Seth Wickersham joins to break down his eye-opening deep dive on Sean Payton & the Denver Broncos

**Zac Stevens** (0:02)
Broncos Head Coach Bill Belichick? How close were we to that happening? We've got a huge show on the DNVR Broncos Podcast today where we are going to hear from the man that dropped that story, featuring that and so much more. It's ESPN Seth Wickersham joins us in just a few minutes. And we are live from the Toyota Lounge, driven by your local front range Toyota stores. And we are the DNVR Broncos Podcast. Arcade to my left, Hank to my right. We got you here behind the camera. And Zac rocking and rolling with you today.
Holy cow, fellas. In the middle of the summer, Seth Wickersham just dropped a huge story for Broncos Country.

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (0:45)
Yeah, I had different plans for my morning, but sat down with my coffee, started reading that, and there went my morning.

**Zac Stevens** (0:52)
Exactly.

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (0:53)
And it was great. I couldn't put it down, honestly.

**Zac Stevens** (0:56)
No.

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (0:57)
Probably the best I've ever been at reading.

**Zac Stevens** (1:00)
Wow. So then that means Seth was on fire.

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (1:03)
He was on fire. He was locked in, and I was locked in, and I love Sean Payton. So I was just eating up all of these little tidbits about what an absolute insane person he is. Yeah.

**Zac Stevens** (1:14)
A text I got from someone said, Sean is, let me find the exact phrase, hilariously psychotic.

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (1:24)
Yeah.

**Zac Stevens** (1:25)
And that's, I think, how a lot of people inside the building would describe him as well.

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (1:29)
Yeah. I mean, I was thinking like, tortured genius.

**Zac Stevens** (1:33)
Yeah.

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (1:35)
I was going through all sorts of different phrases in my head that would line up to who this person is. But shocking that he would give this access, honestly, just from what I know about him. Obviously, he trusts Seth quite a bit. I'm excited to talk to Seth about it in a few minutes. But really eye-opening stuff. And I think a really interesting look at what makes Sean tick.

**Zac Stevens** (2:00)
100 percent. And so this story is over at ESPN. Highly recommend everyone go and read it. We're going to break down some of the things, but we're not going to be able to break down everything in it.
But it is just incredible. They go back to, you mentioned, like tormented, is that what you said?

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (2:16)
Tortured.

**Zac Stevens** (2:16)
Tortured. They go back, Seth goes back and has a little tidbit about his childhood growing up. And might give some insight into that kind of word and why you might feel that way, Ryan. And then, so Seth was able to get access, pretty much 24-7 access to Sean Payton during the Broncos two weeks in the playoffs. So leading up to the Bills game, the Bills game, he's in Sean Payton's offense when he finds out about Bo Nix's brutal injury after that game. And then he spends the next week with him in Stiddy City trying to prepare for that game. It is incredible, so much insight. That's what the majority of the story focuses on. But there's one story that's coming out of it that is catching national attention. And this story is crazy enough, just thrown in to this piece, just a little feather in here. And I want to read this for you.
He's talking about Bill Belichick and says, Sean's friend Bill Belichick sent him bullet points that he used to give his Patriots teams. Belichick and Payton go back decades forged by mutual respect and mutual trauma from working under Parcells. When Belichick and the Patriots divorced in 2024, Payton considered presenting Broncos owner Greg Penner a proposal for the ages. Hire Belichick as head coach until he reached 15 wins, enough to break Don Shula's career record of 347
Payton would temporarily step down to assistant head coach and run the offense, then move back after Belichick became the all time leader. In the end, it was too complicated and maybe too fanciful. Holy cow.

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (4:01)
What does fanciful mean?

**Zac Stevens** (4:03)
To showmanship, to-

**Henry Chisholm** (4:06)
Like an idea, like dream.

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (4:09)
Okay.

**Henry Chisholm** (4:09)
Yeah.

**Ryan Koenigsberg** (4:11)
I think it's funny that this is like the headline coming out of this because it's actually, in my opinion, one of the least interesting parts of the article. Yeah, but it is spicy. So people are latching on to it, but there's a lot of language in there that says like he considered making this proposal. It's kind of just like they're just talking amongst friends. Like I thought about this thing. It's like, yeah, like, you know, it's it reminds me of just like what dudes do and they sit around and they're like talking over beers. It's like, what if we did this? Or what if we did that? So to that to that point, it's it has the least roots of any part of the story, but it is the spiciest. I mean, it is crazy to think about if that would have happened and would have been wild. I think in the end, I don't think Bill Belichick would have accepted it because it's kind of like a fake way to get the record.