.
I think it's because a lot of Broncos fans were clinging to the Bowlen years, and had a certain expectation that the trust was just not capable of delivering. And now it's a whole new team, and the fans have seemingly accepted that fact, so there is no knowing what it'll be. I'm kind of the opposite. This is the first year since Peyton retired and Osweiler went to Houston, that feels like it's the beginning of something real. Everything under the trust just felt shakey and half-assed from the get go, like the whole team was being held together with duct tape and Elmer's glue. This is the first year where it's like, okay, I can see the professionalism of the new owners, I trust coach Payton and see him as a legit NFL coach, and the young players have an energy to them. It's like we were used to hitting homers, then we struck out, struck out, and now it feels like a good hit again. I don't think the playoffs are a realistic expectation, but I think they'll get there next season. Give this young team a year, and I think they'll be ready. That said, having no expectations is probably the best way to go into anything, that way you can't be disappointed. Go Broncos.
0-17 right up sir
Bo and 17
Bo Nil
I think you guys should have some hope. A Super Bowl winning HC and a first round rookie QB seems like a breath of fresh air compared to the past few seasons.
I have hope for sure.
You know what I hate? We’ve both kinda sucked since our SB matchup. Except y’all won that game.
This was me during the Urban Meyer year. It never really came back even though we’ve gotten better.
The beauty is, you have the right coach. You ate your vegetables, and seem to be on the right track. If sucking comes from THAT, it’s worth it. I believe in Peyton, because he’s the one who made Dan Campbell - who I would die for. I’m rooting for you guys. And things can turn in a hurry when you do it the right way.
Man you guys are so hard on yourselves. Coming into week 17, you and the raiders were both still in the running for the afc west. it wasnt a horrible season
Ah, you're at the browns/lions fan stage of life. Honestly being a shit team for an extended period isn't that bad as a fan. Once you don't have the expectations to do well, you just enjoy the games you have, and laugh at the terrible losses. It's almost worse to be a decent team with high expectations you never meet. My friend is a delusional cowboys fan who kept expecting playoff success, and has been way less happy with his team the last decade than I have. I mean now we're obviously doing well which is great, but I'm mostly referring to the lsat decade or two.
I really find it hard to believe we will be any worse than last year. Nix at least fits Payton’s system. Wilson wasn’t just fitting a square peg into a round hole; he was like trying to fit Lincoln Logs on legos. I think 7 or 8 wins is very realistic.
You're going from an established pro QB to effectively a college QB. Don't get your hopes up.
Did you watch Russ last year? Not just stats, did you watch him play? He did not play in Payton’s offense like an established NFL starting QB.
You still had 7 wins in a tough conference, and multiple of those came against bum ass teams like the bears and Vikings. It can for sure get worse lol.
Yeah 2022 was worse. As long as Bo Nix doesn't get roasted by Patrick Star, we chillin
We had games where we won the turnover battle 5-0 and won the game by 1 point if Russ plays well the broncos beat the patriots and he doesn’t get benched. I expect Russ to look like he did with Hackett in Pittsburgh and like everyone else no expectations for Nix just pray he comes out like Stroud
I guess you can say multiple of them came from bad teams. You could also say they beat the packers,chiefs, and bills despite Russ.
Yeah oddly enough we picked up wins because our defense was so clutch in the second half of the season and they bailed out Russ and the offense on numerous occasions. Russ put up better numbers, yeah...but it would have been hard not to after that disaster season with Hackett.
That damn Broncos game haunts me. After Collinsworth just HAD to compare Dobbs to Mahomes, it was over
Russ at least knows HOW to play football at the NFL level. Nix is this year's QB6 going to a coach that has shown to not have much patience for literally anything
> coach that has shown to not have much patience for literally anything Based on what? A few headlines taken out of context of him being mildly critical of russ last year? What other example can you provide?
The only QB he's ever had for more than one season was Drew Brees. He's never had to actually develop a QB in his career, and is just openly a dick to literally everyone; not a great environment to develop a young QB. I swear every year Broncos fans scapegoat one person and say that they were the entire problem. "Finally, now that the problem is gone, ~~Lock~~ ~~Hackett~~ ~~Russ~~ Payton can lead us to a bright future!"
Payton played a huge role in Romo’s development. He didn’t win a super bowl but he was a solid starter for a long time
> The only QB he's ever had for more than one season was Drew Brees. No shit. He had brees for all but 2 seasons he's coached so far. That stat isn't a reflection on his patience, it's a reflection on brees skill and paytons confidence in it Payton is credited with developing Romo also. And a large part of the reason he never had to develop other rookies is again because he had a solid franchise guy that he worked well with. Do you think reid is eyeing other rookies every year while he has mahomes? That's part of what alienated belichik and Brady. > I swear every year Broncos fans scapegoat one person and say that they were the entire problem. Bro I've seen way more vikings fans blame your failures on kirk than I ever saw broncos fans blame on lock. Shitty sports fans exist in every franchise but acting like that was a big narrative is just wrong. Yes, we absolutely blamed hackett and russ for our failures. Do I think we're a playoff team in 2022 without hackett? No. Does that mean he wasn't a wildly incompetent head coach? Also no. If you disagree with that, that's fine that's up to you. But I really hope the vikings are the next ones to hire him then 🙏
Winston started off great in 2021 until he got hurt…..
Have you watched Bo Nix play QB? Sure he was good at Oregon, but that was with two years of starter experience in a QB friendly system. When he was asked to actually make reads and play like a pocket QB at Auburn he was garbage. Honestly as a prospect his ceiling is basically a bigger Russ. Good scrambler and instincts to make big plays down field, but not as good in a structured offense. He's certainly never going to develop into the elite processor that Brees was.
"Good scrambler and instincts to make big plays down field, but not as good in a structured offense. He's certainly never going to develop into the elite processor that Brees was" Bruh what QB did you watch? Nix was known for presnap reads and checking into the right play. He the opposite of russ who constantly looks to scramble and bomb down field. Payton hates Russ playing QB so much denver is paying him 38 mil to play elsewhere and you think he drafted a bigger russ?
Lol that's the wrongest Bo Nix scouting report I've ever read
>Honestly as a prospect his ceiling is basically a bigger Russ. Good scrambler and instincts to make big plays down field, but not as good in a structured offense This is literally the exact opposite of Bo Nix's scouting profile. You actually could not try harder to make a more wrong statement. He is proficient in structure and pre snap reads, good at improvising when needed, but sometimes gives up on the big play a bit too early and has inconsistent deep ball accuracy. No wonder there are so many bo nix haters, literally none of them actually watched him at all....
*literally none of them actually watched him at all....* Which is wild since the dude played 1000 college games lmao
Well they probably just watched his auburn tape and then just assumed he went off to play football in Latvia or whatever Oregon is located and ignored him afterwards.
Auburn straight up wasn't a good fit. I'm a Ducks fan and I was extremely pissed at the time that he automatically got the starting job when he transferred. But he shut me the fuck up real quick. Oregon runs a lot of similar concepts to Payton's offense, which is probably why Payton was high on Nix in the first place, he's already had time in an offense that generates easy completions and relies heavily on YAC and RBs being receivers. I don't think Nix is going to light up any defense this year, but I'd be surprised if he looks like a complete bust.
Counterpoint. HC harsin was terrible and was fired after two years for a reason. He ruined bo nic and then nix went to a competent team and nlossomed
7 or 8 wins seems like a ceiling of what they can accomplish. Obviously, the nfl is unpredictable, but the broncos don’t have a very good roster and the most important position is the biggest concern.
Our roster just sucks from 5 years of bandaids and giving away draft picks. I see a way to 7 wins with our easy schedule, but we're gonna suck for a few years unless Nix is somehow incredible immediately
Bo shows he is the future. 6 wins. Win one against the Raiders. A man can dream
This season is kind of a write off from a team goal perspective I would think exclusively due to the dead cap they're working with. It's a transition and development year for young players, wins are just a bonus.
Yep, we’re going to basically be talent evaluating every position to see which vets to move on from and which positions have young players worth investing in. Outside of that, winning a few games is all that’s expected realistically. Next year we have all our picks and more cap space to start building on
Panthers and Broncos play this year. How the mighty have fallen.
Aptly enough four days before Halloween.
Sean Payton is a toad of a human being, but people who write off him and his team are very premature in their judgment.
Even the best chefs in the world still need the right ingredients to make gourmet food
People act like Sean Peyton doesn’t have more 7-9 records than Jeff Fisher, but he does. The best thing about Sean Peyton was always Drew Brees.
They actually have the same at 4 And those 4 7-9 seasons were Paytons worst. Jeff Fisher has 6 seasons with a worse record. Im not sure the point of this comment at all
> Im not sure the point of this comment at all The point of the comment was to make Peyton look bad obviously haha
What’s Fisher’s career win percentage? How many Super Bowls did Fisher win? How many playoff wins does Fisher have? Are you gonna actually take the stance that Jeff Fisher is in the same tier of coach as Sean Payton?
Not sure why you’re getting killed. Do people really think a coach who couldn’t consistently win the NFC South with *checks notes* Drew Brees is a great coach?
Dude is a great offensive headcoach, and the broncos roster isint nearly as bad as people make it out to be
We're 31st in active roster spend and 1st in dead cap. Payton is a good coach and I don't think our floor is as atrocious as this article makes it out to be, but the roster *is* pretty dire, especially when you start looking at depth, particularly on the defensive side. I don't hate starting with OL and QB for long-term development, and I don't think we'll be particularly unwatchable or anything, but there is a real lack of both playmakers and depth on defense. In a modern NFL predicated on hunting for mismatches and weak spots, that's likely to be glaringly obvious again this year. And with using a 1st on a QB and having no second rounder, we weren't able to address those holes or build depth as thoroughly as many other teams would be (not saying the QB was a bad choice! Just that it means we didn't address defense as thoroughly as would be preferred if we had a QB figured out). I don't know if I'd say the roster is really that much better than people make it out to be.
Depth usually sucks league wide.
Gotta be honest the d-line has a few solid pieces, nothing special but the DB room on the other hand doesn’t look too bad imo. Wallace and PS2 as outside corners with McMillan in the slot. Add Riley Moss and KAD to that and that definitely at least league average if not higher
Safety and LB is pretty dire.
I ain’t falling for that shit again.
Let's be realistic; Sean Payton was an offensive genius when he had a Hall of Fame QB whose skillset was completely perfect for the offense he was running. Payton/Brees is up there with Walsh/Montana as a coach/QB combo that could not have been better matched, and Brees' had the ability to read the field and get the ball to the right guy with ridiculously great ball placement, and that's exactly what the proverbial Gulf Coast Offense needed. And, yeah, without an HOF QB, everybody suffers, but I'm not exactly convinced Sean Payton, Offensive Super-Genius is a thing until we can see some consistency in a post-Brees offense. Is anyone confident Bo Nix is going to do that at this point?
I'm seeing this take more and more and think people are letting Sean Payton as a human being cloud their view of Payton as a head coach. Like the other commenter said, he did a lot with multiple subpar QBs and is a creative playcaller and schemer. I'm no expert but when you hear analysts in NFL media talk about Payton and his reputation it sure seems like he's an offensive genius.
I think it’s also more than fair to assume that Payton had a hand in Romos development in Dallas
I’m letting my love for the broncos sucking guide my view.
Fair
I mean, there is no "HoF QB" Drew Brees without Sean Payton (and also Pete Carmichael, but thats a different topic). Payton made Teddy Bridgewater, Jameis Winston, Trevor Siemian etc look like solid QBs. Shit he was 7-2 with Taysom. The transition from gunslinger Brees to late career Brees was handled very well offensively
I watched him get us to 9-8 in a year we broke a record for most starters used in a season thanks to all the covid shit and salvage a game with the Semen Demon coming off the bench Just the way he had the team so ready to roll in that Packers game - where they were missing a shit ton of players and had to move the game out of the dome from the hurricane - was really damn impressive. I thought we were gonna get blown out and instead absolutely crushed them. He's a huge asshole but he was *our* asshole, the man knows how to coach football.
The WHAT DEMON?!? WHO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??
Trevor Simien.
Siemian*
Semen*
I do wonder how the addition of Carmichael to the Broncos staff this season will impact things as well. Clearly Pete was a poor play caller, but if reports are to be believed he never wanted to be a play caller anyways and he won't be relied upon for that in Denver. He should be a good person to have around Bo Nix and the rest of the QBs.
Yeah, he's not a good playcaller, like at all (though also not the worst I've ever seen. Just frustrating), but by all accounts, he is a brilliant QB coach/offensive mind.
I like to make it a video game analogy: Carmichael is really good at turn-based strategy games, but not great at real-time strategy. Payton is pretty good at RTS, so they work really well together.
He‘ll probably just return to his original position, right?
So many people seem to forget Brees had a lot of struggles with the Chargers, so much so that the Chargers took Eli Manning 1st overall in 2004 when Eli blatantly stated he had no intentions of playing for the Chargers and then traded him for Philip Rivers. Brees looked better in 2004 and 2005, but not at a HoF-level. His career really didn't take off until he went to the Saints
I thought he was solid last year given what he had
Agreed on all fronts. Dude seems like a dick but the team was miles ahead of where they’ve been the past 10 years. They also have a long way to go but the lack of talent on the roster is something he inherited and not something he can instantly fix. He’s a good coach, I think it remains to be seen if he’s a great coach. If he does get them even back to playoff contention he will solidify his legacy in my mind
People hate sean payton the person and they let that skew their evaluation of sean payton the football coach. The man helped brees, and has done well with many different qbs... even helped wilson get some of his stats back up to decent. he's one of the most dangerous offensive-minded coachs and if you don't see that, you probably don't know a lot about the intricacies of play design.
Peyton hasn’t done shit since Brees. And he was blatantly cheating during his lone championship season. Yes I’m salty and yes I cheer for Payton’s failure. (Sorry broncos bros)
I mean he had some absurd record with bridgewater winston and hill, like 17-4 or something like that... it tells you he can win with a wide array of qbs. Even brees was not brees before he was with payton.
Bruh Jameis Winston had his most efficient season ever in 2021 under Payton until his knee exploded. If you can make Jameis fucken Winston look like a legit starting QB, you're just a good goddamn coach.
[удалено]
Also, any HC is an improvement from Hackett.
most of the people that dislike sean are just petty, usually vikings fans. hes a great coach, who made Jameis look like a starter along with Bridgewater. he knows tape and is a winning coach. people that rag on his butthole lookin mouth arent wrong tho, but shitting on him for that isnt gonna make him a worse coach lol.
I think the dislike is more from the whole violent cheating thing vs just a few petty Vikings fans. He’s a good coach but also an absolutely horrible person.
I mean I don't like him because of the bountygate stuff and just how rude he is sometimes, but I still respect his effectiveness as a coach. Just like I don't like people like tyreek hill, but im not gonna pretend he isn't fast.
That headlines kind of funny considering we’ve been abject mess since Gary Kubiak left the team. This is the first year in awhile where we seem to have something resembling a direction moving forward. Sure we’ll probably be bad this year but I will gladly take a rebuild over the shitty band aids we’ve already struck out on
Why does this sub have such a hate boner for Sean Payton?
Because he was a scapegoat for the horrible practices going on around the league and no one wants to believe their team was doing the same thing as the Saints at the time. Everyone was doing it. Payton was made an example of.
> Everyone was doing it. Payton was made an example of. Kind of like Martha Stewart with inside trading twenty years ago. Everyone was doing it. She just got caught and was made an example of.
People also don't like him because he was a scab
He's also a smarmy fuck.
Cause he’s a scumbag who oversaw and was a proponent of a bounty system on his team where his players would intentionally try to injure their opponents
Yeah pretty simple lol
Mostly because he’s a huge asshole
Lots of bitter Vikings/NFCS fans out there. And it's also hilarious watching fans of teams talk shit that were desperate to hire him before the Broncos got him.
Who was the last head coach to receive a year suspension for football related actions? That isn't bitterness, that's not wanting a shit head in your organization. Are NFL fans bitter that Deshaun Watson isn't on their team too?
That NFCCG was a total embarrassment for the sport and you guys have every right to be mad at Gregg Williams. You can't seriously think that Sean Payton actually operated Bountygate or that the Saints were the only team doing it. They obviously had their karma come back and get them already anyway.
Look at that, a bitter bitch Vikings fan, right on cue. Couldn't have made my point any more succinctly LMFAO
Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the Broncos suddenly made a leap forward. Sean Payton sucks ass as a person, but there's zero reason to think he can't turn around a Broncos team that is now fully his with the QB that he wanted.
Broncos already looked better than they had in years in 2023 despite the terrible losses to Detroit and Miami
5 of their losses were one score losses too. They were surprisingly better than expected last year.
In the long run, for sure. But this season? I’d be surprised if they won more games than last season.
Yup, that's where I'm at. Rookie QB, coach, and decent OL is a great spot to start rebuilding. Rookie QB and atrocious defense and lots of cap tied up in players not on the team makes it hard to imagine we have a winning record this season though.
This isnt a hot take. They were 8-9 last season. Anyone who expects a winning record in a tough division with a rookie QB is insane
Yeah we're finally in a rebuild. I have no expectations. I just want to actually rebuild properly. It's long overdue.
Why does everyone think Payton sucks as a person? Because he is a hard coach? Don’t tell me because of Bountygate. It was a long time ago and borderline not really his doing. He is a very good football coach.
“QB he wanted” when it’s really the only QB that was available and they had no choice but to take him.
If he did not want him he would have picked another player from another position.
Sounds like Nix was his QB3. Nix's strengths are his accuracy and quick processing. Sounds like an ideal fit for what Payton likes to do, idk why people think it was such a reach
Maybe worry more about your own shitty bust of a QB that can't even beat out Darnold
"QB he wanted that still might be available around where they pick" is a more accurate statement. Caleb/Jayden/Maye were never on the table, so it was Nix/Penix/JJ basically
RemidMe! 1 year
RemindMe! 1 year
If the Broncos win 5 games this year I will personally kill and eat an actual bronco.
Remindme! 6 months. u/PassTheKY says: If the Broncos win 5 games this year I will personally kill and eat an actual bronco.
!remindme January 25 2025
Well it's illegal in the U.S. to kill a wild horse so this should be fun. Easy out for you to back out and delete your account later.
i mean, it's pretty on the nose for cheifs rn. animal abuse, felonies and obesity
It's bullshit we can't eat some horse in this country
There’s technically no such thing as a wild horse in the US, but I don’t think a judge will buy that argument. They’re feral.
I live next to a reservation. If the Chiefs win another superbowl, I will personally go shit on the lawn of the tribal headquarters.
Payton will bring a good offense to Denver eventually the defense might be ass however
I‘m almost certainly sure that they will scoop up Dennis Allen once he’s fired
I want to be offended but I get it.
People thinking the broncos will be anything more than a 4 win team with the qb room of Zack Wilson/Jarret Stidham/Bo Nix are wild
Fortunately you only start 1 qb.
You have literally no clue what kind of pro qb Bo Nix is going to be lol
4 wins? Come on bruh
Last years Giants won 6 games. They were probably the saddest team I‘ve ever seen in the first half of the season. They won 8 games last year with Russ playing in a highschool level offense because he couldn’t run a wider scheme under Payton. I think more than 4 wins are definitely possible
last year’s first-half Giants weren’t even the saddest Giants team of the past 5 years this is Joe Judge erasure
If that Giants team was the saddest, you are a sweet summer child.
Yeah probably. I‘m relatively new to football because I‘m not from the US but I just had that memory of being super hyped because that was the one time I had the time to match a MNF game in the middle of the night just to see NY get blown out by a defense that turned out to be one of the worst in the league in the latter half of the year
Something to remember about football as well, is random weird games happen that aren't really reflective of the teams quality. Bad teams will beat good teams, or a bad team will blow out another bad team. Each game is a weird roll of the dice, and especially prime time games will lead to strong community opinions being formed about teams that really need more than one game to properly confirm.
I have them on 5-6 wins. The Broncos are too good to tank for whatever position they need to fill in.
Zach Wilson won't be on the 53 man roster, so you can remove him from that conversation.
Remind me! 8 months
RemindMe! 6 Months
Broncos aren't a mess, and will be much higher up than 30th. I don't think a lot of people outside of Denver realize all that has happened over the last some years, and how it has basically blocked them from returning to competitiveness. They've gone through one of the strangest series of events in NFL history, which did derail the whole franchise for a while, losing both owner and QB, and backup QB, all the same year, then bizarre trust managed for years, where the trustees wouldn't spend a dime more than they had to, then Drew Lock getting benched almost immediately because Fangio didn't like him, never developing a QB and just rotating them in and out, Elway stepping down as GM and Paton coming in, getting Hackett to make Aaron Rodgers happy, until he went weird and didn't come to Denver, leaving Russ, a decision everyone in the media praised at the time, then finally getting top notch management to begin the clean up. A good coach in SP, dumping the dead weight of Russ, and finally getting this team back on track. So the team's mess years are done. Now is the beginning of a new Broncos, one that in all likeliness could eventually surpass even the Bowlen Broncos in terms of winning. I truly believe management for the Broncos is one of the best in the entire NFL. They aren't going to be satisfied unless they are winning big, and they have the ability to make it a reality. I don't know if they'll get to the playoffs this season, but I'd bet they are better than last season, and next season will be real contenders.
I don’t see a mess I see a coach building this team in his image.
Highest paid coach in the league. Lets see who will throw under the bus this year. What a shame for the kids who got drafted there.
Sean Payton is not the droid you’ve been looking for.
As much as I like seeing the Broncos in the toilet, pre-season rankings are so dumb.
>Payton didn't even last two months into one regular season with Wilson (which, statistically, wasn't all that bad for Wilson), which indicates he was never all that into making it work. 1. Payton easified his playbook for Russ. 2. Russ' QB record last season was 7-8. Which I convert to three months and two weeks.
According to local sports talk radio, Bo Nix is a future HOFer. Credibility lost.
Payton has four 7-9 seasons and one 8-8 season with a HoF quarterback. I'm curious to see what happens but I will definitely be rooting against him thanks to Bountygate and the fact that it is the Broncos.
It’s important to remember that we got 8 wins last year, when Coach didn’t even have the QB he desired. He’s not the greatest human being in the world, but he can coach some pretty darn good football. Also, he has never gone below 7 wins as head coach, so don’t count him out in that regard either (which is why I think we go 7-10 realistically)